Making Media

Conrad, Greg, Chrystal, Fikreye and Audrey are about to

start working on their very first short film.

How will they go about producing it, step by step?

We're going to follow them as they learn how to make a film.

Expert documentary filmmaker Cassius Rayner

is guiding them along the way.

The challenge is a three-minute film,

it's going to be about Zara Hohn, who is an Olympic 100m hurdler.

So the first thing we need to think about is

research, research, research until we've really got an idea of

who this person is, what their background is

and start looking at, what is her story.

Research means looking on the internet, reading books

and magazines, and of course meeting the subject of your film

and asking lots of questions.

What did you get up to as a teenager?

First race was when I was 14 in hurdles,

and actually I was quite good at it, I was a natural talent,

so I decided yeah, I'm going to do it.

But I didn't have so much as a teen... I had an operation,

which went quite wrong.

I actually died in the operation but they actually survived me back.

My dad actually took me on and he decided to coach me

and brought me from being, like, really weak at walking

to being British number one in hurdles.

I thought it was interesting

how she talked about how her parents supported her.

You would never know that she'd had such a serious illness.

The group are learning the importance of background research

and especially why you need to: Get to know your main character.

Try to discover what makes them tick.

Ask lots of questions.

Ask yourself what the key story is.

Does it have a beginning, middle and end?

That naturally leads us on to the next stage

which will be formulating the shooting script.

On one side we're going to have audio, her voice, sounds.

And then on this side, basic visual structure.

What would be the first opening visual thing you'd see?

Quick cut series of her getting ready.

She could start to talk about the obstacles that she's faced.

You could have a montage of her exercising like she's

-bringing back her strength.

-We've got a plan.

I think we're ready to go.

So before you start filming, make sure you have a plan.

Write a shooting script and from that you can work out

a list of the shots you'll need to film,

and the interview questions to ask.

It's the day of the shoot, and our filmmakers are raring to go.

They're going to be using

an affordable high street camcorder and tripod.

They need to work out how to frame -

or "compose" - the all-important interview shot.

It's just about thinking about your composition,

thinking about where the subject is in the frame.

Normally we'd leave just a fraction above the head.

The subject in the foreground

and in the background, the stadium where she trains.

Camera shake is distracting to look at, so choose a nice composition

then hold the camera still, using a tripod if you have one.

Introduce yourself, your name and what it is you do.

My name's Zara Hohn and I'm a sprinter hurdler.

Can you talk about becoming ill?

I had an infection which actually got into my blood.

They rushed me to the hospital and...

Good composition makes your film look beautiful.

Frame each shot like it's a work of art.

Don't suffer from camera shake - keep your shot steady.

Use a tripod if you need to.

The students have decided to film

different shots of Zara on an exercise bike.

Try and use several shots, at least five shots to cover that sequence.

A wide shot,

close up on the face,

close up on the hands,

over the shoulder shot,

and possibly another shot

to make up five shots in that sequence.

Remember, you don't have to shoot everything from the same height.

You can go high angle - this is a perfect example

of a high-angle shot that really works.

And again, a low-angle shot

giving us that really expanse-wide shot.

It just looks really good. Hold the shot for at least ten seconds.

Holding every shot for at least ten seconds

gives you enough material to play with in the edit.

Creative camerawork will help you tell your story, so:

film sequences using different shot sizes.

Shoot from high and low angles.

Count in your head and hold every shot for at least ten seconds.

The shoot is finished. We'll be seeing these students again later

when they learn how to edit what they've filmed,

but for now they've got a lot to say about how it went.

Meeting Zara before allowed us to know what questions to ask.

I learnt more stuff about how to interview someone.

What different angles to use.

The hardest thing is trying to compose the shot right.

I'm looking forward to seeing

what it will look like when it's all been put together.

It's a chilly autumn morning on an industrial site in East London

and six aspiring filmmakers are about to learn how to shoot

a music video.

They meet Tom Swindell, a professional

Director of Photography, and singer/songwriter Aruba Red

to hear the music and plan what they're going to film.

This is a great space for us to listen to the track

and start getting some ideas about how we can use this location.

SONG PLAYS

It kind of gave me

a feeling of sci-fi dystopia or something like that.

It's kind of hypnotic.

It's a really dreamy song.

With music videos

you have got permission to be a little bit abstract.

Let's see whether we want to link any particular images to the vocal.

It kind of starts off with you being in places where

there's not really any sunlight, so you'd be looking

quite pale, and quite cold.

And by the time you get to the chorus it's like you've warmed up.

I guess the word "light" kind of represents truth, in the song.

I was thinking about interesting shots using light -

kind of bleached-out shots.

Most music videos are shot

in just one day, so we better get cracking.

so before you even shoot one frame, you need to:

Listen to the tune - a lot!

Ask yourself what the music conveys and come up with some visual ideas.

OK, guys. So, yeah this is the location, the world's our oyster.

We've got many different angles we can choose from here.

A way I help decide on my framing

before I even get my camera out is to actually

put your finger and thumb out like that

and bring it together and that creates a rectangle,

which is pretty close to the kind of frame size we're going to be using.

So I think we're going to go straight in on a close-up.

To start with, Tom is filming with his own professional equipment,

but using techniques you can do with any cheaper camera.

He starts by filming the whole song in close-up,

then the whole song again in a wide shot.

# ..Something alive

# Can we rise, rise, rise? #

And that gives you a great opportunity because you can

cut from the wider shot in to the tighter shot and back and forth.

Also a nice technique we can bring in here is panning.

I've got my dancer here and I'm moving the camera nice and slowly.

# Take me to the light... #

Aspire to film great-looking pictures by:

Finding a good location.

Remember to shoot the whole song in wide shot and close-up

before you start being more creative.

Try some simple camera moves on a tripod.

We're going to do a tracking shot with Logic

walking towards the camera delivering his lines.

A wheelchair is one way to do really professional-looking tracking shots.

# ..Strength is when you really see I see you... #

This is a flip camera.

So what I like about this is you can really move round.

Cos it's the rap part of the song

I'm going to put more dynamism into it and move round him,

spar with him a little bit.

# See how can we be strong Strength is when you really see

# I see you... #

Even on a mobile phone you can get

like HD video nowadays, which is brilliant.

One technique with a pocket or phone camera is "arms length" filming

when the artist actually films him or herself.

# Take me to the light Doesn't mean I wanna die... #

We're going to do a locked-off shot now

with the camera on the tripod so that it stays still.

We've got a dancer back there.

We're going to move him through the frame

in four different positions and cut out that middle bit

so that we can make him appear and reappear

throughout the frame like magic.

So make sure you get creative with your camerawork, and try:

Tracking shots using a wheelchair.

Filming yourself at arm's length.

Lock off a shot on a tripod then let the action happen inside the frame.

That's a wrap, guys, it's home time.

Tom and the crew have achieved an amazing amount

in just one day of filming.

We learned lots of techniques.

It was interesting how they used the camera and the space.

You do this thing with your finger so

if you don't have the camera at hand then you can kind of picture.

You don't need specific expensive equipment to make a film good.

I think I learnt a lot of stuff

that I could use in a film project that I would do.

I'm not going to be able to stop singing it today now -

we've been singing it all day.

And this is what the final video looks like.

# I see you and me And I see me and you

# But I can't eat Unless everybody's eating food

# Take me to the light Doesn't mean I wanna die

# You see I'm asking God To give me wings so I can fly

# Take me to the light

# Take me to the light... #

Our intrepid stooge reporter Susan Earl

has been out on the streets of London recording interviews.

We're inviting a panel of young people

to try and spot her deliberate mistakes,

and discuss how to conduct an interview.

What makes a good interview, and what makes a bad interview?

That's the question our panel has to answer.

We sent our reporter to talk to

people about fashion, and make some blatant errors along the way.

In this clip we asked our panel to think about how she asks questions.

Will they spot the deliberate mistakes?

OK, so Mark, fashion.

Sorry, I'm just trying to work out which, er...

-Do you like skirts?

-Yes.

-Do you like trousers?

-Yes.

-Do you like shoes?

-Yeah.

OK. And, um...

Do you think it's because the entire kind of fashion industry

kind of rests on this whole idea of,

that women need to be more beautiful

and that women only like have any self-worth

if they've got some kind of attractiveness going on?

Or do you think that it's just nice to wear nice clothes

or do you think it's just part of like kind of like

weakening females, you know, us as women?

Or do you kind of think it's just good fun or is it serious?

I don't know, um...

She asked yes or no questions,

so they weren't really getting the right answers.

She was unprepared.

She didn't set out with something she actually wanted to find out.

So when you head out to do an interview, it's essential to:

Prepare questions in advance.

Don't ask closed questions,

where the only possible answer is yes or no.

Do ask open questions that will get the person talking.

Clip two is all about body language. We asked the panel to think about

our reporter's body language and how well she listens to people.

Um, do you feel like, you know,

you've got to follow any particular sense of style?

What's that, sorry?

Do you feel you've got to present any particular sense of style?

No, I just kind of do my own thing, you know?

I mean, I know a lot of people like labels and everything like that

but I'm not so much about that, as long as I don't...

I think it's about how I look and weight, more than anything.

I find it really difficult to buy clothes for myself.

Oh, gosh, sorry...hello?

Hello!

How much do you spend a week on clothing, or a month?

Or a month?

-It really depends...

-Would you say?

I plan if I've got something coming up.

-So...

-If you had like...

Probably about £200.

What, a week, a month?

She never gave the person eye contact.

Look at her phone, check the time,

roll her eyes, look at something else.

She was fiddling a lot.

I could tell that some of them were a bit offended by it.

She wasn't sensitive to what they were saying.

It's not easy being interviewed,

so help your interviewee to feel comfortable.

Keep eye contact and really listen.

Try not to fidget - it can appear rude or that you're uninterested.

Avoid speaking over them - it's not only going to build bad rapport,

but when it comes to the edit, you won't be able to cut yourself out.

Our final clip is about recording good sound - or bad.

What sound principles do you need to follow when you interview someone?

What about shopping, kind of like...?

SIREN WAILS

INAUDIBLE

-I wear a lot of black...

-Mmm...

-because I'm in a band with my sisters...

-Oh!

-..so we tend to wear a lot of black and white.

-Mmm.

So like we're together as a group so we get noticed.

There are certain labels...

-COUGHS

-Tends to look better, so...

-Yeah.

Good trainers...

INAUDIBLE

You notice that.. Sorry...you notice all of that sort of stuff

Yeah, er, OK.

She wasn't getting the microphone

close enough to the person that she was talking to.

It was often near a busy road

or in the middle of a junction or something like that,

maybe she should have taken them somewhere quieter.

To summarise, your audience will never forgive bad sound. So:

Find a quiet place to do the interview.

Use a separate microphone

and hold it close to the person you're interviewing.

Don't be afraid to stop the interview for a moment

if there's too much noise.

Well, I think that went really well.

I've interviewed a lot of people today

and I'm sure you're going to learn from my expertise.

So keep practicing, guys, and maybe one day you'll be as good as me.

These three young filmmakers, Jummy, Lauren and Naomi,

have been busy making a film trailer

for their sci-fi thriller The Mind Reader.

They drew a storyboard, picked their costumes,

then went out and shot it around their neighbourhood.

Now all they need to do is to learn how to edit a film trailer.

Professional editor Pete Booth will be at the controls

and guiding them through the process.

What type of movie is it? Thriller, comedy, horror?

I think it's like a sci-fi thriller.

Most film trailers conform to conventions.

One of the big conventions is the cliff-hanger -

leaving the audience wanting to see more. So they'll show you

the most exciting bits, the most interesting bits.

So the first thing we need to do is go through your footage

and see which takes you want to use in your finished trailer.

Once they've picked out their best shots,

they put them in the right order.

So we need to decide what your first shot was,

what your second shot was, to tell that story.

In our filmmakers' story, Lauren finds

a mysterious stone that gives her the power to read minds.

You go from shot 1...

to shot 2.

Do you see how it's starting to come together?

By just putting shot after shot?

We need to maybe think of three or four captions that allows us

to tell that story in as few words as possible.

-What would the first caption be?

-"They were the best of friends."

"They were the best of friends" - great, that sets up,

at the beginning of the trailer, who our characters are.

So, ask yourself what genre your film is,

and what conventions you might need to follow.

Edit your best shots together.

You can also use captions or voiceover

to tell your story to great effect.

We've got our structure, our script.

We need to pick a piece of music

that represents the genre you've chosen.

Just to show you how much music can affect,

I thought we might just try and throw a couple of tracks on there

just to show you how the feel of it would be different.

JAUNTY MUSIC

We were wondering if we could do something like quite child-like

but scary at the same time.

-Yeah.

-That's a good idea.

MUSIC-BOX STYLE MUSIC

OK, so we'll definitely use that bit, yeah? Cool.

As well as music, film trailers often use sound effects

like whooshes and bangs to add drama.

WHOOSH

Try out different music to see what feels right.

Remember you can use more than one track within the same trailer.

Add in sound effects -

there are loads available for free on the internet.

The other thing we use a lot in trailers and promos

is quite simple special effects on the pictures.

The first one which every trailer maker probably in the world

has used is the fade to black.

It's a shorthand tool to create emotion.

It might be worth trying another trick on this.

You know where Lauren falls?

It might be worth having fun with slow motion,

cos you make more of the fall and you can put a nice big sound effect.

You might also want to try making your captions more dynamic

by adding simple moves.

We can make them fly on to screen...

..fly down into screen.

Visual effects are a fun way to make your trailer dramatic,

so - fade shots to black.

Slow your footage down.

and fly your titles on to the screen.

-Shall we have a look at the trailer?

-Yeah.

MUSIC-BOX STYLE MUSIC

WHOOSH

THUMP

Sorry, what did you say?

Nothing.

'Leave me alone!'

WHOOSH

CLASSICAL MUSIC

She's crazy!

I can read minds, and I read her mind! She's evil!

THUMP

FAST DRUMBEAT

WHOOSH

WHISPER: I'm inside your head.

These five young moviemakers have been shooting

their very first film, about a British hurdler

who aspires to compete in the Olympics.

Now they've come to a professional edit suite

to discover how to edit a film.

They're going to be working with documentary maker Barry Gibb.

So the first thing you've got to do is log what you actually have,

you've got to go through the rushes and see what's there.

For each of these clips, we're going to assess

whether it's any good or not.

In focus, out of focus, write down a little description.

Note each shot's unique number, or timecode.

Then try editing your best shots together into a sequence.

And this is it.

Everything we've got here

is everything we can use to build a film.

I want to be the best.

Logging also includes

going carefully through any interviews you have.

The interview is where the story is built.

All that matters now is what she says.

And, um, basically died in the operation, which

-they had to go and tell...

-'That's got to go in.'

You cannot get more dramatic than somebody saying "I died".

It shows how, despite some things like her illness,

-she still managed to become an athlete.

-Exactly.

So, before you start editing,

watch what you've filmed and write a log.

Cut your best shots together so you can find them easily.

Mark out the strongest bits of any interviews you have.

The journey that Zara's going to be taking, within the context

of this film, is arriving at the gym, warming up,

doing her training. Beneath that,

we're going to have the journey of what she's saying.

Work out how to re-order what your interviewee says

so they tell the most powerful story possible.

If we started with the fact that she died,

how would that change the film?

It would be quite dramatic from the start.

Pull in people quite well.

You see, we've now got our first clip.

Edit together the interview first, according to what you planned.

This first cut will always be too long, so it'll need cutting down.

Listen out for things that you don't think are adding to the story, OK?

Cos that's the stuff we're going to cut out.

But the first thing was on my mind was I still want to do athletics,

so I was a bit weak at the time, and I was in hospital for a few months.

-Maybe the very last thing she says, we could probably cut out.

-Mm-hmm.

But the first thing was on my mind was I still wanted to do athletics.

I think we have the foundation of a film.

So, to summarise - first structure your film on paper,

thinking in terms of beginning, middle and end.

Then set about editing together your interview.

Less is more. Cut the interview down as much as you can

and re-order it to tell the best story.

With the structure of the film laid down,

start looking for the pictures that will complement the words.

We have these additional shots of her running, running towards us.

This is an unstoppable force of nature, and I think the combination

of her talking about her desire to be a world champion combined with

you seeing how much energy and life she's got now, will do it.

My ambition is to be the world's number one.

I want to be a world champion, an Olympic champion.

I want to inspire other people.

The film is finished and our young directors

have learned loads from the experience of making it.

It's interesting that we started with the audio first

and then matched it up with the visuals.

It's really quite difficult to

choose which clips are most important and which ones

you don't really need.

I think the film looks really good - I'm really proud.

And here is some of the completed film.

When I was roughly about 14 years old

I had an infection which actually got into my blood.

They rushed me to the hospital

and, er, basically I died in the operation.

Somehow they got an emergency blood transfusion

and they managed to get me back.

When I'm running down the track, I don't think of nothing at all,

specially if it's a good race. Cos I'm so deep into a zone

that my mind actually goes blank.

My ambition is to be the world's number one.

I want to be a world champion, an Olympic champion.

I want to be able to inspire other people.

These five aspiring web entrepreneurs from East London

want to start a music fansite to promote British music.

They're on their way to find out how to build a website.

Katherine Green runs her own web design agency

and is going to help them out.

So do you want to start by telling me what your website idea is?

We're going to be creating a music website.

By UK artists and also unsigned acts.

Their idea is to make a website that showcases

all of their favourite UK artists.

One thing that's really important when you're designing a website

is making sure that you're designing with your audience in mind.

Each of you is going to write down and describe who they might be.

Mine's a 13-year-old girl

who's starting to get fed up of her normal, average music.

She wants to find out about other bands and genres.

Scarlett Johnson, 19 years old.

She uses Facebook and finds her music through YouTube.

Knowing who your target audience is will help you appeal

to their tastes and needs.

So maybe we should talk about competitors' websites.

So what do you think of this website?

-Too crowded type.

-Jam-packed, yeah.

And the interface of it is quite complicated.

So what do you think of this site?

It's hard to pick, where would you go first,

and would you read everything?

What do you like about that?

-It's easy, it's not complicated.

-It's nice big fonts as well.

Have you thought of a name yet?

We came up with one website which is called Dropz Daily.

It's almost time to start designing.

So get together everything you want to put on your website -

any writing, photos videos or drawings.

Once you have the concept for your site, you'll need to:

Define your target audience -

get a sense of who will be visiting your site.

Decide what you do and don't like about the competition.

Think of a catchy name for your website

and see if the domain is available.

Gather together your text, images and videos.

So maybe we could draw out a small site map

of the different pages. So we'd start with a Home Page.

And then you have About,

Artist, Contact.

Our designers want to give their site a unique identity,

so there are some creative decisions to be made.

Colour can really influence

the way people feel or think about your site.

You could have cooler colours, a bit more stand-offish,

or you could have much brighter, playful primary colours.

So how about something like that?

That's the one, innit?

Different fonts can give a different feel to your site.

Some might be more edgy, some might be clearer, plainer.

Some might have a hand-drawn feel. Any favourite ones on there?

-That's all right.

-That's quite nice.

To sum up, key design decisions include:

Decide what your pages are.

Choose the right colour palette for your site.

Pick your fonts - there are loads of interesting ones online.

There's lots of different free blogging sites.

Like Tumblr, Blogger... it just enables you

to set up a website really quickly and easily.

For the project you're doing today, we're going to use WordPress.

Whatever sites you use will have simple editing tools

to name your pages, add your text and images and just upload.

Then you can see how your pictures and words are laid out

in different ready-made templates. Our group try out a couple.

That one is a bit too formal. What do you think of the design of this?

It's too plain, even the background.

-What do you think of this one?

-I like that one.

MURMURS OF AGREEMENT

Really? What are the reasons why you think this works?

It's not cluttered, easy to navigate around.

It's unique from other music websites.

Once you've chosen your template, it's quite easy to customise it

with the colour and fonts you've chosen.

Everything just ties up together, the colours, images.

And it's all the way we planned it.

Make sure you let people know about your brand new site

by linking it to social networks like Facebook or Twitter.

So when it comes to finally building your site:

Use a simple blog-based website like WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger.

Choose a template and customise it by, for example,

changing the font and colour scheme.

And spread the word by linking to social networks.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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