ELA 11th Grade

Change Is Gonna Come Film Project LIFE

This semester in LIFE, we had to create an original short film focusing on the themes of Change. This project’s title is “Change is Gonna Come.” We were given a choice to focus on Change in Social Justice, Personal Change, Environmental Change, and Change due to COVID-19. I chose to do Change due to COVID-19. I chose this issue to address because there is a worldwide spread of the Coronavirus and it has impacted our community very much. I want my audience to not only reflect from their own experience from this film, but to inform them about the ways the coronavirus has changed our lives.

For creating my script, I had to start by thinking about some abstract concepts I wanted to focus on in my script. I had selected anxiety, life, communication, and protection and drafted a thematic claim for my film. My film will show that guarding yourself against damage caused by outside forces will give you protection, anxiety can’t let your fears or stress get in the way of achieving your dreams/goals, and life gives you a chance to fulfill your purpose and to accomplish your goals. I chose to write in prose for my script. We had to make a cross curricular connection to something we were previously learning in class. I made a connection to Biology and the science behind the coronavirus. Here is a direct quote from my script that displays the cross curricular connection. “The coronavirus stores their genetic information of strands of RNA. RNA stores for making all the parts the virus needs to copy itself. The virus can't reproduce by themselves, they need a host. They contain instructions for how to copy themselves, but they lack the tools and supplies to do it.”

To create my film, I created a storyboard to dictate how my film is going to play. I had to come up with 8 original shots in my film. I hand drew my storyboard on paper. A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture or animation. To be honest, I can’t really draw that well, but I did my best. After I was done filming all of my recordings, I recorded all of the voiceovers. I used iMovie to edit and make my film. I did not record my original score for my film. Instead, I used audio music from iMovie. I used a few found footage from videos off of the Internet and YouTube. I could only use 9 seconds of found footage. I asked my parents if I could include and record them for my film. I recorded a few scenes of myself talking like in a documentary.

Altogether, I am happy with how my film came out at the end. There are some shots that I am not proud of and wish I could have done better on. But, the other shots came out pretty good. I enjoy the process of making my own film. This is something that was new to me and I have never done before. I had somewhat learned how to edit in iMovie so I can do it again in the future. There were a lot of steps that were included in the process of making the film and the script. I am happy that I experience this process and can’t wait to improve.