Now that you have collected your data you need to discuss, reflect and draw some conclusions about what it means. Making a 60 second movie can help you to do this.
This guide to making 60 second movies will help you to create your own short film. Once you have made you movie you can upload to the School Participate website, where your teacher can review it and share it with other schools and pupils.
Before you start to make your movie you will need:
- Digital stills camera or a mobile phone that can take pictures.
- Sheets of paper to plan and sketch our your storyboard
- Editing software to make you movie. If you are working with digital stills we recommend that you download free Microsoft Photo Story 3 for Windows PC, as long as your PC is running a legal version of Windows XP. Click here to download
On your PC, you'll also need to install the latest free version of Windows Media player (version 10) available from the Microsoft website. There are many other packages available, but most require payment.
If you're using a Mac, you can use iPhoto to create a quick and easy slideshow.
There are many other packages available, but most require payment. A good place to start looking is the Apple Downloads site.
In Photostory you can also edit your pictures, add music by recording it onto your computer using a standard microphone, add narration, and then transfer the film to a number of different formats including dvd, web and email.
The challenge is to keep you movie to only 60 seconds – if it’s longer it takes up more webspace – so keep it to 60 seconds!
There are four steps to making your movie:
- Creating a storyboard
- Shooting your film
- Editing your film
- Saving and submitting your film online
Step 1: Preparing your storyboard. Keep it simple. Think about:
- Your storyboard is like a guide to help you decide what you want to say and how you want to say it. It also helps you when you are shooting your film.
- What is your message? - Are you trying to tell people how to improve their environment? Are you reporting the outcomes of an experiment? Are you making an advert for an environmental campaign?
- Who is it for? - Is it for your teacher to access your experiment findings? Is it to share your idea with other school children? Is it for your parents and older people?
- What is the style of your film – is it like an action movie? Comic strip? Soap opera? Pick a style and keep with it.
- Keep your camera shoots simple - hold your camera steady. Collect a mix of different shoots and angles – close ups and far away.
- Use a tripod if necessary to help you keep steady
- Keep the effects for later –it is sometimes best not to zoom or move the camera from side to side when you are shooting.
Step 3: Shooting your film
- Using your storyboard as your guide begin to shoot your film
- Think about what images you need to shoot to express your idea
- If you need to stage any shoots and need props - make sure you have everything nearby before you start shooting
- Think about open shoot and how it can help you set the scene
- Take different versions of your image - take your image close up, at a distance, at different angles
- Close with a shot which helps to summaries your ideas
Step 4: Edit your film
- Make a folder on your desktop and label it – save all the images you have taken on your digital camera into this folder
- Go though all your pictures – decide which images you want to use.
- Label the images you want to use - so that you can easily find them
- Create the story flow in Photostory - arrange your pictures in the order that best tells your story. Think about each image as a ‘scene’ and what it ‘says’ about your idea
- Add effects, sound, voice over texts etc - you can easily add voice over to your film using Photostory. Try to make all the effects and sounds yourself – this is the most fun.
- We have also sent your teacher some sounds that you can use. You can also find some images on "Wikimedia:"http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.
- For further tips on editing go to the BBC Web Site
Step 4: Save and Submit
- Every time you make a change to your movie save it
- Save you film in your desktop folder - it is best to save your movie in Quicktime format (.mov file) as this will make it easy for other people to see and play.
- Upload your movie on to the Participate website
- Submit your movie for review by your teacher
Want further supporting with acting, directing, sound or editing? Click here for BBC masterclasses and Click here for BBC guide on How-to-make-a-movie.
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