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The best advice for student filmmakers often comes from other students who have already gone through the filmmaking process.
Screen Test is a competitive festival, but it's also a forum for young filmmakers to share ideas and gain insight into the motion picture medium.
Questions are also welcome! |
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Screen Test Student Fest is sponsored by |
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Greetings!
Three marvelous words: "It's a wrap." The shooting is done, the film is in the can. But you're far from finished with your project. Now comes the labor intensive, solitary, and often most challenging stage of the process: post-production and editing. In the third installment of our infotainment series for student filmmakers, the Screen Test team offers a few tips to help you get the most out of your footage. |
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Web Resources |
Once again, we hit the web and found fantastic post-production resources:
Costly desktop editing tools like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere are nice to have, but you can get excellent results by assembling your footage on FREE software. Basic editing programs are already available on Windows and Mac-based computers (Movie Maker and iMovie respectively). The Top 5 website suggests three other programs worth checking out. As usual, we caution you about using executable files found online -- make sure they're free of viruses or malware that can harm your computer.
Every great movie, from indie films to big studio productions, adheres to the editing rules on this excellent starter list. Apply these tips to your film and we promise you your film will be better in the end. And we'll talk about Tip #1 in a bit.
Videomaker magazine, the self-described "guide to creating and publishing great video" contains lots of links to good advice. It's a great meeting place where pros and novices share ideas regarding all things video. |
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Your Film's Too Long |
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Nine out of ten film submissions we receive at Screen Test are too long. We repeat: TOO LONG. Even a 5 minute film feels like an eternity when shots linger or dialogue becomes needlessly repetitive. The adage "less is more" holds true for movies. If you are the person who shot and cut your movie, you must have it seen and critiqued from people not affiliated with the project. Ask a teacher or someone else with film experience. And stay away from friends and family! They're far too kind to take your film apart, which is what it needs if it's going to be improved upon. |
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Creative Commons Music |
We talk a lot about soundtrack music on our website because up until a few years ago, finding decent cheap or free music for low-budget films was next to impossible. Today, the possibilities are endless, mainly with the advent of music licensed through Creative Commons.
With a Creative Commons License, an artist allows you to use his or her music for free under the right conditions. Artists can place limitations on Creative Commons (CC) licenses, so it's important that the music you decide to use is permitted under that license.
To keep it simple, look for CC music that has an Attribution, Non-Commercial license and that is NOT No-Derivative. The "Attribution" part means that you have to acknowledge the music's author(s) in your credits. "Non-Commercial" means that you don't plan to make a profit on the film. A "No-Derivative" work stipulates that a piece cannot be used in a film soundtrack - make sure the license doesn't have a No-Derivative condition on it.
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Part four will conclude our infotainment series with administrative and promotional tips to get your project ready for submission. In the meantime, happy filmmaking!
Sincerely,
The Screen Test Team |
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