Make an Award Winning Short Film with no Budget | Resource Filmmaking

1. Introduction: I always dreamed it, though, needs his base to see the union facts to go in a key test missile. My name is Kaesong, and I've been working in videography and filmmaking now for over 10 years. I'm head off video production for an international higher education company on Also still run my own business called Kite Creative on Have a YouTube channel off the same name dedicated to filmmaking camera reviews and general visual creativity. So you might want to go and check that out. Now a lot of us create short films because we just have a need to create and tell. Stories on storytelling is very powerful. It's the basis for a lot of people's backgrounds for their cultures, for their religions. On using storytelling is very effective in getting your message across in a memorable way on today, we will be looking at making a short film on a budget also referred to as resource filmmaking. I remember when I first started out in filmmaking I had a camcorder that was tape based. That's how long ago it was on what I wanted to do. We just go out and make films, and I just started learning and filming short films with my friends. And, of course, back then, having no money, you had to be resourceful to create content. And that really helped to set a foundation for coming up with creative ideas on filmmaking . On a budget now resourceful making can be defined as using. The resource is that you have available to you in order to create a short film or even a full feature film. So instead of letting your imagination go wild and writing out a complex script for a film that requires a lot of money and resource is, you do it in reverse, where you have a look at what you have available to you. So you assess your resource is on what you can access, and then you write a script or story around that. So hopefully in this class you will learn a number of different skills. First of all, how to come up with a concept by using what is available to you looking at things like locations, props and actors, as well as how to direct actors on in a lot of cases of non actors. For I resource films, we tend to use a lot of family and friends on. They don't really have any professional acting experience. We will discuss how to come up with ideas. How to plan your short film, including scripting and story boarding, would also cover some recommended cameras on camera settings on DWI will cover basic lighting on some sound design, as well as looking at some filmmaking rules to follow. And then we'll dive into the editing will talk a little bit about cutting color correction , grading, using a green screen and some basic special effects. This glasses for anyone who wants to learn a little more about basic filmmaking and, in particular, those of you who don't have a large budget to make their film. So coming up with creative ideas to tell a story with a DSLR or mirror this camera, or maybe even using your smartphone. There is also a class project for you to create your own one minute film so that you can follow along and put the skills that you learn into practice. Now the short film that we created in this class has actually already been made. It's called Rocket Gel and it's live on YouTube and you can go there and watch it Now, if you want to, on this whole class will look at the steps, the methods and principles that we used to brainstorm that idea to find the axes on the locations on the props to create the script, storyboard to shoot, edit on, do the special effects A within the constraints of our resource is on budget. So I really look forward to jumping into this class with you on your filmmaking journey so that you can get creative until your stories. 2. Actors, Locations and Props: so the first step in our resource filmmaking journey is to look at what we have available to us right now. On also what we can potentially source in the future, which is within our budget. On the most organized way to do this is to create a set off different lists that will be essential in the creative brainstorming process later on. So an integral part off most short films and films in general is going to be people. So your actors and actresses, So who do you know that is available that can help you out? If you go to professional actor websites and agencies, you're probably going to be looking at spending at least a few $100 a day on an actor, and that is probably not within the realms off budget resource filmmaking. So where can you go to get actors and not spend all of your money? What I would recommend here is to create your first list on this list will contain all the people you know who might be willing to act in your short film. First of all, do you have any family or friends who would be willing to help you out, write their names down. Go through your Facebook friends or Instagram Associates on DSI, who you already know who might be a potential actor in particular. Look at the people you know, making instagram stories or tick top videos, or even have a YouTube channel. These people already established the fact that they aren't afraid or shy in front, off a camera. Jot down as many of those names as possible also get involved in filmmaking groups online. There are quite a few short film groups on Facebook that you can get added to yourself. There might even be one for your local area, and generally people are happy to help you out with your short film if you help them out with their short film. That way you're trading time for time. YouTubers are also people that you might want to reach out to to star in your short films. Off course we're not talking about YouTube superstars. We need to be realistic here, but there might be some YouTube is that you can find in your local area that might be willing to help you out. Now, I appreciate that this might be a little bit of a Catch 22 situation here because most people will want to know what the script is before they say yes. And you can't really start writing a script until you know who your actors are, particularly for resource short film making at this stage. Maybe reach out to them, engage how they would feel about making a short film, see what kind of availability they have. They might work full time. They might have a family, so it simply wouldn't work for them to give you a weekend off their time because they're just too busy. And if that's the case, then just remove them from your list. The next thing that you have to think about is where you will fill, and this will be your second list. So ask yourself, what locations do you currently have access to? Will it be in your home, or do you have access to a place that you own or a friend owns that you can use? Do any of your potential actors have access to any locations that you could possibly use? Will it be outside? Will it be in a park in the forest, at the beach or maybe even in a public place. If so, are you allowed to film there? In the UK, you are mostly free to film in public streets, but there are a few exceptions to this, depending on your crew size on some places have complete restrictions, so make sure you do your homework. Find out if you're allowed to film in those locations. Also, think about how your actors will get there. Will they have to travel far? What about your travel arrangements? How will you get your camera kit and props to that location and back again? Do you need to get on a train? Will you need to hire a van? How much will all of that cost? All of these logistics needs to be considered. When thinking about your locations again, Write down a list of all the possible places that you could use as filming locations. Props are next on the list, and they include anything that you're actor or actors interact with. Generally, a proper is considered to be anything moveable or portable on your film set, so that could be a bottle of water or a mobile phone. Have a look around and see what props you can use right now. Also think about what you can get a hold off. Could you borrow something from a friend or a family member that could be used as an interesting prop? Do any of your potential actors have any props that they could use? Also, resource filmmaking is about creating with your available resource is. So if you do have a little bit of money set aside, would you be willing to spend that on props? And if so, what could you purchase? Just searching around charity shops or buying cheap stuff off eBay could be a cost effective solution for some of your prop needs. And that is also true of any costumes as well. What will your actors Where will they wear their own clothes, or will you get them something to fit a particular scene? So for your third list of write down what props are currently available to you on what you could potentially get a hold off 3. Brainstorming: Okay, so this point, you should have three lists, one with your potential actors, one with your potential locations and another with potential props and costumes on. These are going to be the key ingredients that can help us to cook up or right up our script. So let's have a look at my three lists that I made side by side so that I can start jotting down ideas for my short film. So, first of all, looking at the actors, you'll notice that I've put myself down as a potential actor or even a side character if need be. I've got my wife and daughter, too, and that's easy because those people are in my household, as well as a few family members and a few friends that I know that would be up for starring in a short film because their creative, fun people. I have a few maybes to people that I know that have shown an interest in filmmaking or have even helped me out in the past and then looking at the locations, the easiest locations are going to be where I live on places that I have access to, like my home, my home Office and even my work office in London. Family homes and gardens on Even my street has a few quiet places and alleyways that I could film in. Now I have a few maybes in there as well. On these are places that are a little more interesting, such as nature reserves. Pubs are friends workshop on even a gym off course. I would need to get permission for the majority off these locations, but I feel like I'd have a good chance of getting that permission on. That's why they are on the list and finally props and costumes. I've got all my own clothes, as well as a stash off fancy dress and cosplay costumes from visiting Comic On Over the years, things like old radios, even TV screens can be used as props, gym equipment, musical instruments, lots of kids, toys like literally everywhere on then possibly being able to use a friend's car lawnmowers , workshop tools and even an idea off going to the local charity shop to see what they have available. So now what we need to do is put these elements together to start to try and create a captivating story on build on that. So, for example, I could pick my brother Jay. He's about five foot nine, has quite a slim build on. We could put him in an abandoned car park on, Let's say, for a prop he's on his mobile phone. That's nice and simple. And also, let's say he's dressed really smartly in a suit, so that would be our opening scene. Now, let's say my mate Phil, who's a big, muscular guy about six foot two, he could be wearing some gym clothes. You look really angry, really aggressive. And he's walking towards J in this abandoned car park, and he has this really aggressive look on his face suggesting that he is about to attack Jay. But Jay is completely come on. Unfazed, he continues to talk on his phone. Maybe he hasn't even realized that this giant of a man is walking towards him. And straight away, the audience is asking questions. Why is the big guy so angry? Why is thes smartly dressed smaller guy unafraid? So we brainstorm a little more and we say the big guy feel he takes a swing at J. J. Just reacted ducks down to avoid it but he still continues to talk on his phone. Now the audience is wondering, How did he know? How did he react so quickly? Feel goes, to jab him on again. J moves to the side in the nonchalant way on. That reinforces our assertions that there is something unique about this individual. Is your martial art expert? Does he have superpowers? Is he an alien? Has he lived the same day over and over again and knows exactly what is going to happen? There are so many different directions that we could actually take this story idea in. So the idea is to just pair up some characters, put them in a location, give them a scenario with some props and then flesh out some ideas. Ask questions that your audience would ask and start to try to provide answers to those questions in your script. Obviously, the actors, locations and props that you choose will no doubt help you set the theme off your short film. For example, you might have chosen a friend to be an actor who is a natural comedian, so creating something along the paths off a romance comedy short could be the route that you decide to take or one of your locations that you have access to could be a university laboratory, so you could take the path off a SciFi short film. Also, think about themes that interest you. What genre of movies do you enjoy? Are you in action Fan? Do you like thrillers, sci fi movies or romance comedies? Add these themes into your creative brainstorming pots alongside your access locations and props and see what you come out with. Of course, remember, we do have to rein in a lot of what is possible based on our resource is So Let those resource is guide what your story will be on for storytelling There has got to be a beginning, a middle and an end so far with only brainstormed an introduction, an intro scene. So in the next section we're going to brainstorm using our lists as well as something called The Hero's Journey Template and complete The final story for our short film 4. The Hero's Journey template: So far, we've spoken about how to generate ideas on what you could do. But now we actually need to make some decisions. We need to get that synopsis down for our short film on. This is a high level script off the plot of our film on. In order to do this, we're going to go back to our set off lists. So with regard to our actors, what I've decided to do is to go a simple as possible to really show you what is possible in creative resource filmmaking. And so for actors, I will be using my immediate family in my household, which consists off my wife, Lauren, and daughter NYR, on myself as the actors. Now, if you've reached this stage in your filmmaking process where you're selecting your actors , then you definitely need to make sure you contact them and see if they actually would be interested and willing to start in your short film. There's nothing worse than creating a whole script and storyboard around someone on. Then they turn around and tell you that they're not actually interested, so make sure you get the thumbs up from them first. Before you go any further off course. If something did happen and they couldn't make it, it might be possible, then to stop someone else in on, maybe tweak your script slightly to suit them for the locations of my project. Again, I'm keeping it simple, and I've decided to use my home, my home office, on my garden so that we don't have to actually travel anywhere on this. Makes reshooting any scenes relatively easy on for props. We're going to use things around the house. We're gonna get out some costumes from fancy dress parties, use a bunch of toys and also spend a little bit of money on eBay purchases to hopefully create something that is engaging and tells a story and said, Make our story engaging. I have decided to use something called the Hero's Journey template to help guide the brain storing process. Afford the synopsis off this particular story on If you're unfamiliar with this concept, I'll give you a quick overview now. So the Hero's Journey template is a concept that Joseph Campbell wrote about in his book The Hero With 1000 Faces on. It's a model for both plot points and character development as a hero. Traverse is the world. They undergo inner and outer transformations at each stage of the journey. So we started 12 o'clock. First of all, we see our hero on their everyday life, their ordinary life refer to as the status quote. One o'clock we get the call to adventure course ago. Somewhere new two o'clock. Our hero can't do this alone. They need assistance. Our hero needs some help. Perhaps they get a special item or even some advice. Three o'clock. The next step is departure. The hero crosses the threshold from their normal, safe, ordinary life on the enter a special new world full of adventure. Four. Oclock. There are trials and challenges that have to be overcome on the way. Five. Oclock the approach. The hero has to face a big ordeal. Maybe it's their worst fear. Six o'clock we hit crisis. This is the heroes darkest hour. But somehow they make it through seven o'clock. Treasures or rewards are next on the journey. Our hero claims some sort of treasure. Ah thing. Maybe its recognition or power eight oclock is the result. What happens because of acquiring this new thing? Nine Oclock is the return the hero returns home back to the ordinary world 10 o'clock. But now they're not the same person. They have a new life, a new perspective. 11 oclock is resolution. This is where all of the plot lines get. Street and out. 12 o'clock again, we come back full circle to the status quo, but now to a new place of experience and contentment. So that's a lot of different areas to cover for a short film, especially one with a limited budget. But it will hopefully help us create an engaging story that has a beginning, a middle and an end on. By following that process, we comptel an engaging story to our audience. So let's get creative with what we've got. Let's put pen to paper. I see where our imagination can take us while being reined in at the same time by our resource is 5. Creating the synopsis: So, first of all, who shall I choose as my main protagonist? Let's look at my actors list now. I wouldn't want to be the main character myself, because I want to concentrate on the filming on directing but saying that I don't mind playing a simple side character or side role. My wife, Lauren, could be the main protagonist, perhaps a struggling single parent who comes up with an amazing Internet app or product and completely changes her life. That's one approach, but I think my four year old daughter, Nyah, would probably be the best protagonist. She has so much imagination and everything is new and exciting to her, and you can really feel that in the way she is naturally. And also, we can use that to delve into the realms of childish imagination what Israel and what isn't and try merge the two together. So what about the theme off my story while we're a family? So that's an easy path, something that his family related is something most people can relate to and looking at some of nice toys, she really likes this might light, which projects pictures onto her ceiling at night, and it shows, pictures of spaceships and astronauts and different planets. And for me personally, I'm really interested in movies to do with space travel and aliens and Saifi. In fact, one of my all time favorite cartoons is an animation by John Image called The Secret Off the Seller nights, which sees Baron Munchausen on his band of associates traveling to the moon in the ship with hot air balloons where they meet an alien race called the Seller Nights. So I think a story based around similar elements could work really well. So let's say that we have a little girl who dreams about going into space. First of all, let's set the scene of her ordinary world. She's fascinated with space. She has toys and books that are related to space and space travel for her home life. We could have it that her dad is always home late from work. He doesn't spend enough time with her on her mum is not happy about that. Maybe they have a few arguments. Maybe the little girl is always asleep by the time he comes home. So there's a bit of a fractured relationship there. This is something that needs to be fixed, so that's the status quo. That's the ordinary world. But then she gets a call to adventure. She decides she's going into space. In fact, let's say she decides to go to the moon, the 1st 4 year old on the moon, and she realizes that in order to do this, she needs to build a spacecraft. So she starts creating a rocket in her back garden. And, of course, it's gonna be made out of cardboard and tin foil and bits and pieces, and it has lots of stickers on it, too. And then let's say that one day her dad comes home late again. One evening, both his wife and daughter are asleep on the couch, and he notices that rocket that his daughter had been building. And he looks thoughtfully at it, and he sees how much work his little girl has put into making this rocket on. This gives him an idea, and so he comes home early the next day, very much to the moment. Surprise on has bought his daughter a spacesuit and helmet as a present, and she's really excited about it. She tries it on. Mom is really happy to. Then the dad starts to make an effort to help his daughter build her rocket on. This is the assistance part of our hero's journey story on. Also, it's the beginning of mending that fractured family relationship. So what about the departure? Well, this is where we can start to blend reality with fantasy or where the childish imagination kicks in. So we could have the little girl getting into the rocket one day and actually launching into space. And there are a few filming techniques and maybe some special effects that we can use to sell that idea to the audience on may be the moment under now working as mission control flight controllers, so changing the roles of the parents do active participants in the fantasy story also helps to keep that childish imagination theme going. So now our little astronaut is blasting into space. That has to be some sort of trial. Maybe it's the loneliness of space. Maybe it's trying to eat food, things that they have had to learn on the way. And then we come up to the approach, and of course, this is going to be the moon itself. She can finally see the moon, so the next point is going to be to add in a big crisis. So straight away I'm thinking using a screen which has a warning on it. Maybe there's an issue, and she has a risk of crashing. So having some sort of suspense on, then success. As the craft successfully lands for this scene, I envision a big red button that needs to be pressed the land safely. And then a big cheer, of course, from Mission Control for the treasure, I was thinking maybe we could find a prop to represent some sort of alien artifact, or maybe just a piece of moon rock or some sort of unique stone that she takes back as a memento but will have significance later on and also have some shots of her in space, maybe doing some fun things again. There are a few camera tricks that we can try to use to get this looking as good as possible. So now we arrive at the return parts of the hero's journey, which, of course, would be her returning home. Ah, lot of this can be shut within her rocket so that we can keep it simple, maybe with some dialogue for Mission control, perhaps even Mission Control, saying something like She needs to come and eat her dinner. And so we're also returning from the fantasy world back to reality, merging it back with reality on, we could have her at home eating dinner, maybe still in the astronaut outfits, eating something like Turkey drummers, Street like rockets and alien spaghetti hoops on the resolution could be that her dad's is now coming home earlier from work and spending more time with the family. And everyone's a little happier on a little more content. We could have an end scene with the data Mom reading a bedtime story to their daughter about space travel. Of course, on we could have it so that the daughter goes to sleep on the dad discovers the alien artifact or moon rock in the pocket of the daughters astronaut costume, and it gives it to the mom at the end, who gives a bemused look on that helps to blur the lines between reality and fantasy of this story. And then we could end it by having a scene of the little girl smiling, washy, sleeping, no doubt dreaming about space or even we put that rock down on the bedside table and some alien writing lights up or appears on it. And then we cut the black, leaving a little cliffhanger in there. So that short film synopsis it literally came from brainstorming what we have in terms of people, locations and re sources, as well as using the hero's journey as a template in order to create a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. With the synopsis now done, we can move on to solidifying things, and we do this through scripting. 6. Scripting: now. Normally, at this point, we would start to script out the dialogue between our characters and really solidify the story on when using actors that are family and friends. It's a good idea to base generation along what is natural when they normally talk. This helps to make things sound, less wooden and more natural on camera. So maybe get them around the table, discuss each scene on, explain briefly what is happening on get them to suggest what they would say in that situation on Use that information to help write out your script. Now one of the challenges for us here is that we have a four year old as our main character , and so memorizing long pieces of dialogue for her simply wouldn't be possible. So we had to really simplify what she said. Andi. It became apparent quite quickly that she couldn't really do any real length of dialogue in a natural way while being filmed on camera. So we decided the best way to deal with this would be to get her to record some voiceover narration where she would say a sentence at a time, and then we could then use that narration to lay over the top off the visuals to help tell the story. Another aeration is what we decided to use to guide our script on Ultimately, our short film. Now the live dialogue in this film again is quite simple. It's more centered around the parents and mission control scenes, so actually, our main character is not seen talking live to camera much at all. Now, when it comes to actually writing your script, there are lots of professional pieces of software that you can pay for on these will. Get your script looking polished, unprofessional. But you can also achieve a similar look for free using Google docks on our quickly highlight how I went about doing that here. So, first of all, open a Google doc in your browser. Choose your script formatting as Korea New Size 12 on you start off with the new line showing your scene location, and this is called a slugline. This is written in all capitals with single spaces. On first, you designate whether it's an interior or exterior scene using capital I nd or capital txt , respectively, and then you add in your location. This could be a room. It could be a place. It could be, for example, inside a rocket on. Then you add the time of day with a space here in a hyphen on, put in whether it is a day or night shot, then you right out and describe your action. So any action that we're seeing on the camera, but when no one is talking on this is just like a regular written sentence with no inventing. As soon as any talking happens, we start a new line. We invent five times forwards on, then right in the name off the character who is speaking again, all in capital letters. And then for the actual dialogue. We start a new line, we tab over three times and then right out our dialogue on we write this out to We reached about 5.5 on the ruler at the top of the page on when we pass At this point, we press enter to start a new line, and it might also capitalize the next worst or just hit controls that to undo this and it will go back to lower case, then we can proceed on right the rest of our dialogue in this fashion on, then we can continue using this former to script the whole film on it will hopefully be as close to a proper script as possible on its on Google docks. So it's free and it's easy to share. And if you want to check out the complete script for Rocket Girl that I wrote up in Google docks, I'll leave a link or a copy of it in the resource section. 7. Storyboarding: So the next up on our list is story boarding this short film, and you might think that this step is no actually that necessary, but it really is a good exercise to help you visualize what you want your scenes to look like. Getting those visual ideas out of your heads on onto paper will be a massive help when setting up your camera angles, setting up your lighting and for filming. Now you don't have to be an amazing artist, a storyboard, your short film. You can use simple drawings like I do on some people. Just use stick figures as long as it helps give direction for where your actors should be in relation to the space around them, as well as your camera position on movements and, generally, how you want things to look. You'll be surprised at how useful a storyboard is when it comes to shooting. There are places that you can have storyboards made up. For example, Fiver has a lot of storyboard artists that are quite reasonable on. There is even software online that you can use to create your storyboards. I personally prefer to just get an a four piece of paper a ruler on, draw out nine boxes on the page and use my script to guide the scenes and simply draw out what I want the shot to look like when I'm shooting on the camera. I will also put some notes down on how the camera moves on what the actors are doing or what direction they should be moving in. So for this short film, I ended up with 11 pages of storyboard, which is about 99 slides. And so that is approximately how many shots I should end up with. There will no doubt be some eureka moments during filming where additional shots will be taken, but for the most part these are the shots that I will try to get as a minimum. Andi. I will also use the storyboard to help me guide my editing on green screen and special effects work later on. Additionally, the exercise of during our short film also helps uncover what extra props and kit we might need. On the day for me, I realized that we still needed to get a cardboard rockets. We needed pink and decorations are kids astronaut helmet on. We needed some sort off moonstone or alien artifact. So I added, All of those two are prop list. And if you want to check through my complete story board for the Rocket Girl short film, then go and have a look at the resource is section. 8. Getting support: as a side point, I wanted to spend a minute talking about what you can do to get other people involved and excited about your short film. Of course, there are websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which can help you raise support and funds for your short film. But the approach that I took for this particular film was to get family and friends involved on. I created this. PdF, which basically portrays the project as a real space expedition on this helped to build interest as well as intrigue into what we were actually doing. And I sent this out to various What's up groups that I'm part off. Andi got family and friends asking questions, as well as moving some people to contribute props on to pay for things. So in the end, we had family paying for. The card will rocket the decorations as well as additional space toys and books, which is ideal for budget resource filmmaking. Additionally, this makes things more personal. If people have contributed towards something, then they are more willing and ready to support it and look forward to the end result. So depending on what you have decided to create, consider drumming up support from either your family and friends or even consider fully jumping into the crowd funding platform worlds. 9. Choosing your camera: not all the brainstorming actor selection scripting the story, boarding location and prop sourcing all complete. We can move on to. Actually. Filming and editing are short film. And, of course, in order to do this, we will need to select a camera. We will need good sound. We will need to think about lighting on any other equipment we might need for production. So first, let's talk about what camera on lens combination I'm going to use on also some options available to you. So I plan on using a 16 to 35 millimeter F Stop 2.8 Canon Ellen's, and the reasons for this are because one we will be working in a lot of confined spaces on need. That wide focal length to capture as much action as possible onto that fast aperture of 2.8 will also be very useful, as we will be filming inside at night. For a lot of our was scenes, I also plan on using the Cannon usr, which is a mirror's full frame camera on. I'll talk about the specs that I use on this camera to achieve a film. Look in a minute, but first I want to address a possible argument that some people might have, where they might say, How can you talk about budget filmmaking on then use a relatively expensive camera and lens combination on. The truth is, you can use any camera you like to film your short film. People even make films on their mobile phones. The reason I'm using this camera is because one being a filmmaker. It's a resource that I already own and to I already know how to use it. So I'm not wasting time learning how it works. I can get on and make my film without worrying about the technical side of things. So it's an ideal choice for me. And also, if you wanted to get a hold of this particular camera and lens combination, it wouldn't actually cost you that much On. This is especially thanks to new peer to peer lending services like Fat Lama, for example, where you can go online and find someone close to you that owns this kit or a similar kit, and you can hire it out for the day for a fraction off the cost of actually buying it outright. This camera and lens combination currently cost about $2500 but I can hire an equivalent combination for a day with extra batteries on SD cards for less than 50 bucks. Of course, if you wanted to, you could spend more or less on camera higher on lens combinations. It's up to you and depends on your project on your project budgets. So the EU S R is a great camera for filmmaking, and there are a number of reasons for this. First of all, it films in 24 frames per second, which is the frame rate that video professionals determined a long time ago to be the slowest playback rate. That still looks smooth enough to feel real on. Most of us recognize the movie based on that frame rate, although that concept is changing slightly with more modern films that have faster frame rates. But for now, we're sticking mostly to using 24 frames per second. We can also film at 60 frames per second on the U. S. Are, which allows us to create some call slow motion shots. When we interpret the footage down to 24 frames per second and I'll be showing you that later on in the editing. Additionally, the USSR is a full frame camera, which means it uses a sense of that's equivalent in size to a 35 millimeter film on It's the largest consumer former that you can buy without moving up into these specialized room off medium formats. The EU s are also comes with something called C Log as standard, which allows you to film in log, which essentially extends the dynamic range of your camera, allowing you to retain details in dark shadows as well as in bright highlights which will help us better color grades are short film later on. The EU s are also allows you to film in four K. But there's a caveat here, which is that you have a crop on that four K, which means that your shut is cropped in by a factor of 1.8, which reigns in your focal length, which essentially means that you have a more zoomed in shots, which is not good for us, as we will be working in some really confined spaces. So we want to use our 16 millimeters of 35 millimeter lens as much as possible within those particular focal wings, and as a result of this, we will be filming at full HD or 10 80 p. Now I do own other full frame camera, such as a kind of five you might free and four as well as some crop frame camera, such as the Cannon, M 50 and SL three, all of which could be used to make a short film. But because of the region's I've just highlighted, I'm going to be using the cannon e os are now. I don't own a red camera or an airy camera, but that's not stopping me from making a short film. So don't worry too much about what I am using. Think about what you have available to you to film your resource short film, as mentioned earlier, it could even be your mobile phone. It's often said that the best camera you have is the one that you have with you. So make use of the resource is you already own or investigate a camera that you could hire or even ask a friend. If you can borrow their camera for your film making projects now, the camera you decide to use might come with limitations on its own set of challenges. But don't let this put you off. Remember that the first ever filmmakers who made movies in the late 18 hundreds had vastly inferior technology than what you hold in your hand in your mobile phone today. And yet they still created some pretty amazing pieces of content, so get inventive work around those problems. I personally look forward to seeing the creative pieces on different cameras and types of technology that you use to create your short films in this class. So let me know what you used to create your resource short film on how you overcame any off those limitations. 10. Sound: sound is often said to be just as important as the visuals of your story on you might have heard. Some people say that they will put up with poor video but will refuse to watch something that has poor sound. So capturing good sound is going to be very important for your short film. So for my actor talking parts, I planned on capturing sound directly into the camera by using a road video Mike Pro attached to a boom pole that I placed directly over the head off. My actors speaking. Now I own a boom pole already, but any long stick will suffice it. In the past, I've used a broomstick and duct tape to achieve the same effect. Also, I'll be using my trusty hate one zoom recorder for Rocket Girls voiceover narration on any foley that we need. Now, Foley is basically the reproduction off everyday sound effects that are added to films. So maybe footsteps breaking glass. Squeaky doors generally things like that. For both the camera sound capture on the zoom recorder, it will be necessary to set the levels so that they don't peek Now. Peeking is distortion caused by speaking or screaming too loudly on a sensitive microphone on the way that we deal with this is to ensure that the microphone levels fall between minus 12 on minus 60 B, when someone is talking or when we're recording Foley. And that's another reason for using the Cannon e os are we can actually control the sound input levels now. Another thing that will really add value on emotion and atmosphere to your short films will be music on sound effects on. I will talk a little bit more about those later on when we come to the editing stage. 11. Lighting: Another important factor for your short film will be the lighting that you decide to use on one of the best and worst sources of lighting can be natural sunlight. Of course, filming outside using natural light is great because it's free, but it does come with its own set of challenges. First of all, it's something that we can't control on the heart. Sunlight creates blown out highlights in our image as well as sharp shadows across the face , and can cause your talent to squint and cause them to act unnaturally, unless that's the effect that you're going for. There are a couple of ways of getting around this by using flags and reflectors, which will require extra kit and people to help out. Also think about using an ND filter on your lens. These are essentially like sunglasses for your lens that allow you to shoot at higher refuges. So getting that blurred out background without blowing out your highlights or having overly bright areas on your final shot. As a filmmaker, I already own a set or studio lights. Andi Am Iran Aperture panel led lights that I use for corporate work on. I've also got a couple of gels, which are basically colored pieces of sheet plastic that I can cover over the led panel lights to create different colors, which is great for that scifi Look for those of you who don't own any special types of lighting, don't despair. Get creative. Use natural light through a window, perhaps you some blinds. Or think about using table lamps, maybe the flickering light off a TV screen or any other lights that you might have available to you. I want some remote controlled led lights that change color and have different effects on them for about $15 on eBay. On again, just having those in the background or on your props can make a massive difference to your short film. Another product that can add a lot to your production value is something called atmosphere . Aerosol spray, which is about $15 on this, can add a haze or fog effects into your scene, and it really helps to add volume on Highlight the light sources in your seen on I went through a whole can of this stuff for our resource short film, so spend a little bit of time looking through your story board and make a little note off the lighting that will be used in each of your scenes 12. Getting extra help: I just wanted to add in a little section here about getting additional help on the day as mentioned before, you might be able to drum up support for your short film with family and friends on. Even though they might not be the right fit for any acting roles, there are certainly lots of jobs that you will inevitably need help with. That could be help with sound equipment, lights, props, resetting a scene using a couple board in the industry. They're called P. A s personal assistance or runners on. They just usually run around sorting out jobs that need to be done on set. One filmmaker told me that their most successful short film, Shoot Day, was when they had 10 runners on set. So think of the logistics of the day. Will you need transport? Who's going to be getting the teas and the coffees on the food? Who could be there to hold up a flag or a reflector? Just having those extra hands is really invaluable on the day. I would like to add a word of caution here, and I would recommend thinking carefully about the people you want to include for your short film for one of my very first short films. I was on a camping trip with a bunch of friends. There were about 15 of us, and I asked if anyone was up for making a short film beforehand and everyone was really excited. Everyone was up for it, so I tried to film in the force next to where we were camping on. What happened was there were people who didn't have a particular role or job. They were getting bored. Some were just joking around, causing lots of noise on putting other people off when they were trying to act on. It really messed up the whole project on. That was mostly my fault for not planning and also not making a wise choice about who I included in that particular project. Most of the scenes were unusable, and in the end I ended up making a vlog about the camping trip instead. So getting people on board that will take things seriously is also a great piece of advice that island early on for our project, it's only Lauren and myself who can really film as well as acts and do the jobs of the runner sound lighting set design costumes and props on Lauren is pregnant, which actually means it's up to me, then to do all of the running around. 13. Basic filmmaking rules: So when it comes to filming our project, we will need to use some basic rules of composition, things like leading lines and symmetry, as well as using the rule of thirds the 180 degree raw and the 30 degree rule. I've actually made complete videos off these rules on my YouTube general, so make sure you go and check those out if you want to learn more about them and how we use them in filmmaking. If we follow these laws, we generally get more aesthetically pleasing shots on. Ideally, our storyboard should show this. It should identify where our camera is in relation to our actors on props. Shooting in threes is another principle that I advocate getting a wide establishing shots, maybe a movement shot and perhaps a mid shots or facial close up or for the same scene will generally ensure that you are covered for any cut scenes that you might want to make later on, or help cover up mistakes that you notice from the main take. For example, when we show the shots of Rocket Girls Room, we show a close up off the nightlight projector first. This helps us set the location of the scene on. This is something that we actually planned for, but we took some additional shots and angles with the Lego shuttle in shot on. This acted as some good cutaway footage later on when we needed to reduce a piece of dialogue off the mum reading a book. So while filming on location, look out for things that you might want to quickly film, as they might make your post production work easier later on. 14. Directing Actors: So as you know, we wrote the script with our actors in mind, in particular four year old rocket girl, thinking of how people naturally acts and creating a script around that for your speaking parts or getting them to say the gist of what you have scripted in their own words will ensure that you get something more natural on the camera. Now, as mentioned before, Rocket Girl here is a great little actor, but it's difficult for her to remember her lines. So we directed her toe act out her parts. But instead of having any life talking parts, we recorded Hearn aeration later on on a hate one zoom microphone on added these parts over the visuals. Lauren, on the other hand, is an English teacher, and she's used to speaking to a class full of students on. She's been in a couple of short films before, so it was easy to direct her on what to say and do for the most far. As the director, you can tell your non professional actors exactly what you want them to say and do and see how they acted out without offending them. If they feel that it's not natural to speak or act in that particular manner. Then try and adjust what you've planned to suit. What is natural for them. As an example, one off the dialogue parts that Rocket Girl had to say Waas to go where no four year old has gone before. Can you say to go where no four year old has gone before? And that proved really tricky for her to say that line clearly. So we changed the dialogue for her to simply say to go where no kid has gone before, and that seemed to do the trick. To go on a kid has gone a lot. Also depends on how much practice your actors have had again, we try to get Rocket got to say all of her narration in one Go on for the first attempt. A lot of that narration wasn't very clear, but she remembered all of her lines and would say them out loud and go around the house practicing them. So later on, I decided to re record her dialogue, and now most of the lines were much clearer, and I replaced the old dialogue with These were working with younger Children. It's important to remember that they get bored very quickly, and so you only really get a few takes before they lose concentration and possibly just give up. So you have to be patient and try to make things as simple as possible for them to understand. For a lot of the rocket girl scenes, I was shown I exactly what the actions were that I wanted her to try and act out on. If things were too difficult, I would try to simplify them. Your resource. Short film actors will have their own strengths and weaknesses on the key for you is the director is to try to identify these, work around the weaknesses and amplify the strengths. Hopefully, you should have already noted down some of those strengths when you were scripting your short film. But don't feel like you have to stick to your script or set off dialogue. If it simply isn't working out, then change it. There have been plenty of examples when actors have ad libbed in films on Change the scene a little bit on. This has worked out so well that the director decided to keep those parts in for you as a director. Getting natural reactions from your non professional actors should be your main goal. For example, if you have them in the scene talking on their phone than actually get someone to phone them if they're in a scene being chased and they need to appear out of breath than actually get them to run a couple of laps so that their breathing actually reflects this in the scene. Trying to get your actors to react to a situation as opposed to act out a situation is a great way to get as natural a performance as possible on camera. 15. Shooting Rocket Girl: your resource short film on my resource short film are probably completely different. And so focusing in on the specifics of how I filmed my short might not be completely relevant for what you are creating, but I do feel like I should spend some time to run you through Certain groups of shots that I took, as well as the approach that I took to shooting them as the filming principles involved, might be useful for what you're doing. In particular, I'm going to talk about the general, how shots the family scenes shooting the inside off the rocket, filming the Mission Control as well as the green screen work. So first of all, let's talk about the general household shots. These were probably the easiest shots to get as they didn't require any real special sets up. We just needed to tidy up the rooms as much as possible, as well as ensure that the necessary props like the rockets and astronaut suit and other props were all in place where we filmed certain scenes. The lighting in these shots were either natural light coming in through the windows or standard home lights or a combination of the two, in fact, one off the scenes where the dad comes home late. We only used a table lamp toe like a silhouette off the dud. In that scene. For other indoor scenes, such as in Rocket Girls Room, we used the space nightlight as well as a panel light reflecting off a back wall. For the most part, these scenes were quite dark, around minus one to minus two in exposure on our camera. So there is some visible grain in these shots. For the most part, these air the shots where we used the original sound or the life sound from the mum reading the story in the evening to the arguing off the parents through to the brief conversation at the end on for these, I even used a boom pole directly over the actors or simply mounted the video, might pro to the top off the camera and took sound from there. Now what about inside the rocket? One of the great things about the cardboard rocket that we got was that we were able to open it out. We decorated the inside mostly with 10 fall and even put some cheap, flashing led lights in there, which we spoke about earlier. And then we put Rocket Belt on a chair inside it, and for the most part it looked as if she was inside her actual rocket. And we get the impression that is a lot bigger inside than outside. Kind of like the Tardis in Doctor who now we set the props up and filmed all of these scenes inside my small office studio. We could have just as easily have set this up in the front room and filmed it all there. The lighting. I use my two Amarin aperture panel lights with different colored gels to set the tone of the scene. For example, when everything was normal, we used a blue light. When we hit our crisis shut, we overlay the panels with red gels onto signify a return to safety. We didn't just return to blue immediately, but instead we used green to highlight that everything was now okay on the way you use your lighting in your short can really have a profound effect on the visual storytelling that is going on in the scene when it came to shooting. Ah, lot of the shots are close to 60 millimeters and vocal linked to get the whole room in. But I also mixed up some of the shots with close ups, too. The mission control scenes were also filmed inside my little studio for the spaceship monitoring screams. I simply looked on YouTube for spaceship hoods or heads up displays that people had put on there channels for free on. I played these on the screen to make it look like a cool SciFi Mission control center. Originally, if you look at the story board, I was going to put myself on Lauren as to Mission Control officers talking together in that scene. But I decided last minute that I wasn't needed for that part of the story. And so I cut myself out completely so that I could focus on filming on directing those scenes, which I feel worked out for the best for lighting. I used my Amarin aperture lights on and use the same strategy with the blue, red and green color jails that I used in the rocket scenes toe help set the tone. The only difference here was that I used a lot off the atmosphere aerosol spray to get more volumetric lighting and The reason I used it here was because I could actually move around the lights on, have them in the background and so captured those particles floating in the air, whereas I couldn't do that inside the rockets. So let's talk a little bit about the green screen work now. Whether you choose to use a green screen or not will depend largely on your short film, what shots you're looking to get, as well as having the equipment, the actual screen on the software to key out the green color. Nowadays, green screens aren't that expensive at all on I've even known a few indie filmmakers who have gone out to an arts and crafts shop and just purchased green material or Green Card to use on their green screen projects. Now, if you want some special effects in your short film and you can get a hold of a green screen, but you're not sure how to key out the color and do the effects, there are plenty of tutorials on the Internet to help you do this on. We will even discuss a little bit of how I approach this later on in post production, but you could also find someone on a website like fiver, for example. Who can do that work for you for a pretty cheap price. I'm no expert on special effects, but I have enough working knowledge of after effects to be able to key out on Moscow different parts of the scene, which was enough to get me through the basics. Special effects off this short film for this particular project. I wanted to use a green screen to produce some of these space shots, especially those on the moon. On the obvious way to do this would be to use a green screen. Once again, All of these shots were done inside the studio with very limited space. For like the screen I used to soft box lights on. I used the two panel lights on our actress. The main thing that you want to ensure is that you have as much even light as possible on your green screen, as well as trying to avoid casting shadows on the screen, which can cause difficulties later on. When it comes to King, the come out when it came to shooting the focal length for a lot of these shots are 60 millimeters to try and get as much of our talent in as possible. But like the Rockets, I also chose to do some close up shots, too. I also filmed at a higher frame right here 60 frames per second so that I could slow everything down in post production on. I think this helps toe add that kind of slow floating space effects. Another thing that I needed to avoid when filming against the green screen was to avoid too much movement on this was because we had quite limited space. So we had to be careful that hands and legs did not move outside off the perimeter off the green screen to get the floating shots off. Rocket girl in space, I put on a blue more suit. I picked rocket girl up and slowly moved her side to side on, then keyed out the green on blue, which again we will talk a little bit about later in the post production section for the Rocket Girl Resource short film. I also use some additional filmmaking kit for a couple of the scenes. In particular, I used the Ronan s gimble for when rocket girl walks up to her spaceship toe. Help smooth out the movement in that particular shot, and I used to slider to create some slow moving parallax shots for some off the bedroom storytime scenes on the space Mission control scenes. Now these are pieces of kit that I already own and use, and they're not too expensive. If you wanted to hire them out for your short film, having well thought out controlled smooth movement will always increase the production value off your shots. So do you think about how you can incorporate these into your filmmaking? You might have noticed on my storyboard thigh added little notes on their on how I wanted to film the shot if movement was involved. Also don't feel like you have to invest in all of this extra kit. I've seen some indie filmmakers get very inventive in emulating these types of shots using household items, and there are lots of filmmaking, creativity, hacks that you can search for on YouTube. So those are some specific aspects and approaches that I took for filming my resource short film Rocket Girl. Like I mentioned earlier, your film will probably have completely different scenes, but hopefully the principles that I have discussed here are useful for your short film or future projects. 16. Organizing your footage: to ensure that I got all the shots that I needed on avoid reshooting, which would require setting up the green screen again or re dressing rooms, or getting the actors prepped and ready again on potentially waste A lot of time. I went through the storyboard and marked off each of the required shots as I got them. And it's probably a good idea that you do something similar for your short film. Use a copy off the storyboard or a tick list to ensure that you get all the shots you need in the location that you're in and keep all of those organized. It's just I've done so far. I have crossed off with a green pen on, so no pages fully done now. Normally, what you would use is a couple board while filming, which would include the scene on the take number, which you would show visually on screen and speak out to audio just before you shoot. The scene on this allows you to easily organize your footage, but because we were limited on people and because of this project not being too complex as well as not needing any sound sync, I decided not to use a couple board for this particular project, but would encourage you to do your research and use a capable if you need one. So to keep things organized, I decided to group shots together according to their location and film them all in One Go, for example, or the green screen work was done at the same time and then was put in a folder called Green Screen. Likewise, all the shots where we can see Rocket Girl inside her rocket were shocked at the same time and put in a folder called Inside Spaceship on all the Mission Control scenes were shot in a couple of hours and put in a folder called Mission Control. When it came to recording the narration, I got NYR to record all of her voice over bits. In one Sitting on, I put all the hate ones involved in a folder core generation, as mentioned earlier. We re recorded some of these later on, and I put them in a new folder called New Vocals. Now all of this might seem like common sense, but just having everything neatly arranged on organized well during and after filming will help you massively when it comes to your post production work 17. Editing: So for the filming now complete, we can move on to our editing, and the first thing that you will want to do is choose an editing program now, because I have the complete Adobe CC package that I use for work, I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro as my editing software. This is something that I already own on know how to use and just by way of a quick disclaimer, this is not Carson how to use Premiere Pro. There are vast number of resource is available to you out there for free to teach you that , but I will be sharing a few tips and tricks on how I approach the editing process. And if you don't have Adobe Premiere Pro, don't stress. There are plenty off editing packages that you can use out there. Some of them are free. I started dancing my early short films using Windows Movie Maker, and that was 10 years ago, so I can only imagine what tools are now available for free for filmmakers out there today . So let's jump into Premiere Pro and start off by creating a new project on importing all of the organized folders of footage and voice overs into the project section. Because each of these folders contains groups of scenes. I will also be using the storyboard that we created to help cut my edit together in the same way that I used it to ensure that I had the shots that I had planned when I was filming. I will also use it as a guy to help make sure I get the right cuts in place for my edit and why will do with each of these folders is create a new sequence and quickly sift through the scenes removing takes that are not usable on. I'll chop up the good sakes into usable cuts on what I normally do is lift these particular cuts onto a new line just above. So I know that these air takes that I should consider using in the final edit. The next step is to create a main sequence which I will now use to create the final cut on here. I will start laying down the cuts from the previous sequences, which I lifted onto new layers that I want to include in the final edits, including the unedited green screen parts on our literally continue laying out all of my footage folders into timelines, cutting and lifting. Why want to include on adding these cuts to the main file until I have a complete rough draft of my short film? And it's really useful to see this as it gives you an idea of what the final result will look like. Roughly for many people, editing is an art form, so there are no hard and fast rules here. If there is something that you don't think works in the edit, even if it's in your story board, don't feel like you have to keep it in. For example, I plan to have some aid in writing Flash up on the Moon Rock after I put it down on the table, and I took time creating that effect. But after getting Lauren tohave looking it, she was confused as to actually what was going on. She thought the end credits were running, so we both agree that we could remove that writing and still have a good impact at the end with that scene. In addition, you'll notice from the storyboard that I planned on ending the film with that Moon rock However, later on, I felt that having Rocket Girl going to sleep on talking about her adventure and then dipping that scene to black worked a lot better as an ending than what I had originally planned. Likewise, if there is a shot that you had taken on a whim while filming on, do you think it works really well? Don't be afraid to include it, even if it's not in your story board. For example, when we were filming the green screen shots off Rocket Girl picking up the Moon Rock, I had only planned for a close up of her holding it. But on the day I decided to do a low shot, and I kicked the rock just before she picked it up. And I really like that shot for some reason. And so I included it in the final edit. If it looks good and it works fantastic, the way you tell your story is going to be up to you. But it's not a bad idea to get other people involved to get some fresh eyes on different scenes on See if the way you've edited a certain scene makes sense. Does it add to the story? Or does it confuse just getting a few people that you trust will give you honest feedback? Tohave a watch but really helped shape and developed the story elements off your edit. Some additional things to point out from my project here is that some of the footage is shot at 60 frames per second and needed to be interpreted at 24 frames per second to get a slow motion on. We can do this in Premiere by revealing the footage in the project, right, clicking it on going to interpret footage, and now we can assume a frame rate of 24 frames per second. Again, this creates a slow motion. On this effect is what I wanted, particularly for the spacings on some of the shots of Rocket Girl making her spaceship. Additionally, some of the handheld footage and slide the footage is a little shaky. So for those shots, I used the warp stabilizer tool to smooth the movement out. You can simply search for what stabilizer in the effects menu on. Drop that onto your shaky footage. Give it time to analyze and stabilize, and hopefully it smoothed out your footage just as a warning. For those of you who don't know, the warp stabilizer doesn't always work, particularly on footage that is shut on a gimbal, it might actually make things look worse. Now. The editing process is one that is highly evolutionary, as you continue to clean things up, to chip away at certain parts on, move things around, you get closer and closer to a polished, finished edit that you were happy with or, at the very least, content with. 18. Simple Effects: with a complete rough outline off our movie in Premiere Pro. We can now move on to doing some off the visual effects on most of the effects for Rocket Girl were made inside of Adobe after effects. I'm in no way a master of after effects, but I do have enough working knowledge of its to be able to undertake the effects myself. Along with using a few free assets from Internet Andi, as well as following a few YouTube tutorials. I'm not sure if your project includes any special effects, but I will be running through how I created some of the visuals in my short film in this section on. Hopefully, this will give you an idea of what you might be able to do in your resource short film. One great reason for using aftereffects on Premiere Pro Together is a little thing called Dynamic. Linking on, this enables you to work across different Adobe CC applications for the same project. So, for example, we can click on our green screen footage here in the premier timeline and select replace with after effects composition, and it will then open that clip as a composition in after effects. I never could do alot the visual effects that we want on this particular clip on, as if by magic, we can go back to premier on all the changes that we made to our clip in after effects will now be visible in our premiere. Pro timeline on this saves us from having to render out clips in after effects and then import them into premiere on This saves a lot of time, especially if we want to make small changes to our special effects clips. Alternatively, we can also create the special effects directly in after Effects on, then directly dropped the 80 composition into premiere. This will create the dynamic link, and then we can simply drop the after effects composition into the timeline from there. So one of the first special effects that we come across in the film Rocket Girl is off her , taking off in her rockets and going into space on for this shop. We actually used a lot of masking keying freeze frames and free assets that I pulled off the Internet to get this shot. I filmed a clean shots off the background without the rocket there for about 30 seconds. I then film the shut off the Rocket, just sitting there for about 30 seconds again. I then entered the shots and lifted the Rockets into the air. I imported that footage into after effects and overlay the shot of me picking up the rockets on top off the clean background. I then created a mask around the rockets on key frame, the movement for each frame as I picked it up off the ground. Once I got to the highest point of where I lifted the rocket, I created a duplicate off the layer on Freeze. Framed of that particular shot, I then key frame the position off the rocket until it left the frame for the dust and rock it trail effects. I found a free piece of green screen footage called Green Screen Rocket Trail on. I keyed out the green and place this on my screen. And for the actual rocket effect, I found another free piece of footage called CG flamethrower. I scaled it up, added a mask with a feather on key frame this footage to follow the rocket as it took off to make more dust. I simply added more off the rocket trial footage and adjusted the opacity to make it slowly appear on build on screen. I had massed out the real shadow off the rocket, so I decided to create a black solid with the mascot. I feathered and added a faint shadow back in to really sell This effect are shown in the filming section all the scenes with Rocket Girl on the Moon I've done in front of a green screen. Now, once again, this is not a course on green screen filming and editing, but I will give you a general breakdown off how I have approached this for my short film. Once in after effects, grabbed the selective color effect and drop it onto your footage, go to the settings and toggle down the RGB section on Really Make the green standouts. You can even duplicate this effect to really punch the greens, then select the keel at one point to effect used the I drop tool to highlight the green and key it out. You can go into the screen that menu and adjust the black and white tolerances to really clean up the screen. One of the issues that we had to deal with here is green, reflecting off of the helmet, and the visor is also slightly tinted green. And also we get instances where the green screen can actually be seen through the visor on . Because of this, we lose some of the details in the helmet on the face when we kee the green screen. Additionally, we get a lot of noise, an artifact ing around black parts of the spacesuit on the boots. So in order to fix this, I'm asked in particular elements over the top off the green screen footage. So I placed the original footage over the top, created a mask for those specific elements on then key frame the new mosque for the duration of the clip. This allowed a clean version off just the helmet or just the boots to follow the key doubt character. Now this can take a lot of time, but it does ensure that everything is as clean and tidy as possible. And I pretty much followed this same approach for each of the green screen shots, essentially pushing the greens, king the greens and then using masks to tidy up any artifacts. I also did the same for the blue color off the blue more suit that I was wearing for the scenes where Rocket Girl was floating in space for the floating food shots. I just place them food on some string in front of the green screen. I filmed at 60 frames per second, and then I keyed out the green and mast out the string on added the finished shot on top off the relevant footage. Another effect that I did subtly in after effects was the camera shake, particularly for the scenes inside the rockets when the warning lights were going on. And there's lots of flashing, as well as when the rocket was landing. To add this simple effect, I used the wig a little. I created two key frames for the position at the beginning. On at the end. I don't added in some frequency adjustments to give the slight shake effect that you see on screen. I also scaled up the footage slightly to avoid any corners being revealed on the sides during the shakes. In order to create the shots of the Earth and the moon, I used a free are for effects plug in called VC orb, which you can get from video copilot dot net I would really recommend checking out video copilot if you're a beginner on, want to learn about after effects, step by step. I followed the tutorial on there in order to make the earth, and then I modified that to make the moon on. The amazing thing about this plug in is you can control the camera movement within after effects, allowing you to have whatever angle you want on. I controlled the camera to create the slow pushing shots off the Earth on the moon. I also used the space background in that project file to create the moving space that you see when Rocket Girl is in her spaceship. I simply mast out the windows in the ship, feathered the mar slightly to blend them on. Then I put the space layer behind the rocket ship. I then key frame the movement off the space, either up and down or left to right to create the impression that the rocket was moving through space. So that's a brief overview of how I did the effects for Rocket Girl. They're not great, but because the premise of our short story is following the imagination of a young girl going into space in a cardboard rocket. The audience can be quite forgiving for our lack of Hollywood star special effects. In fact, I think that having our effects a little rough around the edges helps to sell the idea and story a little better to our audience. 19. Colour correction and grading: when it comes to color correction. I spent a lot off the time ensuring that my white balance on exposure were correct while I was filming. That helped to ensure that I didn't have to make too many changes later on in post production. I did make some tweets using the temperature and tint tools to ensure that most of the corresponding footage matched as much as possible for the color grade, I decided to use a subtle orange until color grade on. I simply added this in by using an adjustment layer with a loom ITRI color wills effect. I pushed the oranges in the mid tones on the till colors in the shadows on a lot of creators use that color grade nowadays, as it complements the skin tones. Aan has a little more off a cinematic look to it. Now. There are lots that you can purchase or get for free that you can drop onto your footage, and these can really change up the field off your resource short film. But for this project, I didn't really have any natural greens or blues in my shop that I wanted to pop out on screen. Ah, lot of the shots have done at night or in space. So keeping the color Grader simple is possible. I feel helped to set the tone off this short film. 20. Sound design: with the majority off our visuals done, we can start to look at our sound design, and getting the sound as good as possible is just as important as getting the visuals rights. So first up, we want to look at our native or natural sound bites that we recorded while filming on for this project to the majority of those natural recorded sounds can be muted or deleted. But there are a few conversations that we want to keep in. Like when the mom and dad are reading stories to Rocket Girl on when they are arguing on. Then it might be necessary to clean up the sound with a D noise effect, which you can just drag and drop from premieres. Effects menu on this essentially removes background noise or hum as well as that. We might need to adjust the gain slightly if you need your sound clip louder or adjust the levels if there's any peeking in a certain part of the dialogue now, because we set our levels during the filming, this wasn't actually too much of an issue at this point, we can also start to add in the voice over narration of rocket girl into the relevant scenes again, I used the storyboard to guide me here, and ideally, we want to go through all the dialogue to match up the levels so that they are roughly the same and some a lot louder or quieter than others. The way we introduce our dialogue can also be very important. For example, when the mom and dad a reading rocket girl a bedtime story, we don't see them straight away. We're actually looking at the space might light, and we slowly fade in sound off the reading before we cut away to a shot of them. Reading the book on this really helps to establish the scene for some of the dialogue, for example, when the moment other arguing. But the camera showing those rocket girl in her room. We put a dampening filter on that audio so that it's not the main focus we can kind of hear in the background, but it isn't the focus of our attention. Next up are the sound effects. Using sound effects really helps to enhance the quality off your production. So in our film, having the sound effects of the rocket taking off through to the warning alarm sounds in Mission Control warning Morning morning. All of these really helped add atmosphere to the scenes. The majority of the sound effects that I used in this project come from epidemic sounds. Now I personally use epidemic sounds a lot for my commercial work on, so I have a commercial account with them already. But saying that for my early short films, I used to use free sound dog on the sound bible dot com. A lot on these sites host thousands of free sound effects, and nowadays YouTube also has a free, royalty free catalogue that you can use for your projects. The third part of our sound design section is choosing the right music for your scenes on. I personally dedicate a lot of time to searching for on listening to different pieces of music that I want to include in my scenes again. I used epidemic sounds for all the music in the Rocket Girl Resource Short film on one of the reasons that make epidemic sounds so good for choosing music is the amount off filters that you can Adam to really narrow down the type of genre style and mood that you're looking for. And if we quickly jump into epidemic sounds, I can show you what I mean by that. So we can look at the genres or moods of the music, or we can type in something that we want to search, for example, space on. Then we can further reduce that by adding filters to hone in on what we might be interested in. Using epidemic sounds also gives you the ability to download the stems off the music track , which basically means it gives you the individual components that make up the soundtrack. So, for example, the beats, the percussions, the tune, maybe guitar solos. These are all delivered separately, and so you can choose to remove them, add them in or have them only in certain parts, which gives you massive control over your scenes and how they sound. And Phil, for example, in the scene with Rocket Girl walking to her rocket, I used the tune entitled The Cold Light of Day on. I used the stems for the bass, the melody and the instruments, but I found that the drums were too overpowering for what I wanted for this particular scene. So I decided to leave them out. Choosing the right music is never easy. I often just listen to music in the background while doing other tasks on. If there is something that I think will work for a certain scene, I will add it to my favorites or to a playlist on You can actually see My Rocket Girl Playlist here, which is full of music that I listen to Aunt Thought, had potential to work for different scenes in the short film again, when I started creating films, I relied on free music, particularly from incompetent from Kevin MCA Lloyd, which still has a large library off royalty free free music today. And don't forget that YouTube also have their own personal library that you can have a listen to on use, and this is especially useful if you are on a budget. 21. Finishing touches: with my project almost complete, there are a couple of things that we can do to actually polish it up. First of all, I used a film grain effect over the special effects because they look a little bit too clean. And I found these grain effects for free on the Internet, and I just over laid them on top of the special effects green screen footage using overlays , a blend mode, and I drop the opacity down by 50% to give it more of a filmic look. I also added in some black bars, most movies incorporate black bars. It gives that cinematic fill on. We can simply add these in Premiere Pro by using an adjustment layer with a crop effects and then bring in the top on the bottom by 10% giving us those movie black bars on. Of course, I needed an intro and an outro. So using the V C or plug in in after effects on turning on the cinema four D renderers, I was able to create this simple three D in true and out True on I put my logo on there as well, and that pretty much sums up the process that I took for post production on this particular project, one side points. A mention on the editing, special effects and sound design process would be that you don't have to 100% stick to this order or method. You could do the editing and sound design at the same time. For example, when I got bored of doing one aspect of the special effects, I would then move on to sound effects. Or I would listen to potential tracks off music while doing the special effects at the same time on. That's because I had to do everything myself. Normally, if you have a team of people working on different elements off a project, they would probably just focus on their particular part. But again, because of budget, I was doing everything myself, and I kind of drifted in and out off different areas, different parts of the project until everything was complete. I do feel that doing things in a methodical order will probably help you as a solo filmmaker, but working the way that works for you. As long as you get all of those elements done and you come out with a finished film, that is the main thing 22. Summary: no project is ever going to be perfect. And here are a few things that I would change if I could go back and do it again. First of all, I would probably use a little bit more light for some off my night scenes. They seem just a little bit too dark on having some extra light in. There would have probably helped quite a lot on in line with that. Maybe a little more contrast to the Cee Lo footage. Maybe it's just a little too flat. Also, I should have waited for a cloudy a day to film the outside rocket scenes. These scenes have some really harsh shadows on. That's because off the blazing sunlight that we had on that day, if I had waited till the next day, there were a lot more clouds out and I could have had some better filtered sunlight. And finally, I wish I could have spent more time cleaning up the effects. There is still a lot of work that could have been done to make them more polished, saying that though you can't work on a project forever, there comes a time where you just have to let it be, set it free to the outside world so that you can start working on the next story. All in all, this project took about three weeks to create from conception to completion. And to make it special, we had a zoom party screening with Rocket Girl on Door. Her family and friends toe watch the premiere on YouTube, and why not? Once you're short film is made you put in alot that extra effort and work, make sure that you share it and everybody gets to see it. 23. Final thoughts: when it comes to creativity, there are no boundaries, but for resource filmmakers were limited in what we can use and what we can do. But that doesn't mean that we can't get inventive to create our short films and tell our stories on. I sincerely hope that this class is giving use and useful tips and tricks to get your resource short film off the ground from conception to execution on the final production. I personally look forward to watching your class projects on seeing how you put your one minute orm or resource film together. And if you need any advice or help along the way, or want to know more about how I approached this project, then just leave me a little message and I'll do my best to get back. So thanks again so much for joining me on this class, and I look forward to seeing you again on the next one