On August 15th, I had the pleasure of participating in a film-making workshop lead by my fellow Future Producer, Luke Tucker. It was a really great workshop, with some fantastic information and practical exercises.

Learning about the process of film making, such as the numerous roles within a production crew, and the processes involved in pre-production, production and post-production, was so useful in alleviating some of the chaos of planning a film project, instead bringing some semblance of order. Hearing about programmes such as Celtx (for screenwriting) and Movie Magic Scheduling was invaluable to someone who is a keen amateur film maker, like myself, who wishes to cross into a more professional standard of film making.

The practical exercise of shooting a short filmed piece with a professional-grade camera was extremely entertaining and useful. Although I was acting in front of the camera for the exercise, it was great learning certain techniques and tricks, such as clapping (or making a loud noise) to sync the sound with the filmed images during the subsequent editing process by matching up the spike in the sound waves with the motion of clapping on film. The exercise also reminded me once more of how time-consuming filming can be through the preparation and setting up of shots, as well as coordinating the sound and lighting. However, it was useful hearing about the process of story-boarding being used as a way for all the crew to coherently know exactly what the director wants the end product of the shot to look like.

Such experience was invaluable in light of my plans for my Cinekids project, whereby I hope to create a promotional video/trailer in order to extend my own arts practice as part of Unit 1 Part A of the Gold Arts Award. Hopefully, it should be a bit of an adventure, and a great opportunity to exercise the new skills and techniques I learned from this excellent workshop!