I was engaged to put together a film workshop space and activity for Fun 4 Kids this year (2015). Fun 4 Kids is a kids festival held in Warrnambool each year during the July holidays. I was given the task of creating a film workshop that could be delivered to 25-30 kids under an hour, 5 times a day for 7 days.
The filmmaking workshops were a lot of fun and a great success and that’s why I am going to share my workshop with you. I know how handy it is when people share their workshop notes online for others to use and access.
What could be achieved in an hour? My first thought, and the idea I went with, was creating iMovie Trailers on an iPad. I chose iMovie Trailers because of the ease in which success can be achieved, the availability and accessibility of iPads and the fact that you can both film and edit and then publish films straight from the iPad. The trailers appeal equally to both boys and girls. They are achievable to make in a short period of time. They are pretty easy to make but look very professional and have great impact.
In this fun workshop, participants would learn how to film great footage on their iPad and edit it into a short Movie Trailer in iMovie. The iMovie App which is included in the iPad Apps package has a number of themed, easy-to-use Trailer templates.
A trailer follows a template to create a Hollywood-style movie advertisement. iMovie for iOS has 14 trailer templates, and each has its own musical score and graphics. Each template has a different number of text screens and shots. Each shot is typically on the screen for only a second or two, so a one-minute trailer requires about two dozen shots.
Participants chose from five movie trailer themes, including Scary, Exhibition, Swashbuckler, Fairy Tale and Expedition to create a short 60-second trailer. The workshops were held at the Warrnambool Art Gallery in a medium sized room. There was limited space so there was only room for five backdrops, therefore I chose five trailers that would appeal to kids and had backdrops created for them. The Warrnambool City Council and the Movie Makers Space sponsor, Sinclair and Wilson, had the backdrops printed on a large scale on canvas.
I set up a room full of dress-ups that were themed with the five trailers in mind. The dress-ups helped kids get into character very quickly.
I also put some extra footage on the iPads that kids could incorporate into their Trailer, such scenes filmed around Warrnambool, different landscapes and animals.
We (myself and the F4K’s organizers) were very fortunate to be heavily supported by Warrnambool Primary School, who not only granted us the use of 24 iPads for the festival workshops but also lent us 4 iMac Computers and an Apple TV/TV Screen to run the workshops, as well as technical support (The wonderful thing about Fun4Kids is the way the whole community gets behind the festival to make it a success.)
The four iMac computers were necessary because we (myself and the team of fantastic workshop volunteers) created a DVD after each workshop for the 25-30 participants. So the iMacs were used for creating and burning up to 125 DVDs a day all the while we were running workshops.
The Apple TV and Flat Screen TV came in handy at the beginning of each workshop for the workshop explanation and they were also great at the end of the workshop to play back the kids trailers direct from their iPads on the big screen for everyone to see.
We also set up a viewing gallery with four flat screen TVs playing the trailers that had been created throughout the festival on looped DVDs.
First create a plan of what to film and the story you want to tell:
How to make your trailer stand out:
Use as few words as possible. Trailers are fast-paced and text is never on the screen for very long. iMovie’s templates do not leave much room for text. And, the more you write, the smaller the text becomes and harder it is to read.
The iMovie template shows what kinds of shots to include (landscape, close-ups, wide, action, etc). You can choose to use the suggested text or come up with a story of your own.
The 3 basic shots you will today are Wide Shot, Med Shot and a Close-UP. These shots relate to how far or close the camera is to the person that you are filming. So to film a Close-UP I basically stand closer and to Film a Wide Shot a stand further away.
3 Shot Types:
Three basic shot sizes: Wide, Medium and Close Up
Wide Shot: A type of long shot that includes the human body in full, with the head near the top of the frame and the feet near the bottom.
Medium Shot: A relatively close shot, revealing the human figure from the waist up
Close –Up: A detailed view of a person or object. A framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large. In a close-up a person’s head, or some other similarly sized object, would fill the frame.
Filming your trailer:
Now, its time to edit your trailer…
CLICK HERE to download PDF on editing your iMovie Trailer
Plan a Better iMovie Trailer with these PDFs
The day the Silver Ball went up! (Fletcher Jones) Features a couple of colour photos taken on the day by Marg Eagles and also a few beautiful black and white’s from Arnold McKay’s collection that he took on the day. As told by Marg Eagles.
This photo story was created for the Fletcher Jones: Stories from our Community project.
I have been engaged by the Save the Silver Ball and Fletcher Jones Gardens Committee to create a series of digital stories and short documentaries that document some of the amazing stories from the Fletcher Jones factory days. The project named Fletcher Jones: Stories from our Community project is an effort to collect the best of the many community stories and memories around the Fletcher Jones factory, Pleasant Hill gardens and silver ball water tower.
The digital stories and other stories collected by the FJ’s committee will be part of an online/offline exhibition. Ideas for the stories so far include an online archive, a book, and an exhibition, and plans to create photographic panels on the side of the Fletcher Jones factory.
More stories:
Memories of Fletcher Jones Gardens
What does ‘keeping the ball in the air” mean to you? This is the theme explored by Warrnambool filmmakers in 2014 for the inaugural Silver Ball Film Festival.
For those who are reading this and are not local to Warrnambool, the Silver Ball is an iconic large steel silver ball that stands 40 metres tall and can be seen on the Warrnambool skyline. It once operated as a water tower for the Fletcher Jones Factory. Want to know more? Here is a link to a great article written by Carol Altmann, from Bluestone Magazine about Fletcher Jone’s and the Silver Ball.
The film festival will feature Documentary, Narrative, Animation and Film Art films made by first-time filmmakers. Residents of Warrnambool had the opportunity to participate in free filmmaking workshops in Feb-March this year. These were organised by the F-Project Cinema, namely Dr Emma Charlton, who herself made a wonderful documentary about the F-Project called ‘A Story Beginning with F’.
A story beginning with F from Emma Charlton on Vimeo.
Who ever imagined at the beginning of the workshop series that we would end up with so many completed films? 23 in total! The timeline was very short so the amount of time the workshop presenters spent with the new filmmakers was very limited. However, we (I was one of the five workshop presenters) covered the basics and if you’re interested in learning about film-making too, you might like to click on the links below:
I delivered the documentary workshops to seven adults, four of which made films. I shall link to all the films once they are uploaded but for now you might enjoy watching these films by Chas Cleland, Julie Eagles and Cath Woodward, all of which will screen at the Silver Ball Film Festival.
Chas Cleland’s film on the Rotary House called ‘The House that Andrew (and friends) Built’. A film that honours the inspirational work and time that volunteer Andrew Suggett put into making the house happen. First time documentary filmmaker Chas, has done a truly professional job. He shot his film on a Digital SLR, connected a rhode mic to it and used natural lighting to film his interviews. The film is a fantastic achievement and an important film for the Warrnambool community too. We need to honour our volunteers and the people who work hard to make this town a better place for everyone.
Film by Chas Cleland (Documentary Workshop Participant)
Julie Eagles, who is part of the group ‘Friends of Fletcher Jone’s Ball and Gardens’, interviewed Kevin Fry for her documentary, ‘The Last Man in the Ball’. Kevin’s very entertaining and informative recollections of working inside the Silver Ball as a maintenance man when it operated as a water tower, makes for a very funny documentary. Julie is very pleased to have made her very first film and is keen to continue and make more films about the history of Fletcher Jones. I hope to stay on as her film mentor.
Cath Woodward created a ‘Making of’ documentary’ film about the animation ‘LegoBool’. The documentary included interviews with the animation makers (a mother and son team) and behind-the-scenes footage of the very cleverly crafted animation. The Legobool animation was created for the Silver Ball Film Festival too. Check out Cath’s cool title sequence. Cath has produced a very slick, fun and smoothly edited first short documentary.
The Making of Legobool from Cath Woodard on Vimeo.
I too, hopped out of my comfort zone and had a go at making a Film Art type film not my usual genre at all! I only got along to one of the Film Art workshops delivered by Tom Walters and Nathan Pye but that was enough to spark some ideas for these two films. The main visual effects I played around with is blue screen and superimposition.
I took the theme “keeping the ball in the air” very literally and made two films about the Silver Ball. The first film, ‘Salt n’ Steel’ takes a look at the affect that the salt air has on the ball and the rust eating away at the silver ball, as told by past Fletcher Jones worker, Kevin Fry.
The second film ‘FJs Garden’ pays homage to the beautiful Fletcher Jones Gardens that once existed. Both films are to be projected in the lane-ways of Warrnambool for the Silver Ball Festival on May 9th, 2014.
Salt n’ Steel (The last man in the ball Re-Mix) from First Ladies – Colleen Hughson on Vimeo.
FJ’s Garden from First Ladies – Colleen Hughson on Vimeo.
