In our film unit, we
studied a number of different films that were influential to society, paying particular attention to the difference between films made purely for entertainment and films made for artistry and messaging. Steven Spielberg, one of the most prolific directors of all time, famously stated that the purpose of his film Schindler's List was to bear witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust. This film arguably heralded a new era in cinematography that made space for directors and screenwriters to address important moments in human history through the art of film. Watching films like this gave us the opportunity to discuss the role of film in society and the ways in which it can influence culture.
In addition to studying completed films, we also learned all about what goes into the production of a movie, and we concluded the unit by making our own films. We learned about all the different camera shots and angles, foley artistry, cel animation, loglines, screenwriting, storyboarding, and editing for our film. We then created our own loglines, scripts, and storyboards before beginning to film our movies, and we made sure to incorporate a variety of shots and angles while filming. Each movie is about fifteen minutes long and includes an entire plot arc. We hope you enjoy!
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by Ceci Nakfoor
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What is a screenplay?
by Samara Jivani
During our film unit, we learned about the process of writing a screenplay. A screenplay is a script for a film or television show. It includes dialogue as well as stage direction and character actions and movement. To understand this, we read Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, which is a screenplay written by JK Rowling. For our movies, each group wrote a screenplay. Before we could start our screenplay, we developed our characters thoroughly in order to understand who they were as people. We then set up an outline before moving over to google docs to develop our first draft. We then had a table reading of each script where each actor read their own lines in order to get a feel for the screenplay and see what edits were needed. While writing our screenplays, we were all able to insert our own voices into the writing and make it our own. To see a sample of a screenplay, click the button below!
What is cel animation?
by Emma Yurko
Cel animation is the process of inking and painting by hand on celluloid, transparent sheets of paper and then photographing each successive image on a light board to create a two-dimensional animation. Most famously, early Disney movies, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, used cel animation techniques in ways that had never previously been done before. When animating via cel animation, it takes 24 individual cels to fill out just ONE SECOND of film, so the total Cinderella movie required nearly 200,000 hand-painted cels!
In Creative Studies, we learned about cel animation and then had the opportunity to trace, draw, and paint our own Disney characters using the cel animation technique with a light board. Click the button below to see our cels!
What is a storyboard?
by Emma Yurko
At the beginning of the film unit, we learned about the process of storyboarding. A storyboard is a crucial part of pre-production that helps the directors, producers, and actors visualize more complex scenes in the film. Split up by frames, the sequential images include film angles, environment, dialogue, and any other specific notes to help envision how the scene will flow. We learned about storyboards by looking at professional examples from well-known films like West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Jurassic Park, Get Out, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Individually, everyone was assigned to create their very own storyboard for one scene from their films, and we all had so much fun making them. Click the button below to view everyone’s storyboards!
How to Get Good Grades Without Even Trying
A film by Samara Jivani, Elizabeth Lannin, Cecilia Nakfoor, Sydney Schiller, and Emma Yurko
The idea for our film originated with a screenwriting exercise we did in class in which we had to create ironic loglines, which are brief descriptions that state the central conflict of a story, and we created one for a cheating school. We later modified the idea to make it a cheating business among four unlike high school girls. McKenna is popular and seems to have the perfect life, Lou is athletic and hopes to commit to a D1 school, Jo is an artist who wants to have the best supplies for her masterpieces, and Maia is a hacking genius but struggles to have any real friends. We had a lot of fun creating the distinct characters and their backstories to ultimately add some complexity to their relationships with one another.
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The girls grow more ambitious in the business and become quite successful while also becoming closer with one another. After the downfall of the girls when they get caught, however, we had some trouble deciding how we would conclude the film. We wanted a satisfactory ending, but we did not want it to be completely unrealistic. We decided that McKenna should take all the blame for the business and protect her friends because we ultimately wanted the friendships made during the process to be the main focus of the story. We knew, however, that McKenna getting totally off the hook and still being able to go to college after orchestrating an entire cheating service would be very unrealistic, so we decided to have her write the letter that allows her to walk at graduation with her friends. In the letter, McKenna mentions that she hopes her story will help others, foreshadowing how she later becomes a successful writer in the future in which she writes a memoir on the whole experience.
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In preparation to start filming, we also created storyboards to help visualize some of the more complex scenes. By storyboarding, we were able to map out unique shots, locations, and envision how the story would flow. Filming the project was a very valuable learning experience as this was all our first short film we have ever made. We tried to incorporate a variety of shots and angles in specific moments to highlight different aspects of the scene and its mood. For example, we tried to use multiple high and low angles to depict the dominance/power or lack thereof for a character in the moment, such as the Honor Council scene when Mr. Newton was shot at a low angle while the girls had a high angle. We also filmed a conversation between McKenna and Maia using over-the-shoulder shots, meaning we actually had to film the conversation twice: one from behind Maia’s shoulder and one from behind McKenna’s. We then edited both clips into one conversation, and we really loved the way it turned out. We had the best time making and acting in this film, and we hope everyone enjoys it!
Twinning & Losing
A film by Jamie Trope
I chose to write the Twinning & Losing because it has a cast of only one person, which is ideal for a film created during a pandemic. Since I was also going through the college admissions process at the time, it felt fitting to base the plot of my short film around getting into college – though the plot of the film is definitely darker than my personal experience with college.
I found writing the screenplay fun; the formatting aspect of a screenplay is satisfying to write. Filming and producing the short film required a schedule, and I had to keep track of which outfits to wear per character per scene. To do this, I blocked out each scene on my script and assigned it to outfit numbers (for example, Reyna’s first outfit was “R1” and so forth) and then planned which days I would film each scene.
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Acting in Twinning & Losing was an interesting experience as I played both of the main characters: Amy and Reyna, and the two of them appeared side-by-side in many of the scenes. In order to accomplish the effect that I wanted, I acted as each one separately, and then merged the two video clips together to make it seem as though the two characters were in the same frame at the same time. I found this part of the short film process the most difficult as even the smallest adjustment to the location of the camera would make it infinitely more difficult to splice and merge the two clips together.
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In one scene, I actually had to re-film the parts because my dog ran into my room, knocking the camera over and onto the floor. For editing, I combined all of the clips on my phone and edited each scene by itself. I then grouped all of the scenes together, added in soundtrack music and aesthetic filters, and the title and end screens. My favorite part of the short film process was the editing – I really enjoyed mixing the clips together and splicing together different angles to make it appear as though it was one continuous shot instead of me moving the camera around to different locations. ​
Southern Hell
A film by Flower Cintron, Maxine Danni, Sara Goodwich, and Nina Pitonakova
Read below to see our favorite parts of making Southern Hell!
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Flower: My favorite part of the film until was being able to learn about all of the different camera angles and the complexity that goes into every film. It was so interesting to be able to watch films such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and be able to pull apart parts of the movie from what i've learned in class. My favorite part of the movie we filmed was being able to come up with our own idea of an interesting movie and then being able to act out our very own scenes, and seeing what we wrote come to life.
Maxine: My favorite part of the film was the editing. I enjoyed watching all of our clips come to life. It took a lot of time and effort but it was all worth it in the end. It was my first time creating a film so it was really cool to experiment and try different things. My favorite part of the movie we filmed was when we all went over to Sara’s house and were able to get over 50% of our movie done. It was interesting to see all of us working together at a professional level to get this film done.
Nina: My favorite part of the film was filming and editing. Filming was definitely a little complicated when it came to finding the right places to shoot at school where we could have somewhat good audio. We for sure had a lot of fun filming all the scenes and getting into our characters. Editing was also a really cool part I liked about the movie. I’ll have to admit it was a bit of a love/hate relationship because there was a good amount of difficulty trying to figure out how to make everything come together, but when it was finally done it was beautiful to see the finished product.
Sara: My favorite part of the film was coming up with the story that we would create. I think that it was so interesting to hear everyone's ideas and watch them come together to create a plot for our film. This shows the importance of working as a team. By working together, we were able to create something that would have been unachievable alone. I think that it was also really fun filming the movie. I had never had to film a movie before, and I think that it was interesting to learn the different camera angles and watch how a simple camera angle can make the scene so much more effective.
#unfriended
A film by Samantha Blicker and Abigail Sinberg
#Unfriended tells the story of two girls building their friendship through the midst of difficult teenage life. Our story, while not based on a true story, can be relatable to many girls. We started the movie process by coming up with a plot idea, jotting down our thoughts, and writing a rough draft of the script. After our vision was clear, we were able to revise our script with the help of our peers’ comments. This valuable feedback gave us a better idea as to what other people would find interesting and entertaining to watch. We spent two days getting the lines perfected, and then moved on to filming. Meticulously, we planned out at what time, where, and how we would film our movie, and after a week and a half of meeting almost everyday, we had what we needed to make it come to life. The filming itself was very difficult. Having never professionally taken videos of anything, we had some learning to do. We educated ourselves by watching youtube tutorials and reviewing Ms. O’Brien’s lesson on angles and shooting. We decided to edit while filming to learn as we went, and this worked great for us! We went scene by scene editing as we took the videos. This method kept us organized and on track. Now being done with the project, we are very proud of our work.
We hope you enjoy!​
Taco Takedown
A film by Shelby Coleman, Ariana Kodad, Danielle Jaffe, and Keely Sullivan
Taco Takedown tells the story of a professional lacrosse player who injured her foot and uses the idea of starting a restaurant and selling her new creation of spaghetti tacos to help pay for her rent. We had to get creative with our movie because we had to find a way to incorporate Ariana’s broken foot. We decided to use the same story of how she injured it, during a sports game, in our movie, but we also added comical elements such as having a spaghetti taco competition. The four of us love to laugh, so we wanted to make a movie that was a lot less serious and a lot funnier. We loved working together to write a script for our movie, for we had so many different ideas that we wanted to include. However, the actual filming process of recording our movie was our favorite part of this assignment. We filmed our movie in four different locations, added multiple different angles and camera shots, and created our own spaghetti tacos. When creating our spaghetti tacos, we thought that they would turn out mediocrely tasty, yet they did not taste as well as we thought. Although none of us are actors and we had an endless number of bloopers, we really enjoyed acting with each other and including guest stars (our friends) in our movie as well.​