The 10-Second Filmmaker: Learn Storytelling 10 Seconds at a Time

1. Class Intro: In this class, you learn the essentials of filmmaking by creating a ten second short film. This class isn't about creating a masterpiece in one go, and it's certainly not about shortcuts. It's about giving you a tool that removes the barriers keeping you from making your film. So this film class is different because it allows you to jump directly into the process without worrying about rules or mistakes. My name is Olaf, and I'll be your teacher in this class. I was born and raised in the Icelandic countryside, surrounded by sheep that were much smarter than me. Since then, I've written, directed and produced 15 feature films. Our starting point in this class will be a question that rhymes to make a film, Where do I begin? How about starting with 10 seconds? This class is for anyone new to filmmaking or those feeling stuck in their journey as a visual storyteller. What you need for this class is any kind of camera and a computer to edit your film. But most importantly, starting in this class will be easy. We begin with your idea and shape it gently. 10 seconds at a time. Thank you for checking out the introduction for this class. Let me tell you a little bit more about how it works. What kind of films can we do in only 10 seconds? The answer is all kinds of films, a science fiction, perhaps, or a documentary. From lesson to lesson, I'll create my own ten second examples to inspire you. If you have a big idea, start small. Start with just 10 seconds. Take a slice of your concept, a single moment, and bring it to life. So this is how this class works. Early in the class, you're gonna be making your ten second short film. We're gonna have some lessons. I'm going to talk about theme, directing, screenwriting, three acts, and all that. Then I'm also gonna shoot an example film or to several of them to kind of inspire you. But at the end of the class, then you're going to remake one of your ten second films, something that you choose, just to see how much you've learned just by filming 10 seconds. I want to briefly share that I've created several filmmaking classes covering essential aspects of the craft. These include making a short film, screenwriting, documentary filmmaking, crafting movie trailers, and financing your film. Each class comes with comprehensive downloadable guides to support your journey as a visual storyteller. For even more free resources, visit my website where you'll find additional tools, insights, and inspiration to help you bring your stories to life. One of the interesting thing about creativity and filmmaking is that we do not have to know what we're doing ahead of time. And in this class, that's exactly what we're gonna do. We're gonna reverse the order. 2. Class Project: Thank you for joining this class. In this section, we're going to dive into the class project, which, of course, is to create your very own ten second short film. But before we dive in, here's the simple breakdown. Early in the class, you'll begin creating your ten second short film. You can make more than one if you'd like. Midway through, you'll choose 110 second film as your main project. From there, we'll explore screenwriting, cinematography, editing, sound, and so on. At the end of the class, you will remake your film to see how much you've learned making only 10 seconds at a time. So this is how this class works. Early in the class, you're going to be making your ten second short film. We're gonna have some lessons. I'm going to talk about theme, directing, screenwriting, three acts, and all that. Then I'm also going to shoot an example film or several of them to kind of inspire you. But at the end of the class, then you're going to remake one of your ten second films, something that you choose, just to see how much you've learned just by filming 10 seconds. In this class, it's important to hit the ten second mark completely. We are practicing the precision and discipline that comes with that because in filmmaking, it's very easy to kind of let it slide 1 second over, 1 second less. But this is probably the only requirement that I make for the class that you hit the 10 seconds mark to the frame. So in this class, we're going to be doing, obviously a ten second short film. We'll begin by talking about your idea. That's kind of the first lesson to talk about your idea and how you find it. A part of finding your idea is trying not to find it. It's funny how that works. The most important thing is to kind of play with your camera. Like, go outside or stay inside, film something, anything that kind of draws your interest, you know? Then after we've talked about your idea, you don't have to find it yet. We're gonna explore and touch on a little bit of things like theme, talk about screenplay a little bit, but most importantly, it's all about placing the camera in your hand and walking outside. And then kind of after the fact, after you film something, Oh, this could be a nice ten second short film. Oh, this could be a nice ten second short film. After you've done that, then we start to kind of dig into it. Then we can kind of start talking about theme again and kind of start to sharpen your idea little by little. What you need for this class is a camera and a computer to edit your material. I would also add in there that you maybe have a microphone or something to write on, you know, all kind of everything you can get your hands on. It depends on what kind of film you want to make. If you are using your phone, make sure that you use the back end of your phone, never the self emote, because that is very poor quality. Once you've completed the class, it's super important to leave a written review. Reviews help keep the class alive and make it possible for me to keep creating future classes. Once you've completed your ten second short film, I encourage you to share it in the class project. If you do that and write a review, I can give you feedback on your film, but mostly, I just love seeing films from all around the world. Sharing your film will also inspire other filmmakers to share their work. Before we dive into the first lesson discussing your idea, the next lesson is a quick but important note on why a relaxed mindset is key to making your film and accessing your creative side. 3. Preparation: In this lesson, the main challenge is to relax. We're about to dive into all sorts of things in filmmaking throughout this course, but this particular lesson is just a warm up, a reminder that filmmaking is meant to be fun, even playful. So as you can see, I'm just here in nature with my small camera and using the phone here to record the audio for safety. Um, the camera has a microphone, but oh, it's good to have the phone. Maybe the intention with this particular lesson. I air cold is that we try to relax into it as much as we can, because it is challenging to try to make a film, because we do see our reflection, quite a bit, and we're often shy about our reflection, we're shy about our art. And we rarely see how capable we are and how smart we are and how unique we are. It's a little bit corny, but it's true. Got to take it. It's a dry swallow. The concept here is a little bit of thinking before we begin our journey into this class. The lessons are more like tools because it's really hard to teach somebody how to do filmmaking, unless there are the basics, and that's basically how I formulated, hopefully the lessons that are more in the forms of basic instructions. So you can kind of learn how to draw apples and oranges before you create your banana. For me, there is only one rule in filmmaking. That is basically there are no rules. Because nobody really knows how films work and in metaphor, films are maybe sometimes like a rainbow. Like a rainbow is put together into by all sorts of meteort elements, weather elements, but a rainbow has still the ability to lift the heart. This was the warm up lesson to relax before we begin, and in the next lesson, we'll discuss your idea for this class. 4. Your Idea For This Class: In this lesson, we're going to explore your idea for this class and discuss how important it is not to overthink it given the ten second filmmaker mindset. To prepare for this class, you don't really have to sit down and just think, Oh, I need an idea for the class. I should really stop here and map it out. No, let's not do that, but do the opposite. The thing is that your hands and your body, they're pretty sharp, they're very often smarter than your brain in a way. With the ten second filmmaker mindset, our goal is to avoid overthinking before taking action. Reflection and opinions have their place, but here we deliberately push that process to the background, so it doesn't stand in our way. The priority is action, imperfect action, but action nonetheless. Start by taking a camera, go outside or stay inside, shoot your film, any concept you have, look at the material in your computer and kind of think about it, then eventually, you're gonna kind of grab your idea like that, like, just from the doing. And when you have that, then start writing the screenplay after you filmed. So we're switching the order. So when you're doing films in the future, of course, you want to write the screenplay. So everybody around you can kind of know what you're doing. But in this particular class with only 10 seconds, it's all about reversing the order. You know. So instead of thinking and doing, we are doing then thinking, and there's a lot of benefits that can come from just practicing that. So I suggest that you take a camera, be it a phone or a regular camera and just take a walk around. Your compass is not really Oh, I got a great idea. Your compass is more like just film something, anything and see how it feels, because the first sign is usually, Oh, this is unremarkable. I shouldn't be filming this. Just let yourself roam a little bit. Don't overthink it. This comes in a couple of phases. Use your body, use your hands, film something. So when we are working on in filmmaking, it isn't only about making films. It is more about, um um, it's not sure what I'm saying, but I'm saying it's it's therapeutic to work on your ideas, go out into nature. It's, um, at least for me, form of meditation, sometimes. Even though we're hearing an airport close by. But I can also hear the birds. And as you film, it's more about practicing. Remember, filmmaking has no right or wrong, and essentially, it's about discovery. You're discovering, as you go, allow yourself that freedom. Just play around and be open to ideas coming from unexpected places. This is how great concepts often emerge. In the next lesson, we'll be discussing the magic wand of filmmaking. The most important and most challenging to grasp tool theme. See you in the next lesson. 5. Theme - Magic Tool: In this lesson, we're going to discuss theme. It's one of those powerful tools that's often underestimated and underused, mainly because it seems complicated, but that's exactly why it's so valuable. Theme is the foundation of your project, and studying it will challenge you, refine your work, and elevate your storytelling. The deeper you explore it, the stronger your project will become. So theme is kind of the magic wand of it all. It's almost undefinable. It is a complicated concept. Just when you hear the word theme, who knows what it means? You could just as well just say the air. Theme is something that I never really thought about or worked on or wanted to think about. I just thought it was a fancy pancy word, useless, basically, but. The more films I do, the more important theme becomes. For example, if I'm doing a film and I'm not sure what the theme is, it doesn't really matter because theme is supposed to be kind of the puzzle of the film. So just as we're doing the 10 seconds, we're not really sure why we're doing the 10 seconds. Why am I filming this? Why am I filming that, and so on and so forth. But usually, during or after the fact, theme kind of creeps in, because as soon as I know the theme of my film, I can kind of connect it to my life. So as an example, let's say that you're doing a film about injustice and some kind of specific kind of injustice, like human rights violation, something that really strikes you to the core. That's gonna be a fundamental thing for you because if you believe something to the core, just like, you know, injustice, it's going to give you a drive. So when you find the correct theme for your film, you find your theme for the film, then you're never going to get tired. You're gonna have endless amount of energy because you're doing something for cause. On top of that, when you know the theme, theme might start to suggest what kind of lights you want for your film. Do you want the film to be dark? If you don't a film about injustice, for example, maybe something is hidden in the shadows. You're gonna have shadows on one side of the frame throughout the film. Yeah. You might decide that the characters in the film are maybe small in size. Yeah? Because they're isolated. So that could be another part of the theme, and that is this isolation. So, in an endless amount of ways, you're gonna have theme contributing to every single aspect of your film, even the editing. Like, how do you edit a film that's about some kind of injustice, some kind of isolation? Maybe that rhythm when you edit it is gonna be slow and kind of eerie. So theme, theme, theme. That's one of them. It's one of the magic things. Yeah. In the next lesson, we'll dive into the three structure of filmmaking and how it applies specifically to this class. Great. 6. Three Acts - 10 Seconds: In this lesson, we're going to discuss how the three act film structure applies to your ten second film. In terms of this particular class, the three act structure technically does apply. But still, when you're doing 10 seconds, and the reason why we're doing 10 seconds is that 10 seconds is enough to kind of chop things down into three parts. So even if we're doing only 10 seconds, we are, of course, practicing in microteps for the future to do longer pieces of work. And that's always going to be a three structure, beginning, middle, and end. Anything you do is going to be a one, two, and three, yeah? Um, so as we do the 10 seconds, you're always gonna feel that thing of beginning, middle, and end. And because this class and these 10 seconds are, of course, just a little we're kind of cheating ourselves into making something bigger, like a bigger bigger project. But we start with the 10 seconds. There's always that same thing of crawl and walk and all that. Even though we know that's usually the correct path to take to start small, it's hard to do it because the human mind is just it's not a linear thing. Yeah, so as you take your camera outside, film something, I'm always looking at the birds, film something. Um, it is really hard because it's so undefined. It's, you know, it almost sounds silly to do that. But again, take it from me, 20 plus years of experience. Trust the process a little bit. And even if you don't like the process, it's gonna be harmless. It's gonna be 10 seconds. Yeah, so just to sum it up a three act structure, you don't really have to think about it beforehand. You're gonna think about it afterwards. There's gonna be like something you film, like if I'm filming a bench, it's gonna be here's a bench, close shot. Here's a bench, and here's a bench from another angle. That's always going to be a start of a three hour structure. Because as soon as we see the bench, regardless if we edit it or not, if it's just a one shot of a bench for 10 seconds, we might start to think, I've sat on the bench. I bet a lot of other people sat on the bench. And I bet they have some history. So instantly with only 10 seconds, the story begins. And usually it begins within us. The only thing we have to do as filmmakers is film things clearly. And then the viewer is gonna bring the rest in. So doing the 10 seconds is always a little bit like, almost like a clean language of filmmaking. You just do simple. And it turns out, like everything in life, it's pretty, pretty complicated. In the next lesson, it's time to make the first version or versions of your ten second film. At the end of this class, you're going to select one of your ten second films and remake it with all the tools you've picked up along the way. 7. Start Making Your Film: This lesson is technically not a lesson. It's an official green light for you to start making the first version of your film, your first ten second film for this class. So let's talk about how many shots you can put into 10 seconds. You can put maybe one shot, have, like, a one shot all the way through these 10 seconds. Two shots, obviously, three shots, for sure. Four shots and then five shots. You might be able to squeeze in five shots in your ten second film. The most important thing is that you, test it. Like, regardless if it's one, two, three, four, five shots, um, you want to make sure that it comes across. So the best way to do that is to simply do the ten second film and then test it. You know, show it to someone and just see how it if the message comes across. So another important thing to keep in mind when you're doing your short film is regardless of how many shots you're doing, just keep in mind that sound plays a huge role in getting the message across. Like let's say if you're using five shots, but the sound is choppy, chi, check, chi. Then it's going to be irritating. It's going to pull anyone who's watching your film. Out of it, yeah. So sound is kind of the hidden kind of hidden shot. Like, if the sound is smooth, then it's more likely that you get the message across. It's also to use an analogy, sound is sometimes like almost like an embrace. Like, you can do 10 seconds. But with the correct sound, you can kind of slow the experience down. Like, let's say you have five quick shots, boom, boom, boom, boom, but the sound is almost like a bed of feathers, like an embrace, and the time is going to slow down. So keep in mind. So as you are directing your film, it's important to remember that we are practicing. It takes a lot of courage to attend second short film because it's so short, it is almost too easy through the years when I've been teaching filmmaking, one of the biggest obstacles I've seen in students and with myself included is that doing something that is apparently so easy. Is probably one of the hardest things, but it's also the most rewarding things. Again, don't take my word for it because making any kind of film is as I always say, it's not a linear path. Um, I mean, I can do a film class and I can say, D A, B, and C, but everybody's thinking is different. So it isn't really, like, there isn't really a one size that fits all. So just to be clear, I'm filming now here in my car, and I'm not on a road where there's, like, family houses. It's a road to the site, so to speak. And this filming that we're doing now is being done very carefully and thoughtfully. So, the more I've been working on this class, this philosophy of only 10 seconds at a time, the more I've come to realize that there's only so much I need to say or do or teach, so to speak, because it is very much like grab a camera and film something. And then it's somewhat of a road of self discovery. That's one thing. But however, I do think that kind of the framework of this class can be beneficial. Like, this is not a live recording. But it is kind of nice to have some kind of a structure, you know, like this kind of class to have as a sort of witness to your process. So first, you're going to experiment with making your film kind of in your own way without listening to too much of the rules or anything that I might say. So I'm basically saying, Ignore me. To a degree, maybe. But as you do your film, do it kind of blindly, do it in your own way. And then, um, by little, you can check out, you know, the rule book, some of the guidelines, and then basically just take what you think is right for you. So what I'm not saying that, Oh, you already know what you're doing. I'm not saying that. Absolutely not. But there is a part of you that definitely knows what you're doing. So listen to that part. Like, so much of this kind of class needs to come through your hands, not just here. This is something that everybody knows, but it's really hard to put into practice. I know it for sure because even though I have a lot of experience, I deal with this thing every day in every project, it's hard to go and do. And it's really hard to know the difference. Like when should I take action? When should I be home, writing and thinking? Yeah, and when do I go out and actually do it? Yeah. So in this small exercise, which, of course, isn't small in the end, but it looks small. It looks doable to do 10 seconds. So So if you haven't already made several attempts to do a ten second film, now is the time to go out and do your ten second film, at least your first version of it. It might be the second version, whatever. And I just want to stress that it's very important that you do this first attempt, that you do a version of your ten second film without thinking too much about technique or film philosophy because when you reshoot your film, you're going to really see how much you can learn in this short period of time. In the next lesson, we'll explore what it means to be a film director and the many responsibilities that come with the role. 8. Film Directing: In this lesson, we're going to talk about how to approach directing your film. In this class, we aim to be strict about the ten second limit. While it may be tempting to exceed that, doing so risks losing the benefits that come with this discipline. So in this class, it's important to hit the ten second mark completely because we are practicing the discipline and the precision that comes with that, because in filmmaking, our ideas are big, massive. They are undisciplined. And when we practice this kind of precision that comes with the philosophy of this class, we are kind of countering that because we want to be able to tame something so massive and undefinable as a film idea because also when you are a toothpaste and you're not in the toothpaste can, how are you going to brush your teeth? As the director of the ten second short film, you are in many ways, everything. You're the producer, the director, and possibly the cinematographer. But in all cases, you are the author. The great thing about working with this short format is that it allows you to practice and refine your approach frequently. When directing a longer film, the scale and complexity can be overwhelming. Many directors begin shooting without fully developing their visual or directing style. With this format, you can micro analyze and experiment with different styles to find what resonates with you. So being a film director is in a metaphor, much like being a Swiss Army knife. You kind of have to be good at everything. I might surprise you how much administration and organization and organizing, listening to other people, that's a high percentage of the job. Kind of learning to listen to your environment, to the people working with you, and so on and so forth. Um however, mostly and kind of, most importantly, being a director is kind of like learning to trust your gut feeling. And a part of that is learning to see the value of artistic mistakes. Like when you're taking a chance, with a scene or with a film concept, is that you really have to kind of tolerate when you scold yourself or when anyone around you is scolding you, like, telling you, This is not a good idea, and so on and so forth. Well, the thing is you don't really know or never know if it's a good idea or bad idea unless you test it. But it takes a lot of energy to kind of learn to kind of embrace making mistakes. Um, I would just say, like, as you kind of practice it, you will learn very quickly that when you take these artistic chances or make a silly idea, um, you kind of get away with it endlessly. If you just do one thing, if you're always polite and if you respect your environment, you respect the people around you, then everything is going to go much smoother in terms of taking artistic chances. Um another tip, maybe for you, something that I usually think about is very often, tap into, like, being a child, like having the eyes of a child, just being vulnerable, not sarcastic and kind of being in it, and being in the film. It's hard to explain it, but you just in your own way, try to connect to it and kind of be your film, smell it, sense it, react to it, feel how you feel just physically towards the world of your film. It is an abstract art to think like this. But that's, I would say, a big part of the job is to do this kind of this kind of directing. In the next lesson, we'll talk about screenwriting and why for this class, it can be helpful to write your screenplay after you've finished shooting your film. 9. Screenplay: In this lesson, we'll practice writing a screenplay for your film. Before we begin, let's take a quick look at what this lesson covers. First, I'll talk about writing your screenplay and thinking about theme. Then I'll show you how I wrote the screenplay for my own ten second film. And finally, I'll walk you through a minicrash course, how to write in the screenplay format so you can confidently write your own. Before we start this screenwriting lesson, let's be clear. Making your film actually physically with your hands with a camera is the absolute priority in this class. So if you feel like writing the screenplay might slow you down at this stage, then skip this lesson and come back to it later. As we move into the writing part of this class, and of course, we're doing this ten second film. We want to make sure that we also practice writing the screenplay. However, because this class is all about bypassing overthinking, we want to yeah, make sure that we do that. For example, in my case, I film my film first, my ten second film, kind of use my body, go into the camera and kind of go got feeling. And then after the fact, I write the screenplay. The whole point is to kind of overstep the overthinking, because when we sit down, we start to write our screenplay.y say, you can get easily consumed by it all. So everything kind of speeds the process is good. So jump into making your film. The main thing is that you write half a page about your ten second film and practice the screenplay format. And at the end of this lesson, I'm going to give you a crass course in how to write in that in that challenging format. As an example, I'm going to walk you through the scene I wrote for the film I created specifically for this class. But before we dive into the screenplay, let's watch my ten second film first. Later in this class, I'll go into detail about how I made this film, including the editing process, color correction, and sound design. Go. K. Alright, now that you've seen my film, let me read the screenplay for you. And just so you know, it took me at least half a day to write this short script. A 16 month old baby girl dressed in a bib covered with smiling vegetables sits in her high chair. Tiny fingers clutch an empty power Ad bottle, shaking it absently. The kitchen is cluttered with everyday life, bowls, a laptop flickering on the table, a few drawings barely visible on the wall. Outside the world is a soft blur of snowfall, muted and endless. Baby turns her head. He blue eyes widen. From her point of view, we see snowflakes dance spinning in slow motion, kissed by the faint glow of daylight. The baby's face brightens, her mouth slightly open, her fingers frozen mid movement. The bottle tilts in her grip. She reaches out toward the window, tiny fingers stretching as if she could catch a flake between them. A small hand absently brings a snack to her mouth, but she never takes her gaze off the falling snow somewhere in the background, a muted clink of dishes, a faint murmur of a voice from a screen, but she doesn't notice. Her breath slows, eyes wider still. For this small, fleeting moment, she is seeing winter for the first time. Part of this is also practicing thinking about the theme. What is the theme of your film? Remember, theme is the great contributor. It's gonna help you with coloring your film, how you film your film. Um, how you do the sound and just the way you frame it, even. So the theme in my films about my daughter who is sitting in the kitchen. She's looking outside a window. She sees snow falling down. And she smiles. I can kind of pick and choose. I can choose. Is that theme about well, I'm not gonna even riff about it. I'm just gonna say my gut feeling is it's about time. Time, snow, it's like time. Go slowly. Stanking gonna creep up on us. She's young, and in one instance, she's gonna be 20-years-old. Here is a quick guide about writing in the screenplay format. Please notice that this step is not necessary for this class, but it is a great opportunity to practice writing in this challenging format. So this is a crass course in screenplay format, and we're going to do it pretty quickly. We're going to start with the scene header, when and where does the scene take place? Then we're going to go into characters, how we present them. What is uppercase? How do we say their age? How is dialogue formatted and structured? And we're also going to talk about the fancy little brackets that we can use all around the screenplay in parenthesis and descriptions, off screen dialogue and voiceover, and we're going to wrap it up with the use of transitions. So first things first, let's start with the scene header. In the scene header, we tell the audience if the scene is inside or outside, INT or EXT, and we say the name of the location. Where does the scene take place? And then we tell the audience what time of day it is. So this is several practicalities, like, in terms of production, it is good for the production to know when and where the scene takes place. When we introduce a character, we say their name, and usually, I mean, it's up to you. It's a little bit of style issue. It's nice to put their name in all caps in the beginning and then their age in brackets afterwards. As you probably know and we see in any screenwriting, software is that the characters are automatically centered in the middle with a dialogue. It is also good to keep in mind that every line that you write, it can be very helpful to think of it as a one shot. So right here, we can see how one shot is a one line or paragraph. And this is the action section of the screenplay, where we describe what is happening in the scene. So some of the little things around doing a screenplay are in these nifty brackets spread around the screenplay. So let's talk about some of them. So just after the character's name, before they speak, we can put in what is called a parenthesis, which is a little bit, like an afterthought or explanation, so we can put in tone of voice and stuff like that. We just have to use it sparingly. So next up in this fancy bracket section is the OS after a character's name, which is off screen. So when something is off screen, it is happening in the scene. For example, somebody is walking and somebody else, Hey, here, that is off screen because it is in the scene, but they're not in the frame. Off screen can also be used as. For example, there's a scene that took place a long time ago. We can also be listening to that scene. This is not to be confused with voiceover or VO. That is something we put in where the character is talking to the audience. Like, I always remember, blah, blah, blah, blah. So keep in mind not to confuse these two. Of screen is one thing, and voiceover is another. Let's go into transitions. It is very practical to put in cut two. Like, you're in one scene. You write the scene, and then you write cut two, and then you're in the next scene. This is also a little bit of a style thing. You can choose if you use this or not. Because we're working in this short format, I want you to write your screenplay only after you've already shot the first version of your film. Writing too soon can lead to overthinking and stall your progress. In traditional filmmaking, we write the script first. But here we're flipping the process to emphasize learning through action. In the next lesson, we're going to discuss cinematography and various visual styles, along with camera movements to consider for your film. 10. Cinematography & Visual Style: In this lesson, we're going to discuss a variation of visual styles that you can apply to your film. Before we start talking about cinematography for your ten second film, let's look at an example of one of my own. In this short film, I blend a few different styles, combining tripod shots with handheld moments. Later in this class, I'm going to show you how I shot and edited this short sci fi film. Also, later in this lesson, I will demonstrate some of the camera moves I use when filming. But right now, before we dive into discussing your general options for camera moves, let's take a look at the ten second Sci fi film I made specifically for this class. If they find the signal, tell them that the Earth was once quiet. Filmmaking is a relatively young art form and a limited one. You only have a certain number of methods and possibilities when filming your project. A camera is not like the human eye. It can only move in specific directions and perform a limited number of movements. When it comes to camera movement, one of the most important things is staying consistent. You might have stunning shots. But if the movement style keeps changing without purpose, it can pull the audience out of the story. If you start handheld, stick with handheld. If you're using mostly tripod shots, commit to that. It's not that every movement needs some deep meaning behind it, but there should be intention. This is where your theme starts to guide you. Visual style isn't just something you plan, it's also something you feel. The more you tune into that feeling, the more clearly your style will start to take shape. Mm. Right, so right now, I'm just in nature. And, uh, with my Lumix S nine. Right, so here I'm using my iPhone. I'm using the front end of the camera on the iPhone, which I do not recommend if you're making a film. And simply using it now because I need to see what I'm doing. So I'm doing a documentary. I'm just gonna be filming some tree branches, basically, and all these wonderful birds. So I'm also gonna be testing some movements, testing some movements and try not to trip over here or get stung by the branches. It so first, I usually take 10 seconds of still, and then I move. Deep breath? Right, so I'm going to do this one again and now up in the air, where the sun kind of touches the the tree branches. Yep. Focus. And So this is a quick reminder that later in this class, I will go over how exactly I made this ten second science fiction film. So be on the lookout for that lesson later in the class. As you explore your visual style, the next lesson will focus on light where I'll share practical tips and tricks you can use in your film. Okay. 11. Film Light - Tips: In this lesson, we're going to cover some simple tricks to improve your lighting and elevate the quality of your videos. Boom. Hello. Regarding light in general, like, I'm sitting here. I have one light here, and I have one back light here behind me. Check it out. WhoopsiHs. Here we go. Whoopsie. So that's it one. So if I take that out, go into this light. Boom, look at you, boom, boom. And then I put the back light here. Um, yeah, it's a very subtle. It's a subtle art, and it's an art that I'm not a specialist in. I would just say that um, the more I work in filmmaking, the more and more I've become curious about light. Like, I've been doing filmmaking for about y plus 20 years. And I was never good at lights, and I still have so much to learn. Um, yeah, so just consider that when you're filming, especially if you're filming on a phone, um, that the sunlight is kind of the most important light you're ever going to get or daylight, rather. Um, because that really turns, you know, a phone camera into a proper camera if you have daylight. Um, also, also, if you're using a phone, make sure that you have the phone. The phone is usually on auto. Make sure to draw the light down and then record. Then it's gonna stick there because we don't want too much exposure. So what I'm saying in this lesson is basically, be aware of any light sources. That's basically the takeaway from this lesson. Like, if you're shooting inside, where's the window? Maybe you can move the scene closer to the window so we get the daylight. You know, the daylight is basically a very expensive Hollywood light. Part of thinking about the light and light sources is, of course, thinking about shadows. Um, so if you are close by a window, and the scene looks pretty flat, then maybe you can use a curtain or something to kind of make a shadow. So, for example, this shot that I'm doing now, I'm here. I'm in the light. Um, somewhere here, I have something dark. Doesn't matter what it is. It just means there's a drawing, and then I have the back light. So, um, yeah. Yeah, so maybe the takeaway is be aware of the light sources and how you can kind of draw them or kind of blank them out to your taste. No matter what camera you're using, light plays a crucial role in reducing graininess in your footage. To put it simply, more light makes your image clearer and sharper. There's a reason Hollywood and Los Angeles became hubs for filmmaking. It's all about the consistent sunlight. Natural sunlight is a game changer for video quality. For instance, if you're filming on your phone, shooting and sunlight can drastically enhance the quality of your footage. But what if you're indoors and the lighting isn't great? You'll need to find light sources to brighten your scene. A simple solution is to use a lamp. You can adjust it based on the mood and effect you're trying to create. Here are two common approaches to lighting a scene. One, full lighting, flat lighting. This means your scene is evenly lit with no strong shadows. It creates a neutral, balanced look that works well for certain types of videos. While some might call it flat. It's not a negative. It's just a clean, straightforward style. Two, split lighting. Half and half. Here, you light only one side of the subject, leaving the other side in shadow. For example, if you're filming a face, one half will be illuminated while the other remains dark. This technique adds depth and mystery to your scene. It's reminiscent of Rembrandt's paintings and even the way the moon appears when partially lit. A striking blend of light and darkness that creates intrigue. Whether you're using sunlight or a lamp, understanding how to use light effectively will transform your videos and bring your storytelling to life. Mm. 12. Edit Of My 10 Sec Film: In this lesson, I'll show you how I shaped the story of my ten second film in the editing process. So as we move into the editing part of this class, just be aware that this editing section that I'm doing when I'm editing my ten second film is in real time. Usually, I would kind of chop it up and make it very short and neat. But a lot of students have told me they would rather have it in real time so they can kind of sit on my shoulder. Yeah, so just be aware of that. So have fun. Right, so here we are. Here's my daughter. She's holding this bottle. She loves getting these empty bottles. And make music with them. So let me first find like, Well, like anytime I edit, it's not a direct thing. It's usually my hands know what they're doing. So I'm just gonna allow my hands to do the job. Here's a snow shot that's still to like this, and then I usually go one, two, three, four, four, I'm happy with this one. So this one I'm happy with. So anything that I'm going to fish out, I'm just going to put here, I'm just going to put a color on it. It's also a good snow shot. Here's a different angle. Starting around here, one, two, three, four. Happy with this. This shot is done. And here is nothing new. So skip that. Check my daughter here. Kind of like skimming over at first. So my intention here is to kind of represent her eyeline. So I could use the movement in here, maybe. Checking it. One, two, three, four, reaction if I want it. Is a reaction here. Here's the eyeline. Still, tack it out. Three, four. I got a three there. It's fine. One, two, three. Boom. Just about here. That's my daughter. Different colour. What else do we have here? She's pointing maybe you want that. Sick it out. One, two, three, four. Unfortunate camera movement there. One, two, three, boom. Got it. Just about got it. So you need at least, like, one, two, three, at least when I'm editing of the moment. Let me see if I got it here. Check it out. One, two, three, boom. Good. Like that. We have something else here. See, missing. Smiling boom. One, two, three, four, boom. Got it here? Well, that was kind of a nice eye movement there. Let's check the eye movement. Here is. It's all in the eyes. Eye movement is here. Okay, so after eye moment, that will be my reference point. After the eye moment, I need something to sink in. Let me see. One, two, three, boom, even more moment. Is it doesn't hold it long, so I'm gonna stop on this eye moment. Here. So this will be my shot. I'm just gonna open. There we go. From the front end. One, two, three, four. Nice. So I can use that to tell a story. People always follow movement. We have that shot. We have that shot that shot. So that is not slow motion. Here we have some tasting some snow, and here is just a door. This is a snow shot. I won't be able to get into this scene because I'm only doing 10 seconds, of course. I guess I'm aiming for maybe three shots. I was just looking at something. This is probably irrelevant. Or maybe now, this is probably irrelevant. I could have her here and then turn her head, but I don't think I have. That she turns her head. So this is all real time shots here. Real time shots, I can use them, as well. So at the moment, I'm going to focus on using only these here, you? Okay. Let me just put a marker here for 10 seconds. Text. And then I will use this clip here to see where exactly the 10 seconds are. Mm hmm. Just about here, 10 seconds. So these here at 10 seconds. Disable these clips just to test. Yeah, it's not a lot of time, as we all know. But this is the practice. Okay, 10 seconds. Yeah. Got it. Okay. So let's think about what can we do here in 10 seconds? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. We could start with snow. We'll probably start on her. So I'm just gonna again let my hands kind of rule the way. One, two, three. Boom. Just going uncuff feeling where the edit feels right. This one was a possibility where she's still looking. Okay, let me tell a story. This is how the story starts. Hmm. Let's see, movie 10 seconds up here. Boom. Okay. Boom. Just want to trim that a little bit. So this shot is 2 seconds, five frames at the moment. Usually, when you're editing a trailer or something, you can go under 2 seconds. It's hard to do that in this context because we have to grab the shot, okay? This might be too short, but I'm gonna let it be as it is at the moment. Yeah. This could be your eyeline. She's here, S is looking to the window. So this is possibly too high. This is more from her point of view. It's a lower angle. Match is better. This is more like a square angle. This would work. This can work, but this one would be better because it represents your eyeline. Let me check. Yeah, this works great. One, two, boom, one, two, boom, a little bit longer, okay? So we would not go back here. Well, we could actually, because she has a smile. So we can decide if you go super simple like that. It's over here. Cutting it there. Starting again. So this could be the 10 seconds. But I'm not gonna do that. I want to change angle here, here. So this would represent like a point of view way from the window. So there's a relationship between her and this angle here. So the angle matches looking up to the window, looking down from the window. So we have a decision to make here. First, she can point to the snow in wonder. That's good. She can also smile, and move her eyes. So let's play with that. Maybe we can squeeze in four shots there. Check it. Right, little eye movement a little too early. Check it in context. One, two, boom. Mm hmm. So here we can see that the snow shot is too short. And I would also say that the first clip is too short. Hold on lengthen the snow clip and lengthen also the beginning the opening shot. Check it. Very good. Okay. So right now, of course, the film is in slow motion. I can't choose not to have it in slow motion. Having it in slow motion is maybe within the theme of a falling snow. It falls slowly. Um, so maybe one of the part of the theme here is the pace of the snow falling. So going deeper on theme here, you could think that the snow represent time. Okay, this here is normal speed here. Here, I've sped things up closer to real time right here, so I'm gonna label it with a different color. Take the ten second marker here. Place it here. How does it look? Okay. So just before she closes her eyes again? So here we have something, one, two, three, four. Now, the snow is a little bit too long. Just go to decrease the snow a little bit. Mm hmm. It's like that. Take it out. Is it real time? Now, the first shot is a little bit too short. And this speed change? Well, she's just about to look at me. So lengthen it from the other end. Maybe the snow is a little bit too long. The best thing is to, of course, edit like this and then maybe wait on it for a day or two. Then you really see how to edit it because you get pretty blind in the process. But that's how it goes, Wow, it's kind of nice. This This works. And the reason why this works is that as soon as in my experience, as soon as I feel like I look forward to view the clip again, then my sense tells me that I'm on the right track. So right now, I'm like, I get a feeling here, yeah? I don't know why specifically this works, but it just works. Okay. Now, here comes another challenge. We have some time left here off the 10 seconds. And a part of this class is to really try to hit the ten second mark. So let's try to do that. The question is, do we use an extra shot or let me see. Slow. I'm going to just make this real time also. Coffee paste settings here, market green. Like, so check it out. Okay. So I'm not really sure now, which is fine. Boom. Okay. So I have to wonder what else do I have here? Would I go back here? That will definitely not work, but I'm gonna try it anyway. Well, actually, I got an idea here. Let's check this out. So let's change the time format of this one. S. Okay. Now, let's see if we can get away with just 2 seconds here. See how this rolls. Okay. Okay. Right. So we could have like this. She's here. C actually reverse this. So again, nobody really knows why it works or it doesn't. And we've entered kind of the non verbal phase of the edit. One, two, three, so on now, not thinking, go and got feeling Bombom. Boom, go to slice this one off here. Slice this one down. She's looking up here. Okay. Good. Let me see how this flows here. Boom. And let me just take on the frontier like that because I really don't want to match these 10 seconds, this one here. Ooh. Let's see what happens. There we go. Boom. Okay. So what I can see here is that the first shot is definitely too short. We're entering a scene and then we get disturbed. So I need to shorten something here, and this is kind of the obvious candidate here. Let's start with this element, and let's go a little bit like this. Link in this one. No, I need to link in from the other end, like here. Mm hmm. Wait. Was this a smile? Well, actually, we could be doing something here. Here. Nah. The cinematographer there didn't do his job. I'm not mentioning any names. Looking. This might be it, like that. Let's see what happened, though. Go Okay. This could be it. Nice. So this is one possibility. It's gonna fix this a little bit. Check this one? No, she blinks her eyes. Notice that. So we never dt when blinking eyes. That disturbs the audience. Let's not do that. Let's go here and lengthen this one from this end. Like so. Go. Okay, so we also have eye movement here, which is like happens too early, we see the snow, eye movement immediately. We don't want that. We want to be able to settle into the shot. See what happens? Now, eye movement. Two eye movements. Oop sedasia. Tricky. Mm. Let's just take this one here and close this eye movement and see if we can get away with it. How long is the opening shot? 3 seconds. Take it down a little bit. Pop like this, then we can let the eye moment here live a little bit longer. Check it out. Boom. That's it. There's a little movement here at the end of the camera. Let me see right here, see if we can fix that. Go on this end, cut it here. Just check that. Nice. That's nice. So this film feels like we dropped into a moment, yeah? Brilliant. There you go. So this was the editor of the film. And next up is working on the color and putting some sound into this. In the next lesson, I'll show you how I use color to bring out tone, texture, and feeling. 13. Color Of My 10 Sec Film: This lesson, I'm going to show you how I color my film as part of the post production process. You'll get a behind the scenes look at how I approach color to complete my ten second film. So we've done that, you've done the editing. Now we're going to move into coloring this section. And I cannot emphasize it enough. I'm not a professional color greatest. I usually go when I do a film, I do the film and I put it into some post production house, which is professional. But as I do my private filmmaking in these classes, uh, I just want to share with you, like, my process. Just take a clip, I put it into some kind of post production software like final cut or Davinci. I usually use final cut to edit, but I also use Damnci to color. And my method is basically this somehow method. So don't necessarily imitate what I'm doing. Um, but you use your got feeling. Um, it's also fun when you're thinking about theme, like, in general, for your film, and this is where theme kicks in, again, is that theme can help you color your film, as well. Like, for example, the theme in my story with my daughter, she's sitting, looking at the snow and the snow is falling slowly. So in my mind, in the auor's mind, the theme is time. Time kind of creeps up on you. With one film edit, she's gonna be 20-years-old. Hm. Okay, so here we are in DaVinci resolve to point out that this is not a color correction class because I am not a specialized color grade. Yeah, specialist, so to speak. So please take everything that I do here with a grain of salt, and I advise you to seek out, like, regular color grading classes to do this properly because the method that I use right here is just a specific method called the show method, where I just play with the light shadows. Until I find something nice. Um, but I do like kind of sharing my process with you. And I'm just going out. Put all kinds of notes. That's what these are called. And I can add notes here. So all of these notes are going to do something in terms of color. It's basically a sequence, chain sequence. Check out what the software does on its own, like do automatic here, automatic color. That's how that looks. So we can keep that in mind. Maybe I put that here, automatic color, put it here, and then I'm going to go here and kind of pull down the opacity of this lot. This note. Note. Yeah. So I'm just gonna put like that. Yeah, here we go. Boom. Then we have some scopes here, which I'm not a specialist in. Absolutely not. But I can see, like, kind of how the light goes. I really want to say something very fancy with you here, but I don't have the vocabulary, but I do have the eyes. So here I'm seeing that the highlights are pretty burning. I'm gonna rise at this one and the highlights here. I just take the highlights down a little bit like that. Um, how was the wipe on as is that? Where's the temperature here? Warm? Cold. Snow is cold, and the theme of the film is time. So I wonder what color is time. It could be a little bit more like this. Obviously, she's putting some red into it. So red, red, red. Just trial and error, but I really want to show you, like, the whole process of how I mess around. Um, hopefully, that gives you confidence to mess around. Don't always need to know what we're doing. Yeah, sort of the green. Maybe we're going a little bit too wit, but that's fine. What's that one? So, again, I have no idea what I'm doing, which is my default method, basically. Little bit like that, okay? See what happens? Okay. See what lots I have here. Callery, power, great. Let's check out here. Sony. I might have done some Sony work in the past. How does that look? Oops. Oops. Oops, oops. Mm mm. Here is something. Some old setting that I did. Okay. So, ideally, I want some kind of a film look here. Who doesn't? Is playing with Contrast. Take the highlights, this one. Then go a little bit up like this. Okay, so I switched some courses and I try it again. Let me see. Here I have something. It's automatic, yeah, automatic. But take that out. Click here. Here is something called film Look that comes with DavincyRsolve, and DavincRsolve is free. So you can tell me that. Um, so I kind of like the film look here. It kind of plays with the colors. Um, let's see. It's going to play around more with some colors. Oh, that's not good. Bit too green for my taste. Let me take a **** by the green. Mm hmm. No, I'm happy with this. So let's say if I'm happy with this one here. Let me also, like, add a uh let me see, a mask here, here, mask. Mm mm, Mask. Like, so let me just highlight her face a little bit. Like that. Around with this one here. Like so. And then I reverse it. Like so. So this is always not good. Let me see. Mm hmm. One here. Make it softer. Like soap. Size is like that. Like so. And let me see how it rolls. Good. And let's do a little, like, se remove the mask here or just view the visibility, take the mask. It's like that. So you see what I'm doing here. Kind of blurring out the edges. So what I'm going to do is gonna make a calorie grab still. That means that the still is going to be here as a memory so I can go into the next shot. Top click. Nope, not top click. Aha. Apply grade. It's fairly blue here. So maybe we can counter that with some temperature. Thing like that. A little bit too contrasty, also. Like so. How do these two compare? It bit yellow, a little bit blue. Okay? A little bit blue here. Take away the blue here. Do we want to go blue or yellow? That's a big question. So here I'm just gonna look at the wall here. It's kind of yellowish. And as you can see, I'm only fixing now the mask thing. I'm gonna do that here into the first note. Pardon me again. Right. A little bit like that, yeah. And then highlights. Nice. I'm also looking at the scope here just for the hallowet. Here we go. Okay. So I'm happy with everything, but not the color itself. I do feel like the walls are too. Uh, yeah, not real. We are real walls here. The walls are semi white. The refrigerator is white. Somewhere around here. Here we go. Play it. It's kind of nice. Take away the mask. Fix the core here. All right. That's it. Like so. Okay. Mask on. Mask might be a little bit too So decrease the red decrease the mask. So, okay? I just go check it here. I want to pick individual colours here in the mask, only in the mask. White. So as you can see, doing a color correction is as complicated as you want it to be. This film would work fine without all this messing around. But I'm just messing around for your benefit. She can just kind of see how I doodle in this. Let me see. Got the film look here. Why pans there? Whoa. That's it. Okay, happy with this one. Okay. How does it work here? That. That? Nope. Grab this still, clean this one. Double click, this one. No, not double click. I apply grate. There we go. It's a little bit too blue. So warm it up like that. Now, let's see how the two roll together. Hope so. Okay. No rolling together, but let's go here to see that. Let them roll together. Oh Good. So this is the same color reality. And let's see this one shot same as this one. So let's grab still for this one, this one, and apply this one. Boom. Nice. Let's check what works for the snow. Might delete the mask here. Don't need the mask here away with the mask. Cause, we see the snow, okay. So I wonder if there's any way to increase the snow. Kind of like, Mm. Make the snow a little bit more obvious. Here we go. There we go. Okay. That's kind of nice. Okay. Now we have color on all of them. Let's check them out fully. All in one run these 10 seconds. And play. It's kind of nice? I do feel like the snow is a little bit too short. Let's go one, two, three, boom. Put the snow a little bit here. Every. A little bit longer. One or two frames. Check in here again. Yeah, that's better. Okay. So now I'm happy with this one. This color. Boom. Nice. Okay. In the next lesson, I'll show you how I work with sound to build atmosphere and rhythm. 14. Sound Of My 10 Sec Film: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how I do the post production sound using my ten second film as an example. Before we start, let's discuss some general elements for audio post production, specifically the relationship between sound and silence. Sound and the absence of it can completely reshape how we experience a moment on screen. In one film, I might use no sound at all to push the visuals forward with full intensity. Another, a single sound effect can sharpen focus and guide attention. Disjointed dialogue creates a sense of unreality, while overlapping voices build tension and chaos. Sometimes a rhythmic sound design gives the whole scene a pulse, and then when everything suddenly goes quiet, that silence can hit harder than any explosion. Sound is usually highly underrated. As a tool, I would place the sound equal if not higher than the visual, because usually you can film usually you can make a film with poor quality, but if the audio is beautiful and solid, then you kind of get away with it. Not vice versa. If you shoot something beautiful and the audio is poor, you're gonna lose people. Um, so because we're doing a ten second film, we're kind of trying to rush through making a film, kind of bypassing all the overthink and everything. I'm going to do the same with the post production on the audio on this one. So, for example, when I filmed this short film with my daughter, I used my usual method when I filmed it. I don't use the audio on the location, like in the actual situation, because usually it is quite useless. You have all kinds of noises and disturbances. I've come to just gotten used to just film. So it also gives me a little opportunity in post production that I can kind of create my own sound world, which is exciting. Um, it's a little bit of and it's great to record your own sound effects. And also, you can go online and find a lot of free sound effects. But most importantly, when you are filming, even though the sound isn't great on location, notice what sounds there are, what sound layers are in your environment. So in my particular film, I have my daughter. She's watching the snow. So I can maybe find a sound for snow especially just the wind outside the window. There might be a faucet leaking. There's a refrigerator, and then there's some mumbling or some sounds that she makes, and I'm going to record that especially and place it into the scene. So right now, let me take you into Final Cut Pro. I usually do my coloring in DaVinci resolve, and then I move my project into final cut, where I usually do my sound post production from now. Yeah, let me import the project into final cut and then kind of allow you to sit on my shoulder. So let's do the sound production or sound post production for my ten second short film. Okay, so here I have two sounds that I'm going to use in this, less Let me check it out. So first, we have our refrigerator. It's kind of a nice background layer, you know. Now we have snow outside the window. Let's place that here. And let's just see where we stand with that one. But on like so and go. Good. Pet can go down. Snow can go up. Les Perfect. Just these two effects. And then I'm going to add some effects from her, which I'm going to record specially. Yeah. Now I have gathered some sound effects from my daughter from a different edit. So I'm gonna hear it here. These are shots filmed on the beautiful Sigma F P camera. Very, very light sensitive lens. Alright. Yeah, we're beautiful sounds here. So I'm gonna take the sounds here. Like, so boom, delete the image and just fish out the sounds here. Fishing out the sounds. Same a little bit of work, better work area here. Gonna throw in the sounds and just kind of see what happens. Go. K. Okay. Okay, now let's listen to everything together and see how it makes sense. I'm guessing that the audio here is a little bit too high on the snow. Um, before I do that, I'm just going to fade in the audio just so there are no, like, sound jumps. So this is not done super scientifically, just for the sake of the practice. Let's take it out. You go. Hi. In the next lesson, we'll discuss how you're going to reshoot and remake your ten second film, combining everything you've learned in this class. 15. Remake Your 10 Sec Film!: In this lesson, you'll put everything you've learned into practice to reshoot your ten second film. You'll use both the storytelling and visual tools we've explored throughout the class. Consider how you might approach reshooting your film with these techniques in mind. So now it's time for you to re shoot your film. So you've probably done probably, I'm guessing, several short films, several ten second tries in this class. And right now, it's all about picking one of them and see if you can elevate it, make it more cinematic or make it more yours. It's hard to kind of pinpoint it. Think about the theme that you thought about, like, what really connects you to the theme of the class? Sorry, theme of the class, theme of your film. Like, let's say that you have let's say that you have made a film, and, uh Maybe you did it just on a go, kind of took your phone or camera or whatever, and you filmed. But then later, you might have picked it up and asked you, hypothetically guess what I'm saying is that whatever you did in terms of making a ten second film, pick one concept, and if I try to explain it with my hands, Look at it again. Yeah, look at it again and see if we can deepen it in terms of visual style or theme. So, for example, if you filmed your film with, like, handheld, originally, what would happen if you try to put it on a tripod or something equivent to that? Like, make it a still thing. As you experiment, just notice if your camera is still on a tripod, throughout a film. In this case, a ten second film, there definitely is some elevation to it. Like, something that is handheld can be very dynamic, but here is where maybe your theme kicks in. The more you think about one idea, Um, and how you relate to that idea. Just notice how that idea would like to be expressed. Like, is it handheld? Is it like, moving, or is it still? 16. Edit & Sound Of My Sci-Fi Film: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how I did a ten second science fiction film without really thinking about anything. So I just took my camera, you know, drove in my car somewhere into a forest, filmed something from gut feeling, and then just brought the material home and started to edit it. This is just to show you that you don't have to fully know what you're doing. If you just have the camera and you have some, like, an inkling of an idea, that's sometimes enough. And now that I'm home, I just started to edit it and I kind of figured it out. So let's look at the film before I show you how I did it. If they find the signal, tell them that the Earth was once quiet. So now that you've seen the film, now let's jump into the editing and the sound, mainly the edit, and just see just how clumsily, really the editing process is, and also how I had to kind of figure things out and really didn't understand the film until I did the sound. Okay, so here I have all the material I've taken for this film, this little short film. So let me see what happens. So let's just edit this see what kind of material we have here. So what I did, I just went into the Icelandic wilderness and just filmed something with the challenge of trying to make a ten second science fiction film. So right now, I'm just gonna let my hands do the work. So that's kind of nice. Let's keep this clap here. One, two, three, like that. Label it with a color. Let's just do it properly. What color do we want? Let's make it pink. That's kind of nice. Pink. We're happy with pink. We like this shot, try to do this as quickly as possible. Okay. Let's change the color on this. Here I am in the color one. This is the color page. Okay, let's not think about that right now. Already getting distracted. One, two is kind of nice. Let's do a measurement. Let's just take this audio here, random audio. And let's say that's nine. No, let's take another one. Let's go to get a text clip here. Where's that affect here is? Text. Let's delete this text. Or just say 10 seconds. Here is, let's measure 10 seconds, exactly. And that's nine, 1010 to the dot. So this is our duration. Put it here. Let's place it somewhere above here, make it smaller. Paper rom. This is our measurement here. Use this later. Okay, one, two. This kind of nice shot. What else do we have? It's kind of nice wind. Nice trees. So right here, I did some light effects in the camera. So I had a small light and just waved it in front of the camera. Let's see how that works. That's kind of nice. Let's just use it. One, two, three, this. And we make it pink. There you go. Try it out here. Boom. That's kind of nice. Here's also the light effect, if I want it. That's kind of nice. There's life in the wilderness. One, two, three, four. Like that. Boom. And let's make a color out of it. Would be here you go. Ink. This one. L so, drag it. So we're practicing going very, very straight at it. Here I am the lost filmmaker alone in the wilderness. Can who? Says y'all full screen it. Here I am testing the light. Some movement shots here. Let me see this one. What am I doing here? What am I doing here? It's kind of nice. Could be point of view or something from a character. Yep. Let's see if we can use that. See if we can use this one as a point of view. One, two, three, four. That's possible. Dragging it up. Maybe better movement. Like I'm a Persian. Let me see. One. Check in here, one, two, three. Chicken here. Chicken here? One, two. No. Chicken here? One, two. No, it's kind of what we already used. Mm. Not so sure about this one, but I'm gonna, like, take it to the side. Take it to the side, put it here. No right there. Collect, kick it here, go back in. I'm here. Let's go here. Oh, here I'm playing with my hand. Maybe you can use that. Check how the hand, does it? In here? One. There's a human here. See it. There we go checking the bogus. Let me see. How does it enter the frame? It's take it out? Take going here, one, two, No, we don't want to see the arm there. One, two here, one, two, one, two, three. It was kind of nice. Not the last movement, but this one was kind of nice. It's colored pink, of course. And we do it just like we're doing A legos. There it is. Zoom out. Put it here. Put it into the line here. These are selected shots. T make it all pink while we're at it. Okay, we were here, go in here. Where was the So was the hand play here? Or you use this? Was it better hand player? No. There's a building in the background, so I'm not using that. Ah, I found this crazy scenario. Sofa in the middle of nowhere, Mojan. There's a hand also. Mmm. This is kind of in camera effects. It's just my camera in my hand, obviously. Let me see. This has been walking, not using that. I'm using that, okay. This shot alone could work, but let's see, see if the hand is overacting here. Mm hmm. Checking it out. Hand is trying to grab the sofa. What's going on here? Well, there's something about it. See how it creeps in. Um, this framing might be better. This kind of works, I think, alone. Let's take two possibilities. One, two, one. And then also one of the hand here. One. It's kind of cheesy, but, hey, we're making hamburgers. I see. That here. Shaking the hand. Again just go feeling one, two, three, like this. So we're taking these two shots. Like that. Copying them, and then we kind of got our shots here. Let me see? Yeah, that's doing it very much eco style like that. What shots do we have? I think we have everything we need. Okay. So here we have a collection of shots and now we're gonna trim them down. M let's weigh with this one. Let's just two. This one. Oop. There we go. One, two light. We start on white hot. One, two, three boom. Light is traveling. Again, there's no real, like, rationality. Worse here. Okay, nice light here. Just 12, three area. One, two, three, light traveling through it. This is a point of view. Could be a person. Not sure. One, two. Let the light kind of fall into the between shots. Okay. One, two. That's better. Three. It's like a person in the woods, then? Okay, then let's do. Again, there's no real rationality that works here. Fingers and then a sofa. That's pretty funny. Just keep the sofa clean. Almost a 10 seconds. Let's see what happens. Make this short because it's light. And here is like a person hiding from something. Okay. Maybe the person that was hiding is moving, so that doesn't work. Absolutely doesn't work. So let's do this differently. Let's take this one away and let's see what happens with this one 10 seconds here. How does this work? I see the frame a little bit bigger. Three to one, and let's check it out. Action. No. Okay. Again, I don't know why, but this kind of kind of works, and then we're gonna add some voice over to it and some audio to see maybe that will make sense of it. We don't always have to know what we're doing. That's usually a great starting point, okay? See, this one comes here. Probably one more. Boom. Boom, boom. Yeah, I think the audio will let this work. That's kind of it's a funny film. Not sure what it's about, but maybe we'll figure out in the sound. Alright, so now I've selected the clips and I've edited the film together. Now I'm going to move into a final code pro, where I usually do all my sound work. So just a note, when I edited the film, I didn't have any volume at all, but I imagine the sounds, and when I imagine the sounds, that's basically what I use when I do the sound design. So it's important for me, at least when I edit to have to have no sound on. And then when I move into the sound, then I've already imagined kind of the sound world, even the script, as I did in this case. I have, like, a placeholder here for our short films for ten secs. And now I've added some sound to it. Only two sounds, one voiceover that I wrote and kind of did on a whim, and then one sound like from a drone. So let me just place it here within our little um placeholder template. And maybe this is a little bit too wide. Let me check it out. So on first with no sound, I'm check it out. How does it look with no sound? As you said, boom, and, like, so Boom. And let's say this should be exactly 10 seconds. Like this. 10 seconds. The teacher, of course, cannot cheat. And let me see. Let's put some information here as well. Here's that. Let me see. This is camera Sigma P. Yes, genre. That is Sci five. Mm, I wonder what the theme could be in this one. Have not really thought about it. Um, isolation. Keep it very broad at the moment, because I've not really dived into the context of this film. This film was all about just hurrying through the process. Let me see. Here we go. Um. That's good. So this is exactly 10 seconds, let's roll it and see what um what we can do with minimal thinking and just going for it. Here we go. Check it out. So I asked we're about to roll this film with the audio. Notice that I only used two sound layers. I only used, like, a general drone sound like, boom. And then I wrote a mini script and had it read in. And the words that I chose just kind of came after the fact. After I'd filmed even after I had edited the film. So let's look at the final version. Here we go. If they find the signal, tell them that the Earth was once quiet. 17. Thank You!: I want to take a moment to thank you for taking this class. I'm truly grateful that you've chosen to spend your valuable time here. My goal has always been to honor that time, to be precise, approachable, and to create an inviting and calm environment. Thank you for taking this class. I am honestly always, humbled and even surprised of how many people take my classes, and, um, M I'm thankful, but I'm also just happy that that my experience is being of use? It's good to be useful. Um, when students are contacting me from all over the world, I'm like, Wow. It is. Yeah, it really to sound corny, touches my heart. Um Yeah. Um, I'm trying to say something very smart now. Where's my smartness? I seem to have lost it. Maybe it's in my pocket. It's not in my pocket. Yeah. Yeah, it's good because what I'm what I try to teach, is I try to teach, like, clean filmmaking, which is I try to make the lessons as neutral as possible, because in the end, what I'm teaching is just, uh um, like, providing a pen and paper. B films are like dreams. They're really tangible. It's hard to kind of track them down and get them and, you know, manifest them. Um, but I love thinking of my lessons and my classes as neutral tools as possible, so you can kind of put create your pen and paper to keep that analogy. Yeah. So thank you for taking the class. One important thing, um, when you have finished this class, remember to write a written review. Um, because that really is kind of what keeps this kind of class online. It makes it sustainable because not only does it kind of help other students to find the right classes for themselves when they have people writing reviews about them, but it also gives me great feedback on how I can, like, improve my lessons and get my message across even better with each class. So please write a review. Once you've completed your ten second short film, I encourage you to share it in the class project. If you do that and write a review, I can give you feedback on your film, but mostly, I just love seeing films from all around the world. Sharing your film will also inspire other filmmakers to share their work. I'm always curious to see what kind of films people make in my classes. And this class really excites me because with the ten second limit, it's going to be so easy for you to do your film and kind of get started. And not only that, you're also going to allow other people to see into glimpses of your world. Because remember, filmmaking is not really about filmmaking. It's about communication. So, the more films you make, the more we share from our world, the better we understand each other. And the better we understand each other, the less possibility of a conflict. So share your world, share your film, and, um yeah. I want to briefly share that I've created several filmmaking classes covering essential aspects of the craft. These include making a short film, screenwriting, documentary filmmaking, crafting movie trailers, and financing your film. Each class comes with comprehensive downloadable guides to support your journey as a visual storyteller. For even more free resources visit my website where you'll find additional tools, insights, and inspiration to help you bring your stories to life. Okay.