Romeo and Juliet - My 1st Movie

The final scenes of William Shakespeare's play. Made in 2004 for my 9th Grade English class.

It's not great, and it's pretty crappy, but it's my first movie. I shot every single shot in the order that you see it in. All of it was planned in my head - not the set or my classmates who were the stars, but the way in which the shots weave into each other. There was no plan for a second take. I made the swords myself because I didn't have plastic swords and I wasn't going to have my actors fling around paper cut-outs the flapped like birds wings.

This was my directorial debut, the first time I shot with a video camera, and the first time I organized an entire group of people. It was hard work. It was fun. And it was worth it.

This movie has been cut down NOW, because now I have the means of tightening it up. Everything is still in the order it was originally shot - but, because I couldn't edit when I originally made this movie, and it was shot in order, there were bloopers and moments of distraction that couldn't be removed. It's now revived, cut down as much as possible without losing the original feeling of the movie.

This is not for praise or showing off of early skills. It's really bad. But now I understand why it was bad, and now I know what needs to be done to make movies. This is just a reminder of where I started.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• romeo
• and
• juliet
• john
• o'connell
• high
• school
• san
• francisco
• 9th
• grade
• ms
• reid
• english
• jonathan
• watson