Episode 7 CineMinis: A CINEMANIACS Short

# Want to ride your bike across the face of the moon?

# Levitate your house with a bunch of balloons

# Feel zero gravitation

# A robot transformation

# You're a cinemaniac

# Do you love to hear the roar of an extinct dinosaur?

# To explore the flora in your very own Pandora

# And feel the urge to sing

# Form a quest for the ring

# To escape from the clone

# Or to be home alone

# Then roll out the red carpet

# And turn down the lights

# Grab yourself a seat and hold on tight

# We're mad about movies

# We're crazy for film

# We're cinemaniacs

# Cinemaniacs

# Cinemaniacs. #

Hello, everyone. I'm Oli White and this is Cinemaniacs!

CineMinis!

On today's show...

Create a vortex in your own living room...

How's that looking?

It looks really cool.

..compose a soundtrack for your day...

It's going to be a happy-go-lucky kind of day today.

..and be the star of your own movie.

Just be yourself and keep it normal.

-What do you think about that, Mr Efron?

-Awesome.

Definitely awesome.

-It's kind of crazy and awesome.

-OK.

Well, moving on with the show, it's time for DIY Blockbuster.

Action.

We're giving groups of film-makers the chance to make a short film

armed with just a camera, a script and some home-made props.

But little do they know they're in for a big surprise...

You didn't know I was coming?

..when we give them something spectacular to turn their home movie

into a DIY Blockbuster.

Amariah, Joshua, Husnain, Nishant, Tashinga and Tyreik

are making an action movie.

Jet packs, parachutes.

-Explosions.

-But it's an action movie with a difference.

It's a silent movie.

It's the first time we've made a movie without words, so it's hard.

It's about two twins robbing a jewellery store.

So when they fly away in the jet packs,

one of them lands in the prison yard,

the other one lands on the ship.

And they end up in the same prison cell.

Action.

Our team are shooting their movie on their modern-day camera-phones.

Or so they think.

What the team don't know is

that they're in for a DIY Blockbuster surprise.

Hello, I'm David Cleveland.

We're taking them back in time with a mystery piece of kit.

Standby. Action.

The team have started filming

and have no idea what's about to happen when David turns up.

They're going to be making their film using this 100-year-old

motion-picture camera, complete with five minutes' worth of film.

Five minutes? Good luck with that, then.

Cameras like this would have been used for the very first movies,

and this rare historical piece of kit is just what the

team need to get their film the silent movie look.

When they first saw me walk out,

I think they were dumbfounded.

I thought he was a magician, to be honest.

I thought he was going to pull out a rabbit or something.

Unlike most cameras we use now, this camera uses film.

When you turn the handle, the film goes through like that.

It takes a picture and then moves the film down, takes another picture,

moves the film down, takes another picture, moves the film down. See?

And it takes more than just pressing a button to start recording.

You've got to turn it twice every second.

As you start rotating the handle,

it starts to take 16 photos per second.

You have to go smoothly.

If it, sort of, goes in jerks,

the picture will be speeded up or slowed down,

and it will go dark or light.

This sounds complicated.

I wonder if our challenge... I mean, surprise...

will really help our team.

Now, if you disappear under the cloth.

OK, can you see the hole?

Even lining up the shot is much trickier with an old camera.

When you have to look in to see where the camera's pointing,

that's the difficult part.

Can you wave that white thing a minute?

When you look through the hole,

it's like this little, tiny square thing.

And it shows upside down.

It was dark and black and upside down.

It is very confusing. You've just got to get used to it.

I like your confidence.

With the shot lined up, they're ready for their first take.

Silent. Stand by, action.

Cut.

Stand by.

-Cut.

-Happy?

-No.

Cut. Your mask came off.

It went a bit wrong a couple of times.

We need to get this right, there's film going through the camera

and we've only got so much.

It's not like a normal camera that's got lots of gigabytes in it

and all that.

If the team aren't careful,

-they could run out of film before they finish their movie.

-Cut.

I can't get it on properly.

Tashinga, he had difficulties putting his jet pack on.

What we've got to do is to get all the rest of the scenes on that

before that goes round.

So we've got to make sure each shot works perfectly.

The team rehearse to make sure

everything's perfect

before using up any more film.

-Cut. Perfect.

-Now you've got to do exactly the same again.

-Are you going to record this time?

-Yeah.

-Definitely?

-Yeah, definitely.

Cut. It was all right.

Although Husnain isn't completely happy,

with so much film already used up, he settles for the take.

We did that part about over seven times.

-I think we better move on to the next scene.

-OK.

-OK?

Silence.

Stand by. Action.

Cut.

The wind was blowing too hard and the models are plastic, so

when you throw them, it would get carried away by the wind, easily.

OK.

-See anything?

-No.

Uh-oh. That's more film wasted.

The problem was, we didn't know where it was going to land.

Now, it was very difficult to tell whether that worked.

Do you think it worked?

Parachute in shot. Just.

With the trickiest scenes shot, the team are on a roll.

Action.

And they shoot their final scenes in the nick of time -

just before the film runs out.

Right, well, we call that the end. Or, "That's a wrap."

-Sweet.

-Thank you very much.

But was it worth all that effort?

I thought it was good.

It was ambitious, but we got there in the end.

I prefer the digital cameras.

I can delete if I make mistakes.

You can check out the team's finished movie on the CBBC website.

CREEPY LAUGHTER

Now, we decided to put two of our favourite writers to the

Writer Roulette test.

This is Laurence Rickard and this is Ben Willbond.

They're the writers behind the Shakespeare movie, Bill.

-You been before?

-No, first time.

Oh, it's nice. Don't steal anything.

We're challenging Laurence and Ben to come up with a top

movie plot based on four completely random story ingredients.

It's time for...

-And go.

-Writer Roulette.

OK, we're on a beach. It's a very, very rocky beach and...

Hiding underneath one of the rocks on the beach is a spider. It's been

contaminated in a nuclear accident and is growing at an incredible rate.

It's now already the size of a man.

It's tremendously hungry, but it can't find any bugs to eat,

-so it's had to resort to...

-Eating pineapples.

And the only thing that will stop it growing

much bigger and threatening the city that it

lives next to is feeding it pineapples.

But there's a pineapple shortage.

So they have to invent a hydroponic pineapple growing solution

which is powered by the greatest source of electricity known to man.

-Which is?

-BOTH: Lightning.

-Of course.

Nice one, guys.

So this is where I give you guys three top tips for being on camera.

You've got to be relaxed.

Just be really calm and act like you're speaking to a friend.

No-one wants to see you being really nervous.

Keep it simple, because people just want to see you.

Don't try and get overambitious with loads of different

props like...lizards? OK, lizards.

Just keep it simple and don't waffle on.

No-one wants to hear about what you did yesterday,

the week before, where your favourite place on holiday is,

your favourite food, where your favourite trainers are,

where you go to the gym. Just be really simple and to the point.

Don't go over the top.

Whoa, this is awesome. Whoa. Ah!

Just be yourself and keep it normal.

And that's my three top tips for being on camera. Now this.

Introducing Mr Mike Tucker.

Here to show you how to create special effects Hollywood style

in...

Today, we're going to show you how to create a wormhole vortex.

Well, you're not actually going to make a real wormhole vortex,

but it's going to look like you have.

So grab yourself a couple of friends and let's get started.

We're going to create a mysterious wormhole vortex effect,

similar to ones seen in a film called

The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.

You're going to need some really basic things for this -

a pair of tights - ask if you can use them first -

a can of beans, a coat hanger and a torch.

Step one - cut one of the legs

off the tights - carefully.

Try and cut as neatly along that seam as we can.

Brilliant.

OK, so we can get rid of those.

This is going to be the mouth of our vortex.

Cool.

Next up, step two.

Bend the coat hanger into a circle or, better still,

get someone strong to help you because it's quite hard, really.

We're going to just try and pull that

into a slightly rounder shape.

The nice thing about it is that

it gives us a handle to hold on to as well.

Step three -

tape the open end of a tight leg to the coat hanger.

Get that strong person to help you with this too, if you want.

Last bit.

So that is going to form the mouth of our vortex.

Step four - time to open up that wormhole.

Next thing we need to do is make sure that the bottom of our vortex

is stretched as long as it can be,

so we need something heavy in there that will pull it down to the floor.

-So what do you reckon?

-The beans.

A can of beans, exactly.

Stretch it so it comes all the way down to the bottom of the tights.

Great.

Step five - cue lighting effects.

Now, if you start waving the torch beam up and down the length

of the tights whilst you're filming straight down there.

And make it look even better by switching off the lights

and getting some colour into the action.

-How's that looking?

-It looks really cool.

And now for the really fun bit.

Grab your little brother's favourite action figure and send him

off into the wormhole vortex.

Ah!

Whoa, that made my head spin.

Hi, I'm David Arnold. I'm a film composer.

Some of my credits are

Independence Day, Stargate, Godzilla,

The Chronicles Of Narnia, five James Bond films.

The purpose of music in film a lot of the time is to hold

the hand of the audience as they watch what's happening.

But it's always to try

and say what is difficult to say with dialogue or just with picture.

What we are doing is just playing with the way that music can

change your perception about what's happening in front of you.

JOLLY MUSIC PLAYS

I think it's going to be a happy-go-lucky kind of day today.

This is all about energy and all about movement and blood rushing

and your heartbeat, so it feels much more casual.

In the classroom, when learning is hard,

it's almost like the sound of what you've got inside your own body.

Your blood rushing and your heartbeat is little bit stronger.

UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS

GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

This is the most popular kid in school.

So we keep it nice and light and bright and breezy.

He's having fun with friends.

It's joyful, it's optimistic, it's relaxed.

By playing music that says, "We're OK," it feels comfortable

and it feels like there's no tension there.

And an easy way of making it feel worse, you could play exactly

the same music in a minor key and immediately sounds darker.

SAD MUSIC PLAYS

I think there's been a bit of a drama.

If you're going to bed, it's almost like the last chapter of a book.

The music, in a way, it's like the big finale.

A big, bright, nice major key and it's sort of warm and delicious,

and you think you can go to sleep now, everything's all right.

And finally. Black and white, or colour?

-Colour.

-Black and white.

-Colour.

-Colour.

-Black and white

-Colour.

-Colour.

-Colour.

-Black and white.

-Colour.

-Colour.

-Colour.

-Black and white.

-Black and white.

-It's got to be.

-Whaa!

I'm Oli White and you've been watching Cinemaniacs - CineMinis.