A lot went wrong throughout this project. I had very high expectations going into it, which, in hindsight, probably made everything feel worse than it actually was. This project also felt like it was two completely separate ones. It began with gathering knowledge about Frankenstein and general horror concepts, broken up by a project on dystopia, and ended with the creation of a film. To be fair, we’ve been working on this since September, so it’s been a long process. What I’m trying to say is that I’m happy it’s finally over, and there’s a lot to unpack—so strap in.

As I mentioned, this project was basically split into two parts, and that’s how I’ll structure this blog post. Let’s start with Frankenstein.

From the outset, this project felt like a great fit for my interests. We kicked things off by watching and analyzing horror movies and reading one of the most famous horror stories of all time: Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus. As a kid, I hated the horror genre. Growing up watching funny sitcoms, anything remotely scary gave me nightmares for weeks. But during high school, I started to appreciate the genre more after watching Saw and Krampus with friends. In this project, we watched Get Out, Halloween, and 28 Days Later—films praised for breaking new ground in the horror genre. I found this part of the project incredibly informative and crucial for the filmmaking that would come later. Elements from these films directly influenced how we storyboarded shots and planned the music for our own movie.

I also really enjoyed reading Frankenstein. It was the most engaging and thought-provoking book I’ve read for a high school class. My interest in the novel helped me excel in our weekly Socratic seminars, where I contributed valuable insights and connections. These discussions felt sophisticated and meaningful. After such a strong start, I was excited for what was to come. Unfortunately, that excitement didn’t last. EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG DID GO WRONG.

Now we’re into the film development stage, where every class was spent brainstorming ideas, writing scripts, and storyboarding as a group. This continued until we paused for the dystopia project and then resumed during our trip to Loon Lake for filming. Having such a long break between group meetings and the actual filming wasn’t ideal. Some of the biggest issues we faced stemmed from this misstep. Miscommunication among group members was the biggest problem. Of course, that wasn’t the only issue; it was just one piece of the pie that led to the downfall of this movie. Most of the blame lies in how the filming was handled.

Hannah and I spent countless hours working on the storyboards. As the lead cinematographer, I visualized how most scenes would be framed and laid out. This gave me a clear vision of how the movie would look. The trouble began after filming our first scene—Max’s death scene. Our director decided that giving me full creative control was taking too much time. To be fair, the first scene was tricky, and I was still getting used to the equipment. However, after that, only about 20% of the shots we storyboarded were “greenlit” by the director. As a result, many scenes turned into watered-down versions of what they were supposed to be. Ironically, scenes ended up taking twice as long to film because of group confusion over power dynamics.

In short, the lack of trust and creative freedom meant the final film didn’t meet my standards. I wasn’t proud of my work, and I think we could’ve done much better without these constraints. The only scenes I thought turned out well were the first one we filmed and the ones shot without the director present.

Over winter break, when the editing was supposed to happen, the editors didn’t do any work. One editor was unavailable for over a week after we returned because of travel. This left Dylan and me to volunteer to edit the movie ourselves, despite everything we’d already done for the film. Even so, our movie is still unfinished, with parts of the music missing.

As I said before, everything that could go wrong did. Here’s a quick list of other issues I haven’t already mentioned:

  • Our costume and prop designer quit PLP a quarter of the way through production, leaving us with a limited wardrobe and props.
  • The mics sometimes hit the boom pole, creating a clicking noise.
  • Several filming locations were too noisy, causing delays.
  • The gimbal malfunctioned, randomly turning left during some shots.
  • The camcorder had a 10-minute battery life, forcing frequent pauses to recharge.
  • Group members’ cars stalled four times due to the cold or other reasons.
  • Camcorder footage wouldn’t transfer to any computer, so we had to record the viewfinder to salvage the scenes.

Despite all this, I’m just happy this project is over. I feel bad for Mr. Harris, who clearly put a lot of effort into organizing this project and stayed patient throughout. In the end, everyone is just relieved this miserable experience is behind us. On the bright side, our class managed to produce two full movies instead of cutting them down to trailers like past cohorts. So hey, we’ve got that going for us.