Basic movie making

Back again!

Today we’ll talk about how to make a basic movie production.

A movie production is divided into 3 parts: The pre-production, the production and the post-production.

First there will be some pre work to the actual production, and that would be to have the student put in groups. Depending on what they need to make a movie about for the best result a group should be at least 3 people. So one can be behind camera and two in front.

Now we’ll start in the pre-production

The first step is the same as a podcast they brainstorm a topic or genre and content of their movie.

Step 2: They start thinking about setting and ideas for where and when the movie takes place.

Step 3: They come up with a manuscript. In the manuscript they should of course have the lines of the different people in the movie. But they should also have some of the setting in there, the person’s movement and the person’s emotions.

Here is an example on a piece of a script.

Title of movie

(Description on what is going on, maybe a presentation of characters)

It could be: Carl is walking into the kitchen. He looks around. It’s a mess. You can see on his face he is frustrated. He runs his hands through his hair.

Carl: sights

Maria walks into the kitchen. His face shows guilt. She knows Carl isn’t happy.

Maria: “I’m sorry”

She walks closer to Carl. Carl takes a step back.

Maria: “I was cleaning. When a man knocked on the door. He came to talk to me about…

This is just a really short example on a script. A faster way of doing a script is just to write down what each person needs to say. That’s probably the easiest and first way of making a script. A script is used for the actors to know what they are saying, how they are supposed to react and where they are going.

After the script a storyboard is made.

A storyboard is used to visualize the movie. A storyboard can be drawn by hand or be done digitally in different programs or witch pictures.  

A storyboard is a picture that shows what the first scene will look like. Then there should be a description of what angel that is used. Is it more people seen in full perspective, or one person seen in an off the shoulder and only from mid waits and up? Then the lighting should also be described. It could be if the light should come from the right, because it will create a shadow on a person’s face, which will help create a certain mood. You will be able to just google storyboard outline and they look at the picture, and there will be a template for a storyboard or you/they can use Pixton (a tool on Skoletube, we’ll talk more about Skoletube later).

Storyboard made in Pixton, Skoletube.

Now the storyboard and script should be done. Then it’s time for the student to film their movie, or the production. Depending on which recourses the school has, the student can record on their phones, iPads, computer or cameras (if the school has that).

Something to keep in mind is. The students might not follow their storyboard to the fullest, and that is okay, because it is hard to figure our exactly what to do and put in the movie, before you start recording. Sometimes the location they want to use, might not work. Maybe they want to film outside but it’s raining so they have to change things. So they should be aware that what they have plans might not be what’s going to happen.

Then we get into the post-production, the editing. There are many different programs that can be used for editing. If the students or school have iPads or mac computers, they will be able to use iMovie, which is a free program for apple products. It is pretty easy to use, there are many things you can do, speed up and slow down clips, cutting, but clips on top of each other, put in sounds/music and so on. It’s easy to figure out. Then there is a program called Adobe premiere pro, which is harder to use, but the movies can get better and you need to buy it (the school can buy it). Then if the school have access to Skoletube, there are also an editing program called MovieCut. It is the easiest program to use. Since you can’t do much besides cutting and layering the film and adding sounds, but in MovieCut, the film can’t be more than 20 minutes long. 

Editing in iMovie

You can easily add sounds effects or background music. For free sounds, there's not copyrightet go to freesounds.org and find music that fit's the mood of the movire.

Then the movie need to render (converting into a movie), and it’s ready to be shown for the class.

That’s it for today, we’ll post a movie later showing how to use iMovie.

"T for T"