Lizzie’s top tips to making films with impact
The nights are drawing in, the fluffy socks are out and the leaves on the trees are a filmmaker’s dream! Yes, it’s my favourite time of the year when I love nothing more than a long walk before hunkering down with a good folky album to inspire my thoughts.
This is the time of year where the majority of my filmmaking ideas and plans spring to life…which got me thinking about the essentials you need to consider when planning any film project, and I thought it would be useful to share my top tips with you over the next few weeks…
To start, I’m going to talk a bit about story. Story telling is an art, and that’s what we love about what we do here at Nice Tree Films, whether it’s discovering the amazing world of ants (more to come on that in future blogs…) or the latest issues in the world of evidence-based medicine.
First things first – what are you trying to say in your film?
We humans love a good story; in fact telling stories is an innate human behaviour (trust me I’m a zoologist!) So, knowing what you want your story to be is the starting point for any film as it will form the basis of everything that follows. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often people forget to think carefully about this.
What makes a good story?
When creating web content, your story – or narrative – should be compelling, focussed and simple.
It may be based around a fascinating character like Alex Graham from the Oxford Drama Wardrobe, a new product launch, or an important issue such as sepsis awareness. In all cases, the story should have some kind of structure – a beginning, a middle and an end, which makes sense to the audience and keeps it flowing.
Working with the head and the heart
Once you’ve worked out what you want to say to the world, think about how best to get your message across. Connecting with your audience on some kind of emotional level – making them feel happiness, anger, sadness, curiosity, surprise or maybe even fear, is key to getting them engaged and listening. The tools you have to help you do this include pacing, music, and of course your characters or interviewees.
What about style?
There are so many ways to tell your story: it could be picture and music only, or have complicated graphics, or simply based around a ‘talking head’. It may be a combination of all of these. We’ll be looking into these options in more detail over the coming weeks.