This week at Sparks Film Schools we’ve been creating tension, solving crimes and piecing together the evidence as our filmmakers created films inspired by the theme: Scene of the Crime.
Pulling Off the Perfect Crime Film
Over the course of three days, members our our filmmaking courses have explored filmmaking techniques and narrative features of crime films before putting it all to the test and shooting their own crime masterpiece.
One of the key features of a perfect crime film is the classic interrogation scene. Our filmmakers were challenged to explore over the shoulder shots to compose visually compelling interrogation scenes. We looked at the composition of the perfect over the shoulder shot, to make sure their hard-faced detectives get every shred of evidence from the suspects at the other side of the table!
During the week members created a vital prop for their film: the evidence board! This will become a centre piece for their film production. The groups then used it to inspire a montage of moving shots, exploring different shot types and camera movements including push and pulls to present the board in visually interesting ways to their audience.
Our filmmakers also explored narrative techniques to increase tension and suspense and were encouraged to include these in their film pitches. We can’t wait to see the results!
Production Design at Studio Film School
One of the challenges of making a film on a course like ours is production design. With such just a week to pitch and idea and then get it storyboarded, shot and in the can, it is a challenge for our filmmakers to think creatively and produce costumes sets and props.
One of the big rules in filmmaking is ‘Show Don’t Tell’, and we aim to use visual aspects of costume design, set design and prop building to help tell our young filmmakers’ stories.
Our Scene of the Crime filmmakers have risen to this challenge admirably! We’ve been impressed by the detective costumes, props and costumes and clever use of our location venues to produce the perfect settings for our films. Of course thanks to any unsung heroes at home who’ve helped our members with bringing in handy costumes or props!
Unique Stories
Our filmmakers were challenged to pitch their ideas to their groups, before developing their filmmaking skills as they storyboarded, scripted and developed their story ideas. Next they had to prepare costumes, make props (including that vital evidence board!), and choose locations.
Everyone on the Sparks Film School set takes on all of the production roles while on set, as we use a system to ensure everyone gets to take practical experience on the film set and take ownership of the group’s film. This way everyone can feel proud of the film they’ve produced.
What’s Next for Sparks Film School students?
Our term time students will be starting back over the next few weeks, with filmmaking classes starting back for the second half of Spring. This term, they exploring – True Colours, which will delve into lots of different filmmaking techniques around colour in storytelling, design, mood, character as well as technical aspects of camera operation and editing.
We also look forward to welcoming students to Easter and Summer filmmaking camps, where students are set to get stuck into producing some brand new blockbusters. For Easter we’re exploring Superheroes on our Unbeatables project. Expect flying superheroes, special effect sequences and dastardly villains. It should be lots of fun with loads of practical filmmaking challenges.
For more details on upcoming courses at Sparks Film School, please take a look here >>
To enjoy more films produced by young filmmakers, keep an eye on the blog, or take a look at our YouTube channels >>
