Rotterdam

Details

Elmer Laan & Patrick Thompson

Teachers

Language

English

Location*

W70.Club, Meeting Room, 1st floor
Weena 70, Rotterdam

Lesson Times:

11:00 - 15:00

* A few of our sessions will be at alternative locations in Rotterdam - we'll let you know well in advance.

Course Overview

Tuesday 22 July

During our induction session, we'll go through all the necessary paperwork as well as get to know each other and go through the details of the program and answer any questions that arise!

Induction

Monday 28 July

Ultimately, filmmaking is all about capturing light. In this lesson we're going to look at how to capture light as well as explore different qualities of light.

We'll also look at camera movement - should we move the camera, how can we move the camera, etc.

Capturing Images & Project Overview

Tuesday 29 July

Guide to Documentary Filmmaking & Production Preparation

Description coming soon!

Wednesday 30 July

Interview Techniques, Scripts & B-Roll

In this session we cover several topics to prepare yourself for making a documentary. The backbone of the majority of documentaries is the interview. We will go over some tips on how to be comfortable conducting interviews and how you can make the person you are interviewing feel comfortable answering questions. It may surprise you, but documentaries also have a script - which we'll explore here as well. No need to get lost making a documentary!

Thursday 31 July

Camera Familiarisation & Video Walk

The cameras we have available for you to use are the DJI Osmo Pocket 3s. don't let their tiny size fool you: These are some seriously capable devices. With their built-in gimbal, 10-bit 422 capture and D-Log, they are capable of producing cinema level footage.

We'll look at how to transpose the settings we explored on the first day to these cameras, how to select the right frame rate and then we're going to go out and play!

Monday 4 August

Scheduling / Editing: Intro to DaVinci Resolve

Half the battle when making a movie is getting everything and everyone at the right place and right time to make sure everything goes as smooth as it can - we'll take the first part of today's session to go over strategies for effective scheduling

How do we work with the footage we capture? In a non-linear editor (NLE), of course! And our NLE of choice is DaVinci Resolve. the free version is very capable.
We'll look at setting up a project, importing footage and tools for assembling our footage on the timeline.

Tuesday 5 August

Working with Audio and Lights

Audio is at least 50% of the visual experience, so it's important that we understand atleast a few key things about it in order to capture the best audio we can.

Additionally, we'll look at lighting setups for interviews. What are key lights, fill lights, and practical lights and what do we do with them? That's what we'll explore here.

Wednesday 6 August

Interview Setup and Practice

In this lesson it will be all about building up our interview set up and practicing our interview techniques so that you'll be ready to go when it comes time to interview your subject(s) for your documentary!

Thursday 7 August

Editing: Building Your Story & Editing Audio

Last editing lesson we set up our session and imported our footage and looked at different editing tools. In this lesson we'll start building up our edit - often times, getting that first image on the timeline is the hardest part. but from there, how do we balance A-Roll and B-Roll to create a compelling story with a beginning, a middle and an end?

Monday 11 August

On Location Practical

Patrick & Elmer are actually shooting a documentary while the course is going on and on this day we'll be on location shooting some B-Roll. What better way to get ready for your documentary than to practice all your camera moves in a real world scenario. Who knows? We may even use some of your footage in the final production!

Tuesday 12 August

Editing: Colour Correction & Grading

In this lesson we lok at how we can correct exposure and colour in our footage. it may well be that the footage was exposed correctly, but when we put it next to another clip, they are too much out of balance with each other. colour correction is all about making sure our footage is balanced across our movie.

Next, we'll look at how we can create a "look" or colour grade, thus manipulating the overal tones and hues in our movie to evoke the right feeling.

Wednesday 13 August

Editing: Finishing Touches & Exporting Your Final Film

What about titles, lower thirds, credits and all that good stuff? This lesson we'll go over all of these fancy things and also look at how we can export our finished movie!

Thursday 14 August

Planning Review, Open Floor

Here will look over and discuss your planning for the shooting and editing period of your documentary journey. Additionally, we'll have an open floor so if you have any last lingering questions, now's the time to ask!

15 August - 31 August

Making Your Documentary

During these 2 weeks you will be working on filming and finishing your documentary. Elmer will be available on specific days for equipment handover and to answer questions, give support, etc.

TBD

Film Presentations and Certificate Ceremony!

You've done it! You've finished the course, made your own documentary and now it's time to show it off and celebrate 🥳

Registration Form: