Junior Narrative

The Coffee Shop

The street light shines through the dark night as one of my friends snicker at a stupid joke another person in the group makes. The elaborate decorations crowd the streets and the bright lights of downtown are just ahead of us. I almost trip on the toilet paper that starts to fall off my body. It’s my favorite time of year, October, and I am dressed up as your classic mummy. My intense brown eyes, dark brown hair, strong bone structure, and tall height already give me a relatively creepy look. My six best friends and I continue walking down the sidewalk, dodging young trick-or-treaters on the way. Eric turns around to me and we make some brief conversation. After a long night out all I can really think about is the food awaiting us downtown. I flash Eric a quick smile and then dash down the street, heading towards the bright lights of the nearest Safeway. As I approach the entrance I slow down and speed-walk to the first aisle I see. I turn the corner and jolt backwards. I see a girl in front of me crash down to the floor, dropping the water bottle she’s holding. I glance at her quickly before I blurt out a quick “sorry.” I give her my hand to help her up as her large innocent dark brown eyes look up at me. Her appearance is breathtaking. I notice her long brown hair and smooth tan skin. Her smile is perfect along with her slim body and soft hands. She continues to smile at me while accepting my help and then quietly exiting the Safeway. I turn around and watch her go. She walks in a smooth, uniformed fashion that is slightly entrancing. After she leaves I stand their for a few more seconds before whipping back around to continue my hunt for food. She’s still on my mind. I cover the sheets over my head and turn so my face is on my pillow. I lie in bed replaying every aspect of our five second interaction over and over again. The way her eyes looked up at me. The feeling of her hand in mine. Her perfect smile. I think about how I will probably never see her again as I have never seen her before in this small town. I sit up with a pounding headache and grab the shoes nearest me. I glance over and see all my textbooks stacked on my desk. It’s Sunday morning and I still have hours of homework to complete. I have never been a fan of coffee, the mere thought of it disgusts me, but I grab my keys and head to the nearest Starbucks. I impatiently look up from my phone. There is still about six people in line in front of me. That’s when I see her – the same long flowing brown hair and large brown eyes. My body freezes as I see her start to walk from the cashier. She moves swiftly and I immediately want to go up to her and start talking. I’m about to step out of line but something stops me. What am I supposed to say? Will she even remember me? I begin to recall every second of our last encounter as I watch her wait for her drink. She stares down at her phone as if she is having a very important conversation, and I watch her as the coffee line gets shorter and shorter. Eventually her drink comes, she grabs it, and leaves out the glass door. I desperately feel the need to go after her and talk to her but don’t. I stand in line and wait for my coffee. The next morning I wake up thinking about her again. I now have a new memory to replay: the way her long hair flowed as she made the short walk between the cash register and the waiting area. I get up and head to Starbucks again. I find a table near the corner of the coffee shop to sit and wait. I stare down at my phone passing time, hoping she’ll come again. I start to doubt that she’ll ever show and I begin to realize how stupid of an idea this is. As I start to stand up from my table I see her enter. I watch her purchase and leave with her coffee again. Days pass but I am too scared to talk to her. I just sit and watch as she orders the same coffee every morning. I’ve memorized her routine by now. She walks in around 9am and orders a large iced drink. She always checks her phone right when she gets to the waiting area and always picks the purple straw after receiving her drink. She leaves the shop roughly around 9:30. November 6th, 9am. I see her glance my way for the first time since I’ve started stalking her coffee trips. I recognize her tan skin and those large brown eyes. I react immediately and pick up the closest maganize to me to help cover my face. She turns back around and I look above the magazine and straight at her. I sigh a sigh of relief and pretend to read the magazine when something catches my eye. The headline of one of the articles reads, “life’s too short to do it later, do it now.” This direct and slightly motivating statement gets me thinking. What the hell have I been doing with the past couple days of my life? This headline is directed at the ideas of procrastination but I feel as though God is trying to reason with me. God wants me to go talk to her so that’s exactly what I plan to do. I get up and start to walk towards her, harvesting more confidence than I was aware possible. The clock hits 9:30, she puts the purple straw in her drink and walks out the glass door. I stand there halfway between the seat I’ve been occupying in the corner and the cash register. One of the employees stares at me as I leave through a different door. There’s always tomorrow. My alarm rings right at 8:30. I jump out of bed and throw on my clothing. I think about her; then I think about the magazine article. I head to Starbucks so I can be there right at nine. I see her walk in and I quickly get in line behind her. She orders her iced drink and I, loudly, order the same thing. This causes her to look up at me from the waiting area and smile. I smile back. On the outside I try to maintain the confidence I was feeling yesterday but on the inside I feel my bones shaking with fear and uncertainty. She looked at me. It’s been over a week of watching her get coffee every morning and we finally made eye contact. I head over to the waiting area and try to strike up a conversation. I ask her if the drink I just ordered was any good and she gives me a short reply accompanied by a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I think so,” she says. “That’s good,” I answer trying to think of what else I could ask. “My boyfriend loves the lattes here so I come every morning to get him one,” she proceeds with, “I, myself, don’t particularly enjoy coffee.” I feel my body freeze. I now have that bit of information lasered into my mind forever. Her boyfriend. I give her a nervous smile, don’t say anything, and instead I simply walk straight out of those glasses doors. A week of waiting and watching just to learn she has a boyfriend. I laugh a little in my head as I leave the girl and my iced drink behind.

Griffith Scene

In order to prepare for the Narrative unit our film class reviewed how to create a Griffith Scene. The Griffith pattern is a particular movie clip pattern invented when film became popular that helps display film language which successfully tells the audience what is going on. One of the main challenges during this project was the time constraint of completing the planning, filming, and editing in one film period and the fact that we weren’t using sound. This made it difficult to make it interesting and difficult to come up with an idea quickly. Through this project I learned the basics behind the Griffith pattern and I created a good example to use when working on bigger projects in the future.

Suspense Scene

In film we created the suspense scene which is suppose to create tension for the audience. One of the challenges we faced when filming this was having to shoot over multiple days in order to get more shots to stretch the scene longer and create more tension. Through this learned I learned how to stretch out tension and create a more exciting scene to watch.

Chase Scene

The chase scene was one of the most important elements in our Narrative learning process. One of the challenges of this project was finding actors and shooting before the sun went down. Through this project I learned how to time manage, create useful shots, and learned about the 180 degree rule. All of these elements were very helpful leading up to our ending project of the Junior Narrative.

Narrative Synopsis

Our final project of the unit was one large Narrative film. The first step of this was planning. I did this by writing a synopsis that explained the outline of the film I created and the types of shots, actors, and elements I would need to include.

Film Synopsis

Storyboard

The next step in the process was creating a storyboard. The storyboard was an efficient way to display the different shots we planned on using throughout the film. It helped us outline what the final product should look like.

Narrative Trailer

This trailer uses clips from our final film to display the essential idea behind it and to convince an audience to watch it.