Filmmaking Guides – MyState Student Film Festival

We’ve put together a series of filmmaking guides to help students and teachers bring their films to life.

The MAKE IT guides cover everything from story development and script writing to gathering your cast and crew, acting, filming, sound design and editing. These guides are easy to use and provide an excellent framework to help you transform your project from a great idea to a great short film!

WRITING

Want to hook the audience and keep their eyes glued to the screen while watching your film? The key isn’t tricky camera work or wacky dialogue. It’s story. With it, the audience is yours. Without it, they’ll get bored and start wondering why popcorn is white.

DOWNLOAD PDF

CREW

One of the best things about filmmaking is you don’t do it alone. Making a film means finding a talented group of people to work with. When you’ve got the right people in the right roles, and you all work together, you’ll make a good film.

DOWNLOAD PDF

ACTING

An actor’s job is to tell the story they’re in as effectively as they can. We asked the best in the biz at the Cooper Screen Academy to give us some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your performance.

DOWNLOAD PDF

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Film is a visual medium - which just means it’s a story you consume through your eyeballs. So, when you’ve got your story figured out, you need to think about the best way to tell that story with pictures. What sequence of shots is going to engage your audience the best?

DOWNLOAD PDF

SOUND

Seen a silent film recently? Probably not. And even if you did, there was probably some wacky piano music playing. You can get all the beautiful visuals you like, but if you don’t get the sound right, you’ll struggle to engage your audience. Sound has some pretty useful superpowers, read on to find out how to put them to use in your film.

DOWNLOAD PDF

EDITING

By now you will have written an amazing script, and gone out and shot some spectacular footage. But you don’t have a film yet. You’ve come to the climax of the filmmaking process: the editing. Editing isn’t just putting the shots in order. You’re now going to use the footage available to create a finished story.

DOWNLOAD PDF