Visual Narrative
Our first big film project junior year was the Narrative Film. With the basic story arch and outline techniques taught to us first, Mr. Taylor then had each of us pitch a story in front of the class to which he and my fellow peers gave feedback to help improve the story to fulfill the requirements and to also make sure that the story was cohesive. After getting “greenlit” for our stories we began the journey of pre-production which helped further polish our storylines and character developments. The production phase was the most fun and hands-on because my partner and I both got to take creative direction and control with the camera in-hand. The most difficult aspect of making this film cohesive and understandable was not having dialogue in the film, so the story had to be told visually. Overall, this was a very rewarding experience and learning opportunity. This was the first partner project of junior year so it taught me a lot about communication when in a “team” setting. I also learned a lot about the filmmaking process when the story had to be a narrative, meaning that the main character needed to have a want and a need and a catalyst for the film to be acknowledgeable. This was very useful when it came the Senior Narrative, which included a lot more responsibility, especially because the requirements included dialogue.
This is a more in detail showcase of the Narrative process. First I wrote the synopsis:
This is where the vision of our film started to come to life. We wrote these after committing to our actors, their personalities that we were having them portray, and really, how the story was going to unfold.
We shot most of the forest-oriented shots in a location that I was familiar with. I had found it earlier that year during summer and loved its hiking trails and scenery. I learned that it would be the perfect location for filming after the first location didn’t work out as planned.
This is an example of what our dailies looked like:
The overall process from this film project was very valuable and I loved being able to create something as elaborate as we did, because I had never done it before. I think if we had more time, we could’ve revised the story even more for a clearer message and concept and we also could’ve perfected some of our shots. I’m very proud of this project because I feel that is showcases my artistic capabilities.
Process Shot:
This is our trailer:
This is our film: