The Senior Narrative film has been coined as the biggest project you will do at Freestyle, if not the biggest project you will ever do. It has definitely lived up to this. The project spanned from October all the way through the end of the school year, with me and my partner (Megan Halsey) working on it up until a couple of days before the exhibition.
This film included the whole filmmaking process. There were no steps skipped from writing multiple versions of a screenplay and putting together a shot-list to maintaining a professional film set and weeks of editing.
Pre-production
The process began with re-learning narrative structure and techniques through watching films and breaking down story structure. From there, we pitched our narrative ideas. From our pitches, we divided into groups of two, each selecting one idea to build off of. After restructuring our idea multiple times, we wrote our narrative synopsis (read below).
After extensive feedback, very few parts of our synopsis were kept in our final screenplay. You can read notes and feedback on our pitch and preliminary screenplay table read below.
After we wrote and rewrote our screenplay multiple times using Studiobinder, we had a completely restructured final screenplay. From our original synopsis to our final screenplay, we dialed back on the details and refocused the story on a different main character. Read our final screenplay below:
After we had a final screenplay, we went through the process of lining our script.
From our lined script, we put together a shot-list of all the shots we needed to get.
Next was scheduling. We had to think about all the factors from actors to locations when we put together our stripboard or shooting schedule.
Production
Now that we had our shot-list and schedule, we were ready to film. Before we could get on set, we learned about all the different components that go into production. . It was definitely a team effort since it required multiple people to operate all of the equipment.
Post-production
Editing! My favorite part of the process, editing involved syncing audio, adding effects, transitions, and getting to see everything come together.
While it’s arguably the hardest part of the process, it was also the most rewarding.
You can view my final narrative film on Freestyle Academy’s Youtube channel in the senior narrative playlist.
Reflection
What I valued most about this project was how collaborative it was. It was a great experience to get involved in other groups’ productions as well as work with my own partner, Megan. Beyond this, my technical film skills have expanded so much since the Junior Narrative and it’s amazing to see evidence of how I’ve grown in both storytelling and production.