There are lots of technical parts to creating a story including developing the story, filming, and design.  Lets start at the beginning which is brainstorming ideas. For my silent film I knew that we were filming in the ghost town at Three Valley Gap.  This is a unique location because there are mannequins dotted around the town. I knew that I wanted to include them in my film so I began my mood board with the mannequins as my inspiration. My mood board included colours, black and white, and photos that reflected my story concept. 

– Insert Mood Board Here

Once I made my mood board,  I used a method that Pixar uses to help form my story, here is the template we used from PLP Maker class.  

Once upon a time, 

Every day,

Then one day, 

And because of that, and because of that, 

And since then every day

The template was a key part to me constructing my story.

Now in order to make this story into a film I needed to convert my story into a script. A script doesn’t go into details of the events of the story, it just generalizes what happens in point form. For example.

FADE IN.

INT. – (Stands For interior) – DAY – ROOM WITH DESK. 

PERSON Walks into the class room. Then sits. Then pulls out binder and pencil.

I could go on and on about the pre production of this film but to respect your time I will summarize my next part. The schedule. The filming schedule was created based on the field trip itinerary and kept in mind the weather.  It also included making a list of props and getting them, and  arranging for actors. 

Over all, the making of my film was both exciting and engaging, I enjoyed it a lot. One thing I would have liked was more time to film. We had to create a short film that was 2-3 minutes and only with  one hour of allotted time. According to Time Magazine, it took 13 years to make Avatar 2: The Way of Water, which as a 3 hour film. 

In addition to the time issue, we came across various different problems, such as the bar not being open to sit at, sometimes other people walking into frame, and reflections. These were good problems to come across because we had to try and them on he spot. Some of the solutions we used include finding an alternate film location, reshooting the scenes, and shooting from a different angle  

Creating A Tik-Tok

When creating my short form content there were three things I kept in mind. These were capturing attention, retaining that attention, and making high quality shots. As we were to base our short form/Tik-Tok off a trend, I watched some videos that were trending at the time by searching “Tik – Tok trends” in my web browser.  The site, Later.com, listed a number of trends for me to review. Some of the most popular videos that I saw included music over the original audio.  I liked this format and used it as my inspiration. I chose a song from Spotify, “Strangers” by Kenny and Grace, and used in the same way in my short form video. When creating the Tik-Tok video I included photos from our stop in Banff.  

I’m proud of the finished film. I particularily like the photos I took while in Banff and are now included in my Tik-Tok video. Although it was sometimes tiring getting to the photo locations, it was worth the effort. Next time I do a Tik-Tok video I would create it differently.  Instead of creating from a trend I would use my own imagination and creativity.  I felt that using a trend took away from some of our individual inventiveness. 

What Inspires Me Video

My ‘What Inspires Me Video’ is my favourite video that I filmed. This video had the fewest parameters. The main parameter was creating a video about what inspires me. First, I started as I do with all my short films, by making a mood board, writing the story, scripting it, and then finishing with a shot list. I wanted to film on the weekend, but I had a schedule conflict. The solution to this scheduling problem was to gather photos I had previously taken. However, next time I would leave extra time in my schedule so I can work around conflicts and film on different days. 

Over all these film projects were engaging and enjoyable because I have a real interest in film production. I can’t wait to film my another video.

Thanks for reading.