Student Review:

– Mark Acuña:

Throughout the course of this mini project assignment, I quickly learned about the intensity that the characters would have faced from the 17th century. Jocelyn Lemus, Marycarmen Nieto, Alexander Alfaro, Alejandro Serrano, and I all collaborated in recreating an interpretation of what the trial of Justine would have played out. This scene from the renowned novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley depicts the unfair justice of women during this era, and how Victor Frankenstein’s selfishness is the ultimate endeavor in Justine’s trial and inevitable death. When planning for this mini video, we had to take into account for the accuracy of the film with the novel and how exactly would we portray the trial of Justine and everything that lead up to her hearing. In this project, I took the responsibility of becoming the producer, editor, writer, and role of the judge. When analyzing and breaking down the text in Chapters 6 – 8, I had to really think of how to begin the film and what would be a good opening to introduce the scene. My approach for the film was to create a film where a narrator explains the third person thought process of many of the characters in the film, as well as give insight on what was going to be told. We focused the majority of the film on Victor, as he is the main character in this novel, however, when it came to the trial of Justine and confession about the monster, Victor was nowhere to be seen. Similar to the novel, Victor is seemed to be mute and absent for the majority of the chapter as people around him try and convince the judge that Justine is innocent, however – his pride and selfishness as a man prevents him from bringing justice for a woman. I edited and uploaded the film onto YouTube, where our medium; who wish to learn more about the unfair trial of women during this century are all welcomed to enjoy this interpretation of Mary Shelley’s beautiful art.

– Jocelyn Lemus:

The ideas of Mary Shelley’s novel of Frankenstein give us the ability to elaborate on them. In this creative writing project, I worked together with a group: Mark Acuña, Marycarmen Nieto, Alexander Alfaro, and Alejandro Serrano. We worked in filming a clip of a scene from the novel Frankenstein of Justine’s trial. My role of this experience was portraying Justine the victim accused of murder. Being in the shoes of Justine was difficult because all I wanted to do was fight for my life, but all I could say was “I do not fear to die…” However, in this case I couldn’t because that is not what happens in the novel. Having the ability to stick with what the book wants you to do is difficult. This scene has given us the ability to see how many can confess to actions they never committed just because they don’t believe on the existence of their voice. Not only were we focused on the idea of the scene but also our experiences through making the film. Using advanced technology to make this film was pretty surprising because we see the old perspective to the modern one. Imitating an original piece was difficult since we are put in the shoes of those from the past. What was very much satisfying when we were filming, was how nature was being responsive. To elaborate, when we needed it to rain it would and when we needed the sun there it was. I find this amazing! With the video, we are trying to prove two things, how the trial of Justine was unjustifiable, since the world gives us similar trials. Another thing is the way technology works now that we are given the resources. Overall, the message is that technology upgrades with the human species and that there needs to be a change where people believe in the power of their own voices.

– Marycarmen Nieto:

The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley touched upon many topics, a topic that was focused in the novel was unjust trials and killings. In our video, I portrayed the character Elizabeth, who is the cousin-lover of Victor, who is played by Alex. Elizabeth is a compassionate, emotional, and reasonable character; she will defend for what is right and wrong, but could not do much for Justine, who was played by Jocelyn, due to that fact that Elizabeth is a woman and nobody would take her seriously. Elizabeth plays a big role in finding out that Justine is innocent and wrongfully accused for something she had no control over. Elizabeth also tried to convince Justine to tell the truth, but Justine was aware that would not work because everyone already had their mind set on that she had committed the murder. Our group focused on the trial of Justine, I felt like this was an important part of the book because we get to see how the creature, played by Alejandro, and Victor indirectly affect each other. The creature is controlling Victor by killing off the people that he cares and loves for. This is affecting Victor mentally because he knows the creature is out to get him and is paranoid. Justine’s death is the start of a series of unfortunate events for Victor.

In the novel, the trial of Justine was emotional and we got to see how she actually got framed for killing William. This video demonstrated Victor’s side and how he could have saved Justine from her death since he knew that the creature was the true murderer but stayed silenced. The video dramatized the reading in the novel and makes it interesting to watch the words from the book come to life.

– Alexander Alfaro:

This mini movie was a fine adaptation of Justine’s Trial from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It had all the characters in the novel that had the most importance however it was filmed with a very at face value of what the novel portrayed. The novel really speaks about the unfair court system that was in the world at the time and the film took this into account. What I did like was how well filmed and edited it was as a whole. The fact that the actors used exact quotes from the book was also great. The narration was one of the key aspects that really brought the project together. The scene of Victor running was also a fun part as he was running in the pouring rain. The production seemed very low budget as the props were less than ideal. An empty roll of paper as a gavel and a fake envelope are very poor choices of props. Still with these setbacks it was a good film.

I am Alexander Alfaro and the part I played in the creation of the film was acting as Victor Frankenstein. I also was part time videographer for a few scenes. The film was a fun experience. It took 5 hours to film all of it and it took Mark who knows how much time to piece everything together. It really was a fun time and I think it portrayed the novel as best as we could, given the time constraint and conflicting schedules to meet up with everyone.

– Alejandro Serrano:

This was a very interesting project to work on. Making a short film with my classmates
offered many unique opportunities for us, such as acting, writing, directing, and other important features that go into filmmaking. The use of film as a medium to portray the events revolving around and before her death really brought some new perspective on the scene, such as how we try to show the true despair and inhumanity that had occurred in the novel. Although we had been limited in the resources for filming, we were able to get our message across with relative ease. The visual medium of film is good to show the bleak realization that life can be and is ultimately unjust in the long run. Mark really took the lead on this project, and his hard work and effort showed for it. His
direction, script-writing, editing, and camera work were all absolutely on point. To be honest I don’t think this project would have gone as well as it had if he did not take charge of the effort and got the group to work together. Jocelyn and Marycarmen were great leading ladies that had gotten everything down to a tee with the characters; the lines were performed well, they didn’t miss any beats, they were just great. And finally Alex was a great lead as Victor, since he had the most action in the film; from running in the rain to meandering dangerously close to Little Lake, he got everything down easy.

ENG010 – Video Project Script

Frankenstein Trial of Justine Transcription