Film Quick Takes: Script Study
Short, focused exercises to build your filmmaking skills. Studying a full-length film script can provide valuable insights into the creative and technical aspects of filmmaking, as well as improve your own writing skills and deepen your appreciation for the art of storytelling.
Film Quick Takes: Three-Point Lighting
Take three still portraits of friends or loved ones using a three-point lighting setup. Three-point lighting is a basic lighting technique used in photography, videography, and filmmaking to create a visually pleasing and balanced image. Learn the steps to set up three-point lighting in this blog.
Film Quick Takes: Ordinary Objects
Short, focused exercises to build your filmmaking skills. Find a very ordinary object. Using different camera angles, lens lengths, and lighting techniques, take three photos that reveal a new way of seeing the object
Film Quick Takes: Creating Meaning From Sound
Short, focused exercises to build your filmmaking skills. Go to a place that holds a lot of meaning for you. Record audio that captures why the place is important. Place this audio recording in the timeline of a film editing software program. Find images and assemble them in a timeline so that they illustrate the meaning you captured in the audio recording
Film Quick Takes: Tell a Story Using Five Still Images
Short, focused exercises to build your filmmaking skills. Telling a story using five still images is a great way to convey a narrative in a visual and concise way. Here are the general steps involved in creating a story using still images.
Find Your Film’s Story: Brainstorm & Be Messy
You must let it be okay to have bad ideas. Remember that writing is a process. It goes well, and it goes poorly. It is always okay to struggle. You are more than any process. Hesitate to cut things out, even if they don’t make sense! There will be plenty of time to trim away later in the writing and editing process.
Find Your Film's Story: Delve into Character
Character journey is the heart of filmic storytelling. We’re all engaged by characters who face challenges and are transformed by them.
Find Your Film's Story: Work Backward
What you don’t have in resources, you have in freedom. Think about what change or effect you want to create—not what you want to say, but what you want to ask. In other words, what do you want to try?
Find Your Film's Story: Use Your Voice
Many, many short films have been made—but not by you. Think about what it is about your specific experiences, identity, place in the world, life journey, interests, or outlook that you can grow into a character, story, or fictional world. The important thing is—what questions can you ask that no one else can?