Year 10 OLE! Film Study
Filmmaking explores more than the simple script, filming, and directing we are oblivious to whilst watching our cozy Netflix movies, yet it branches out to the creativity of humankind, diving into the unique expressions and declarations of love, anger, sadness, and emotions associated with our rich culture. Simply put, filmmaking is another art form used to communicate and connect with an audience, using visual storytelling to depict the issues, journeys, and resolutions us humans endure in our lifetime. This may be deterring from our point, but whilst others were hiking through harsh mountains and suffering through the tragedy that is school camp, five of us had the chance to gain a bigger perspective and understanding of film making.
On our first day, with no prior knowledge to film making and the skills required, we walked in with confidence, lacking an understanding of the depth associated with film making. We were soon surprised when learning the steps required to making our own short film, and soon we began an introduction and investigation to other short films. After viewing what seemed like Oscar worthy performances and comparing them to our own skill set, we began to doubt ourselves yet moved on by formulating our own idea for our short film. Although this comparison lowered our confidence, we began to pick apart what made the most significant part of a short film, the message, so clear, even without dialogue. We decided that lighting, camera angles, dialogue, and overall pacing of the film was crucial to our concept, and after evaluating our plan, we organised how to put our plan into action.
However, on Tuesday, we battled the most troubling yet important aspect of filmmaking: the camera. We were all dreading the camera, aware that we could never meet the expectations of an average film, not even knowing if we could possibly produce something cinematic. But the monstrous and beastly object wasn’t as daunting as it seemed, and so, we decided to tackle it. We firstly practiced filming, shifting the lighting, volume, and different camera angles that we could use in our short film, and although holding it caused a hand cramp, the camera offered even more depth and inspiration for filming. After we mastered the art of the camera, we learnt how to use alien objects such as the light sheet, learning how lighting can effort the mood and overall theme of our film, planning to use it for the next day. Finally, we learnt how to use the tripod, a tool which sets the camera up to kept it steady and soothe those hand cramps, and after a day full of filming, we decided we would turn this knowledge to good use and begin filming our opening, as the next day we went to the city.
On Wednesday, we had quite an early start to our day, because we were heading up to NIDA to experience a dramatic arts workshop and film some more scenes for our slowly progressing short film. Our workshop started off with the classic, yet painful, icebreakers then we practised acting and moving around like different types of people, from laid back Californian surfers, to futuristic androids. Then we practised creating tableaus, still shots of some classic nursery rhymes, with the teachers guessing what we were trying our best to recreate. Soon afterwards, we learnt how to make a slate, which is a mini ‘get to know me’ for auditions. We all begrudgingly took turns in front of the camera and introduced ourselves, which was very nerve-wracking. Then we finished off the workshop by making our own mini soap operas, which we were able to film, and watch played back. After an eventful morning, we refuelled with some well-deserved sushi during lunch and then filmed the urban parts of our short film, which filled the remainder of our afternoon.
The next day, we finished filming the rest of the sections and scenes that were left over in our script and then set ourselves on editing it all together. We learnt how to edit the sound, lighting, colour and transitions that were used in our short film, which was very tedious work and more difficult than we had imagined it to be, so editing the film continued into Friday as well.
After all the editing was finally finished and we were finally content with how it turned out, we learnt how to make stop motions – through taking hundreds of photos and piecing them together and playing them fast. We set out in groups with this newfound knowledge to create our own 30 second stop motions. Each of us with a vision, carefully snapped away, slowly making progress by moving our subject in the frame inch by inch. We spent the afternoon stringing all our intricately staged photos together and added a backing track to it. In the afternoon, we ended our busy week by presenting and watching our stop motions come alive, which we all turned out to be proud of.
I’m sure that all of us that had the pleasure of experiencing the film study week would be able to say that this week exceeded the expectations that we walked in on the first day with. Despite all the sore arms from holding the camera, camera shyness and numb fingers from editing, we were all proud of our finished product. While it may not be the best film ever created, it was still something that we were able to create by ourselves, which was something that we all found very satisfying. Sure, we gained a lot of knowledge about film and camerawork, but what really made the difference to this experience was gaining more confidence in ourselves, and that’s what will stick with us the most.
Lulu E & Souhaylah S, Year 10