At that moment, nothing could override the joy of hearing this unexpected news. We were granted the opportunity to work with someone on the other side of the globe, literally, There was this unexplainable excitement bubbling up my veins when our teacher informed us on our new project: to create a movie trailer with BMSA (Bio-Med Science Academy) students.

Part I: Get to Know Each Other

My lovely partner is Sahra King, and coincidentally, both of us are part of the Shawn Mendes fan club! She’s nice and understanding, and we both adjust to each other’s schedule when needed. Communication was never a problem between us, we naturally fell into conversation through google hangout and snapchat. Distance meant nothing when the mind and heart of you and your collab partner are synchronized, or when both of you have the same fan club membership.

Part II: Book Selection

We were to create a movie trailer base on one of the novels we’ve read throughout this year. With the limited resources students our age have, realistic stories would most likely be the best choice in terms of book genre. It would be really challenging if the book has something straight out of the medieval times, like say, two knights dueling in a horse battle. You either have to have the actual horse and armor, or you have to CGI basically everything. At that time, the movie Wonder just came out. It’s also a based-on-novel film, portraying the school life of a fifth grader with cleft palate. The story takes place mostly at school, there’s no supernatural beings or magical creatures. Something clicked – The name Stargirl popped up in my brain.

Stargirl, written by Jerry Spinelli deals with the concept of identity. This topic is even more important to us teenagers, as we are currently at a stage of learning to become mature. How do you relate to people? Do you look at others to find out how to act, or try to get others to act like you? How do you respond to people when they are happy, lonely or sad? These are the questions people constantly have in mind and are struggling to deal with. The main character in this book, Stargirl (the book title, duh), arrives in a high school where students shun individuals that are different from the majorities. But Stargirl refuses to abide by the traditional labels, she just wanted to be herself despite the constant criticism she receives from her peers. Although the students rejected her, she continues to love the people and those around her, even the bullies. When Stargirl interacts with people, she doesn’t ponder on the question of how to act and respond to people, but naturally, show them what she believes in. This story ultimately encourages us to find out who we are at the core, to be whom we want to be. Sometimes you don’t have to solely focus on others to make a decision but listen to your own heart.

“Shine with all you have. When someone tries to blow you out, just take their oxygen and burn brighter.”

This book is a perfect choice for our movie trailer. Its message is clear and powerful, and the protagonist is also a high schooler. When I sent Sahra my thought process, I was happy to find out that she also likes this book. She also knew someone at her school that looks like the Stargirl described in the book. Perfect!✨🌟

Part III: Script

Before the movie creation though, comes the script and storyboard. I went through countless websites on how to write a proper script. There are a lot of aspects that must be kept in mind when writing a script. One of them being the script format must be structured so the anyone can understand easily. On the second page of my script, shows different brackets and symbols representing camera/scene transitions, character action/appearance, dialogue, facial expressions, and more. Inspired by my friend Sunny’s work, I used American typewriter font throughout my script. My final work is shown below:

One of the most challenging part when writing the script was to forcibly condense the whole book into few scenes. There were just so much in this book that was worth sharing, If I didn’t come to my senses, I could have ended up with twenty or so pages. 😱😓Though I still inevitably wrote ten scenes, and it was heart-wrenching to pull out parts of my script. Nonetheless, I feel like my script ended too hastily and abruptly. I could have better structured my whole story dynamic.

Part IV: Storyboard

Storyboard is next. This is my favorite part throughout the project.💜❤️ Even though I don’t consider myself an artistic person, I love expressing ideas through images, especially stickman style. The purpose of the storyboard is not just to show the settings of the movie, but also various camera angles, including low angle shot, high angle shot, close-up shot, over the shoulder, establishing shot, and more. These directions are written next to each picture. Each box in my storyboard represents a shot from a scene. (the number of shots and scenes are marked on the left-hand side)

 

Part V: Movie Trailer!!!! 🙌🙌

After much wait and patient, the movie trailer is finally here! I’m really proud of the results. Though Sahra cut off some of my script scenes, she made the ending better, so the whole story look more like a trailer instead of a book summary. Good job! I love how she tried out various new camera shots throughout the movie, it keeps the audience interest. The background music fits perfectly with the character’s action. It is upbeat yet with a hint of mysterious vibe.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this project, and treasure every moment. Sahra and I worked perfectly together.🤗