The senior narrative project is something I have been scared of since I entered Freestyle. It is a real short film complete with dialogue, cast, crew, lighting, locations, and so much more. We began this project in October, and have worked on it until May. It is safe to say this is the biggest project I have ever worked on, but it was also SO rewarding and I am proud of the work that everyone put in to make this film a success.
Pre-Production
We started the narrative unit by reviewing story structure, character arcs, and other things we learned during our junior narrative project. Then, it was time to pitch our own short film to the class and decide what story we would be working on for the rest of the year.
I decided to work with my friend and classmate Carly for our senior narrative. After much discussion and reworking of our plot, we came up with our synopsis for our film.
After we wrote our synopsis, we still edited our plot based on suggestions from Mr. Taylor and our classmates, while also learning everything we needed to know about screenwriting. Finally, after many, many drafts, we took our story from an idea to the page in our 11 page script.
Once we had our script, we went through it and lined the entire thing which helped us categorize each shot in our shot list. We ended pre-production with a total of 141 shots planned.
Production
One of the biggest challenges we faced was scheduling our shoots. Just when we thought we had everything scheduled perfectly, so that most of our shooting was done over February break, our lead actress informed us she was getting last minute knee surgery in two weeks. We frantically rescheduled every shoot and tried to film at every available moment. This meant many early mornings, late nights, and Freestyle field trip forms. Somehow, we were able to wrap before her knee surgery and our film was saved.
Being in production was so busy and chaotic, but it was also amazing to bond with our cast and crew, most of whom were our classmates! Here are some of my favorite shots from production.
Post Production
This was by far the biggest project I have edited. Organizing all our footage and audio files was definitely overwhelming, but I learned a lot about how to make the editing process as smooth as possible. This film was also a really good opportunity to practice using editing techniques like L cuts and J cuts.
Once we took our rough cut to Mr. T, he gave us many notes, including some things we needed to reshoot. This meant we had to schedule with our cast and crew again which was frustrating, but definitely worth it for our final product.
To take our film from rough cut to final cut was my favorite part of the process. Seeing our film come to life the way we envisioned it was amazing. But this took many late nights in the film room with Mr. Taylor leading up to exhibition.
Finally, after editing up until literally 2pm the day of exhibition, our film was ready. I am so proud of our final product, but more importantly all the work that Carly and I put into it.
You can watch our final film, Guys Before Fries, below.