1 minute movie

We had a couple days to do this project, despite being such a small film. In groups, we drew an entire storyboard. It was exciting to collaborate with all my classmates. The next class, our teacher made us switch storyboards with the other group, so we ended up having to interpret their story. The following video is the one my group wrote, and the other group filmed.

1 period movie

This assignment started with a challenge; produce a short film in a singular class period. I grouped with Olivia and Manda to create a love triangle story. We did this right at the beginning of the year so it was really fun to jump start the year.

Lighting Scavenger Hunt

This project was our first practice with lighting. We worked as a group to give examples of each lighting type and the way they can be shown on film.

Film Narrative Project

From October 2022 to March 2023, Freestyle film students devote blood, sweat, and tears to one thing: the narrative project. This is a short narrative film completely directed, shot and edited by us. Technically the film should be 10-15 minutes and include full audio and dialogue. However, as a first year student, I only had to film a silent 5 minute short.

Back in October, we began with a pitch presentation on any idea we have, nothing is too big or ambitious. From there we pick partners and expand on our ideas. I partnered with Henry Lowell and we worked on his idea for a mystery/detective film. Next we presented our storyboards to Mr. Taylor and the class. This was my first time making a storyboard and it was really fun to see the movie go from my head to paper.

Next we started filming! We had four days of shooting planned and were fully prepared. This was my first experience on a set and I had so much fun coming up with fun ways to get the shot I wanted. My favorite memory was climbing up on a desk to set up a florescent light.

On our second to last day shooting, almost all our actors canceled. The next day the actor for our villain completely dropped out of the film.

We could’ve simply found another actor and reshoot everything, but this wasn’t the first stump we had during filming. So we were back at square one. But it was already mid-February so our teacher was generous enough to let us skip the storyboard and formal planning to just jump right in it.

So we had a new plan! We played on the aspects we liked from the mystery film to create a murder mystery! With limited time, we jumped right into filming. But it wasn’t as easy as that. We began filming right at the beginning of storm season and with an outdoor set, it was something we constantly had to plan around. Once we finished all our initial shoots and presented Mr. T with a rough cut. His main piece of advice: reshoot the ending. Our initial ending was almost half an ending, and there were holes throughout the story. So with one more shooting day, we got our ending and finished.

Making this film was a long and windy journey. It taught me not only the basics of being on a film set, but also how to work with others and plan for the worst. I will admit, there are things I wish came out better, but I’m overall really proud of the result.