Telling a good STORY is essential for filmmakers. If you can’t capture and engage your audience you have missed the mark as a storyteller. One of the exercises we do in our Film I class is to ask the students to make a commercial (tell a story) using only stock footage. Stock footage, also called stock video or b-roll, is a piece of video content, a clip or shot (normally shorter than
Knowing your Camera SHOTS, ANGLES, and MOVEMENTS is essential to any filmmaker. The Introduction to Film Production class was given the following assignment to demonstrate their knowledge of Camera Angles. You will be making a short movie on the subject of the BEST and WORST kitchen utensil (a small handheld tool used for food preparation). Genre is up to you: Comedy, Drama, Mystery, Documentary, etc. Must use angles: Wide Shot, Medium Shot,
How does the rhythm of an edit, or the pacing of shots, matter to the art of editing?Setting the pace of an edit is vital to the storytelling aspect, and for establishing the general stylistic feel of a film. This rhythm is created by a series of beats, and cannot be determined by one or two consecutive cuts alone. It works very similarly to a music composition. The tempo of a piece
Oscar-winning editor Walter Murch, known for Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, came up with six rules for cutting film. When you begin editing, consider each of the following (in descending order of importance): Emotion: How do you want the audience to feel? Story: Are you advancing the story in a meaningful way? Rhythm: Does your timing feel right? Eye trace: Where is the viewer’s focus on the screen? It shouldn’t have
BEST EDITING AWARDLuke Nagata The students of Blue And Gold Production, Gahr High School’s Film Production class, were given raw footage to produce a short film. Congratulations to Luke Nagato for winning the BEST EDITING award for “My Nightmare.” This first-year student did a fantastic job. We are looking forward to seeing many more future projects from Luke. We also want to recognize the hard work from some of our other film
Le Miroir is a short film written and directed by the team at Roman + Pedro. It tells the story of a man – in the sense of the human being – which passes from childhood to the status of “old man”, the time to freshen up. This is a fantastic film to show film students, not only as an example of storytelling but also filmmaking. Their website provides BTS and mood boards for the
This video, 3 Biggest Mistakes Every Filmmaker Must Avoid, hits on some good points. For us students the 2nd and 3rd points are the ones that I want you to pay special attention to. Point 1 is more for those who wish to make filmmaking a career. Point 2 – Focus On Gear – points out that story must come first. Without a good story no amount of gear will make it
We can all grow in our skills as content creators. Practice is a non-negotiable but why reinvent the wheel as well? Here is a good video by FILM BOOTH that will show you how to not make the same mistakes so many YouTubers (content creators) make. This video, along with practice will make you a better content creator. These are simple yet often over-looked mistakes. One important note is the SCRIPT everything
Every now and then the question of “how long does it take to edit video” comes up. It’s a difficult question to answer because of all the variables. The experience of the editor being the biggest factor. There also how much falls on the editor. Do they have to acquire music, b-roll, copy, etc.? Is there a shot list and a script? Does it require animation? Is it a film, documentary, news,
So why do we, Blue and Gold Production, use Final Cut Pro X? If you have done any serious video editing, FCPX (Final Cut Pro X) probably hasn’t been the tool of choice. Seven years ago, Apple launched version 10 and any traction they had made in the professional editing realm instantaneously blew up. Personally, I had been editing on FCP for several years and jumped over to Adobe Premiere, as did