Every filmmaker knows how much work it takes to turn a script into a film, at least to turn it into a good film. The process of creating our narrative films began over the summer. Every one of us had to write a 3-5 minute script that had the potential of being turned into a short film; those scripts were due upon arrival in Bonn. In Eifel, our first weekend, we each read the other 15 scripts, we voted for our favorites and we narrowed it down to 8. The 8 screenplays chosen then had a corresponding pitch by the writer, and after those pitches, we narrowed them down to 4, the final 4. One about a breakup, one to ask the question of where we go when we die, one to show that a love story can be told with a live action Pixar short and the last to show that friends can fight but always come back in the end. We got our crews together, four people for each film, and we started going into pre-production.
We rewrote our scripts, got props together, wrote up shot lists and storyboards, casted our actors, sent a ton of emails and had a lot of late nights, especially the days right before the shoot. Every director was freaking out the day before and the morning of the shoot, we were running around the classroom, calling our actors, getting equipment together and we finally left to start our shoots. My film was one being made and I was really nervous to see how our actors were going to do, and how the shots were going to end up looking, but in the end every crew came out with amazing shots, great acting, and every person I talked to had a lot of fun. We’re in post-production now, each of us editing another group’s film, and I’m excited to see how all of them turn out!
Written by Destiny Peńida
