Following the plethora of questions on my Film Club's film They're Coming, I decided to make a short screencast of just how we ran the film club and did the special effects. This is a great resource if you are creating a film with a whole class, of any age range. Even the younger children in the club were able to be involved in the decision making every step of the way, while the older tamariki did more of the driving of finding sound effects, special effects and actually using the iMovie programme. This screencast includes:
Applying special effects
Applying layers of sound effects
Using green/blue screen
and making people 'disappear'
If you have any other questions - please be sure to leave a comment.
Also, if you want to see the film on the big screen again, it is being played during the 2016 Movies in Parks summer season. The film will be shown along with two others from the Manaiakalani Film Festival on Friday March 18th at Point England Reserve - a fantastic whānau evening.
If you want more info on Storyboarding check my other blogposts.
Last week I ran this toolkit on storyboarding to help other teachers in my cluster get started on their film making journey.
So, you have an idea of what you want your film to be, but want help to plan what scenes to shoot, scripting, learn about camera angles and making your film look good on the big screen.
Here are tips you can share with learners to empower them in the movie making process.
I really do hope you find the following links, tips and examples helpful in planning your class film.
Here is a basic storyboarding template I created to guide the planning process. In each box sketch the scene, where, who, angle, props etc.
Feel free to share it with your tamariki if you like.
You'll also need these camera angles to get them thinking about the planning process. What and how to actually film what they want to film.
A great warm up activity is to watch some of 2014 film festival's films and in groups get tamariki to discuss what camera angles were used, what was effective, and what was not so effective.
The following links are an index to my previous blogposts with tips for different types of filming and animation.
For stop-motion set up a tripod and get snapping. Import to iMovie, remove the 'ken burns' on images, change the time to .5 of a second (or less), add music, voiceovers and hey presto.
Thanks, and comment below if you have any questions.
Last night I was able to be a part of our MANAIAKALANI FILM FESTIVAL. Teachers and Learners from our 12 cluster schools make short (3 minute) films to showcase their learning. This year I took a group of keen movie makers in a 'film club' as part of my schools elective programme. In this group we followed our school inquiry theme of Being Prepared for a Natural Disaster. However, what if there was another type of disaster? Of the supernatural kind... Our learners explored this and found out how to be prepared for any kind of disaster... PRESENTERS SPEECH
Speaker 1: Good afternoon good people of Manaiakalani. In news today there has been reports of traffic congestion around the sylvia park area. Reports of a butter chicken sell out at Spice trader. And most importantly there have been sightings of big screen celebrities at the hoyts xtreme screen cinema….
Speaker 2: … WAIT!! (Interrupts. Holds hand out in front of Speaker 1 other hand to her ear) This just in…. What I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up… ? (PAUSE, looking up to side/listening to earpiece) Reports of strange creatures being seen in Glen Innes. Flesh? Flesh eating What?
Speaker 2: Shhhhh… Stay Calm ...There’s nothing to worry about here people…. (EXIT OFF STAGE)
The students were involved in directing, scene selection, editing the final cut, sound effects and selecting the backing music. For most learners this was their first experience in movie making. When completing a reflection at the end, the main "What I would do differently next time" comment was that students didn't like the face paint... instead preferring masks. Last night this movie was screened at the HOYTS XTREME SCREEN cinema. It was amazing to see the production (and the other amazing entries) on the big screen. The students loved seeing themselves and their friends on the big screen, and a highlight for me was seeing all the children coming out of the cinema talking about the Zombies! They loved it.
This interview is my reflection on the first 6 months of being a teacher and the Manaiakalani Digital Teaching Academy [MDTA] experience. Process Reflection As part of our digital teacher education we have been learning how to use iMovie, filming, importing, cutting, editing, cropping, adding sound, smooth transitions and making a (hopefully) seamless production. The full interview was 17 minutes of footage. This was trimmed to make four minutes, of which I then had to reduce further to 2 minutes. That was the easy part, trimming the footage, the difficult part was making the transitions smooth. I found that by adjusting the zoom, or overlaying footage it reduced the jarring. Finally choosing the appropriate music was really important, it needed to be positive, upbeat, but without being overpowering. As always, constructive or positive feedback is appreciated.
Unless you are trying to make it cheesy, or it has a specific purpose, avoid the 'fancy' transitions. A simple cut between clips is what most film and tv shows use.
When cutting between scenes, it's often less jarring to do so on a movement (see Breaking News 56 seconds in)
Use background music... it really eases any (bad) editing where it jars a little.
To make this into a reality my team of four collaborated to storyboard the storyline. This as it turns out is a really important part, to plan the scenes and shots you want to get for each before you even begin filming.
Our team then spent 1hr filming, before individually editing in iMovie to make our own movies. This is my edit... enjoy
