Creative film making for the creatively challenged - Mark Ramye

I read an article from the Media Magazine which was about being creative during production work and avoiding the easy options to create a really interesting and enticing short film/opening sequence. I found this very useful as it gave a few very useful tips that we could follow as a group in order to make our sequence very interesting. Below are some of the main points that I picked up from the text.

1. Know the genre: The first tip explored in the article is 'knowing the genre.' in order to create a short film that is creative and interesting we must know the generic conventions of our chosen gene. An obvious example is for horror films. When making a horror film the use of lighting is a key feature throughout the genre. Apart from this there are also technical rules that ned to be followed.

2.Break the rules: Although the first tip was to know the rules of the genre the second idea is to break them. Breaking/challenging typical conventions will shock and thrill the audiences.

3.Plan the film: Planning the film is extremely important, without a plan the short film will become uncreative and boring. The planning can be broken down into three equally important areas.

a) Script: A well drafted short film script should be punchy and in a readable format.

b) Storyboard: Once a script is complete then you can begin to visualise the film.The storyboard an also introduce the idea of location and costume. Without a storyboard the film only exists vaguely without any real structure.

c) Mise-en-scene: There are many different decisions that could essentially effect the impact of the film, without any attention being paid to colour schemes, clothing and hairstyles.

Creative Film-Making for the Creatively Challenged

Overall I am very pleased that I read the text as it has been very helpful as I was able to realise that any opening sequence containing hoodies, bloopers and indoor corridor scenes was a bad idea as it was very predictable and uncreative.