Synopsis
In film class, we worked on our narrative film over the course of several months. We worked on many different skill sets, including pre-production tasks, production, and post-production (with an emphasis on editing). We started off pitching all of our stories to each other and decided on a partner based off of that. My partner was Mallory, and we collaborated well throughout the project. This project took a lot of long hours to get filming completed.
Our pitch was, “Two girls get paired up at a baking competition when least expected; will they be able to work together to win the Bakeoff?”
Out film stayed fairly consistent with our synopsis. We wanted both Sophia and Hazel to have distinct personalities and baking styles, which we did our best to convey in the film.
My film partner and I were very much on the same page the entire process about what we wanted our characters and scenes to look like. We wanted sort of a fun, upbeat vibe to our film and wanted a positive and happy ending to the short narrative.
Screenplay
My screenplay was really fun to write, but it definitely took a lot of time to get it how we wanted it.
I am content with the final product, and we had to continuously take the advice from our teacher and keep revising to get the 3-act structure correct.
My film partner and I worked diligently to create a fun story that an audience would like to watch! We wanted something that all ages would enjoy.
(Dialogue Scene not yet uploaded to Youtube by Mr. Taylor)
Shot List
For our shot list, we wanted to have many different angles to add variety to our film.
We wanted to do our best to follow Griffith’s pattern and make sure that the durations of our scenes were correct and had set shot types.
It took us a long time to plan out, but it made it easier to create our narrative film.
On our film set, we would look at our list to ensure that we filmed everything we had scheduled to complete that day.
Schedule
To the left is our shooting schedule, which shows all of the days we planned on filming.
We overall stuck to the schedule pretty well, but we ran into a few conflicts and had to make some slight changes to our predicted schedule.
It overall helped us to stay on task and get our shoots finished, leaving us plenty of time to edit!
Breakdown of Script
We created our narrative breakdown to organize our locations and page breakdowns, filming several pages per shoot.
The breakdown helped us to plan out how many minutes each section (scenes and acts) would take us, so we could plan accordingly.
This helped us to stay efficient throughout the process.
It also was crucial when planning out scheduling with actors; this helped us to do our best to ensure our actors weren’t staying overtime whenever possible and that we were respecting their time.
On our physical printout, we highlighted/underlined all of the props and materials we would need for the shoot.
Stripboard
We mostly used StudioBinder to plan out locations, and then on our physical script we added in the objects that correlate with the characters and locations.
Acting Practice Shots
It was important that our actors had strong performances and got along well together. We had several actors for our film but utilized two main ones (my sister and my best friend). They got along great together, and we did our best to direct them in a professional manner. Here are some images from our shoot below!
We overall had a lot of fun creating our film about this baking challenge! Some images below show some more images of our film.
Reflections
Overall, the narrative unit in film was a lot of work. It took us many lengthy hours of both filming and editing to get the project done. I feel that I learned a lot more about filming, including how to work with actors, edit efficiently, learn how to use the boom mics, and practice with dialogue more, and overall just create something I am happy with! I am grateful for my actors and everyone who was able to help my partner and me make our film come to fruition.