Have I told you lately how in love I am with creating little films?

It all started back in 2012 when I made this film of my experience at Squam. I put it together on a whim because I wanted to do something different with my photos and since I had taken some video I thought I would give it a go. I loved it. I absolutely loved the whole process of finding the photos/footage, to choosing the music to set the mood, and compiling it all to tell a story in a whole new way.

After that experience I was hooked. I had felt stagnant for far too long and it was helping to push me forward and get me out of my comfort zone. It challenged me creatively and was exactly what I was craving.

It was probably good I was too excited to actually think about all that was involved in learning this new skill. I mean, I knew nothing about film except how to hit record (who am I kidding, I still don’t know much) so I didn’t really think about the massive learning curve, but I was determined.

So as I share this latest film I shot in February and started working on just before we moved, I thought I would share just a little about what I’ve learned so far (still have a long long way to go) on my journey to creating films.

01) switching my brain
I think in terms of photographs. I always have. I walk around town or in my home and I picture life in still frames, attempting to capture that one perfect moment from the scene. I have found, at least for me, video to be quite a different beast, which is why I wanted to tackle it in the first place. So my first obstacle was to switch my brain from thinking in terms of photographs or still moments, to video footage or moments with movement. It was actually a lot more challenging than I thought. They are similar in nature, but they are quite different in execution.

02) remembering to take the video
Remembering to take the video was my second obstacle. You’d think it would be the easiest, but it was almost one of the hardest. Because I thought only in photographs, I’d simply get so caught up in what I was shooting that I would forget to capture video, which meant I didn’t have the footage I needed so I ended up making more slide show type films (most of these never got finished), but I wanted to make them so I would learn about putting a story together.
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03) stop motion
Xanthe Berkeley’s Time Capsules taught me you can make a lovely film even without video footage. Instead of capturing video just shoot a ton of photos one right after another (rapidfire) and when you put them all together it almost looks like video, but with its own special flair. I love the way it looks. This is my first stop motion film. It’s rough and has a lot of flaws, but it served it’s purpose by teaching me a great deal.

04) storyboarding
When I shoot photographs I don’t think about it. I just go out and shoot and take the pictures that stand out to me. It’s not until I’m home looking through and editing my photos that the story emerges. I don’t have to find it or think about it, it just comes on it’s own in one shot. It wasn’t always like that, but it is now. Well, unfortunately I don’t find that to be the case with video. When I first started capturing videos I would choose random things I thought would be good, but often times when I got home I realized I didn’t have the footage I wanted or needed to tell the story I found in my photographs. Realizing I had to put more work into this, I started approaching my project with a story already in mind, that way it would help me capture the footage I thought would be best to tell that particular story. Again, something I had to learn to do ahead of time, begin with the end in mind.

05) learning the software
I actually love learning new software. In fact, it’s almost a hobby of mine. I don’t watch TV any more, instead I spend that time, no kidding, watching online videos on how to learn software. I use the services from lynda.com so I have a plethora of options to choose from. Sometimes I even watch videos on software I don’t even own just because. Yeah, I know I’m a dork. Anyway, back to my narrative. There are a lot of choices out there for editing video and I’ve tried a few except for the mac only ones, which by the way i would love to try. I decided on Premiere Pro and man what a beast it is when you first get started, but once you get the hang of it and understand a little how it’s set up and how it works it’s really not so bad. I picked it up pretty quickly just from my experiences with other Adobe software, although pretty quickly still put a wrench in my learning curve and has slowed down my process.

06) time
Anything worth anything takes time, right? And so it is with film. I think this is the biggest lesson I’ve learned so far because I totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to not only go through my photos and edit them, but scanning through hours of video footage to find just the right clip I was looking for. It’s time consuming. Really time consuming, and then putting it all together takes even more time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I actually love the process, however, this is my excuse for why I have far too much footage on my computer just waiting to get used. TIME. I need more of it. How about you?

Have you ever thought of making films with your photographs?

Happy Friday! Have an excellent weekend friends.
xo