This Easter holiday, young filmmakers at Sparks Film School have been creating their own creature feature monster movies!
Young filmmakers at Sparks Film School branches all across the UK joined in with monster movie filmmaking and animation holiday camps over the Easter holidays.
We saw lots of movie making magic happening, read on below to find out what the young film crews got up to…
Filmmaking Camps: Ages 5-14
In Studios 1-4, filmmakers focused on creating their very own short monster movies.
Using a range of production and technical effects, they made their own creature elements and scary beasts to feature in their films, alongside learning a whole range of filmmaking techniques to show their creatures off on the screen.
The crews created their very own magical beast props, including dramatic wings and monstrous eyes to impress their audience. These props were used for scenes in which the films heroes enter the beast’s lair and discover their terrifying foes.
As part of the process, filmmakers planned how they might like to shoot their beasts’ lair scenes using storyboards and planning how they may like to shoot their big sequences.
Inspired by films including The Never Ending Story, the young crews got to work on storytelling using other worldly special effects. They shot magical scenes using the green screen and focused on using different camera angles and using a multi camera setup.
Another technique mastered over the holiday camps was the art of the point of view shot. The filmmakers produced some fun sequences told from their monster’s point of view, using the camera as a subject in their scene to give a unique perspective from inside the story.
In Studio 4, young filmmakers ages 11-14, got to the cutting room and delved into creative editing.
After shooting some amazing footage for their films, the crew were tasked with creating some exciting and snappy edits to celebrate the monster theme of the projects. The crews experimented with using sound effects and music to heighten the tensions and also explored how to vary the length and selection of clips that would keep the pace dramatic and suspenseful.
Studio 4 filmmakers also spent time developing their characterisation through screenwriting, directing and acting exercises.
They expanded on their idea for a character by looking at backstory and their characters strengths and weaknesses. They created some short films aimed at showing who their characters were through short scenes in which they encounter their beasts.
Animation Camps: Ages 7-11
In Animation Camps, young animators explored some of the fundamental principles of animation, such as how to vary speed of an object (or in this case an animated monster!) as well as how to manipulate characters with added small movements and detail to give each one the impression of realism.
The young animators worked hard to create their animated monster films, before bringing their monsters to life.
After focusing on different animation styles from 2D and stop motion using a range of materials, the crew storyboarded and planned out their animated film before heading into production.
Throughout the camp, the young animators were very busy designing, storyboarding and animating their creations to produce their own original monster movie.
There was a lot of creativity on display and the crew were using a nice mix of animation styles to tell their stories.
About Sparks Film School’s Half Term Courses
Sparks Film School offers filmmaking, animation and photography workshops for ages 5-18, including term time classes and holiday camps.
You can find out more about our filmmaking courses here >>>
