This half term, young filmmakers have been busy writing scripts and developing characters as part of February Half Term screenwriting camps
Over the half term break, Sparks Film School students joined in with lots of fun screenwriting adventures!
Read on to discover what young filmmakers have been up to over the February half term at Sparks Film School…
Studio 1: Ages 5-7
Studio 1 filmmakers took part in The Dream Machine – a fun, fantastical adventure to the edges of their wildest dreams.
The young filmmakers started the half terms camps getting to grips with the basics of the camera and the roles on a film set, looking into different shot types and how to operate the equipment.
They explored different ideas and how they could create their very own magical dream machine that their character will use to go on exciting adventures. They also created all the costumes and props needed for the dream machine worlds they had imagined.
After they mastered some of their movie making skills, they were ready unleash their imaginations onto the green screen!
The young film crews began by drawing some fantasy dream worlds, then, using the magic of the green screen, they combined their own live action footage with their drawings to create their own magical special effects sequences.
Studios 2 & 3: Ages 7-9 & 9-11
As part of the From Dream to Screen workshop, young filmmakers in Studio 2 and Studio 3 delved deep into their storytelling and screenwriting.
The young filmmakers looked at narrative structures, exploring how to create an effective beginning, middle, and an end in their films. The filmmakers explored a number of ways they can generate stories for themselves, such as using different items as a stimulus. They then got to work writing some short scripts focusing firstly on action, and then on dialogue.
Next, the filmmakers explored character development. They expanded on their idea for a character in the film by looking at backstory and their characters strengths and weaknesses.
The crew looked further into how to structure a screenplay and how a film script is laid out using different script rules. They used these new skills to write some short scenes involving their characters, which they then produced as a film crew.
During their time on the camp, filmmakers further developed their scripts, going through a redraft process, so they could refine the scenes structure and action into an improved script.
Studio 4: Ages 11-14
In Studio 4 the filmmakers experimented with using different stimuli to generate ideas, such as images and objects for inspiration. They looked at how conflict in screenwriting helps to generate drama and interest for the audience and how to implement conflict into their scripts.
Filmmakers in Studio 4 looked further into visual storytelling, by studying examples from famous cinema such as Rocky (1976) in the training montage. The filmmakers learnt the importance of showing the story, rather than telling it, as they worked on their own montage sequences.
The group then looked into the idea of protagonists and antagonists in stories, and how character arcs work in film. Being inspired by an example from The Wizard of Oz, the young filmmakers got to work developing their characters in their scripts by detailing their journey of how their character changes during the course of their story.
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 >>>
