A change of pace today as I spotted an advert on Gumtree Edinburgh for " free film making training" pretty close to where I live, which intrigued me as I would really like to make some "how to" videos. The bad news was that I saw it at 11.15 pm on Friday night and it started at 10 am on Saturday! The advert had only been posted at 11 am on Friday morning, so I decided they must be short on numbers. I emailed the company - Diversity Films - without much hope of a reply in time. I drove along there on Saturday morning anyway and found they did have space for me. Lucky!
It was a great day with lots of useful information and hands on experience. After showing us a few examples of their work - both documentary and drama - and explanations of how to work the cameras, radio and boom microphones, tripods etc we were thrown in at the deep end. Split into groups of three we took turns of being interviewed on camera, operating the camera and operating the micrphones. Next the same thing again, but with the interviewee walking around outside! This was a real test of coordination with the microphone operator also guiding the camera operator as they walked backwards filming, looking out for steps, obstacles and other people, just waiting to be tripped over .
The day ended with a brief introduction to editing the footage we shot. A very time intensive activity to get anything approaching a smooth edit! All in all it gave us an indication of just how much work is involved in making even the simplest film.
There are follow up courses and it certainly left me wanting to learn more. I can't wait.
It was a great day with lots of useful information and hands on experience. After showing us a few examples of their work - both documentary and drama - and explanations of how to work the cameras, radio and boom microphones, tripods etc we were thrown in at the deep end. Split into groups of three we took turns of being interviewed on camera, operating the camera and operating the micrphones. Next the same thing again, but with the interviewee walking around outside! This was a real test of coordination with the microphone operator also guiding the camera operator as they walked backwards filming, looking out for steps, obstacles and other people, just waiting to be tripped over .
The day ended with a brief introduction to editing the footage we shot. A very time intensive activity to get anything approaching a smooth edit! All in all it gave us an indication of just how much work is involved in making even the simplest film.
There are follow up courses and it certainly left me wanting to learn more. I can't wait.
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