FILM MAKING WS FOR MO RESEARCH

Dear researchers,

Here's the new program for our Christmas Party and Open Day. What we do is that we produce short, <3min videos of our research.

To be able to make them professional-looking enough, we go through a short internal training process.

KEY DATES ARE:
- 6 Nov 14-17: Raimo Lång from YLE teaches us how people at YLE make short stories
- 4 Dec: Film editing workshop in the morning
- 4 Dec: Films are premiered on Open Day

The reason for the change is simple: Ilpo teaches his causal stuff in Winter/Spring as a series of lectures; one day is not enough for going deep enough to this fairly difficult topic.

Ilpo

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PROCESS

STEP 1: PRE-PRODUCTION

Brief: 23 Oct.

Then creating a story line. you cannot do a movie of your Ph.D. thesis. Think about how you can make its main problem dramatic.

((Backend processes: sketching a video, talking to Ilpo, Turkka, Tuuli, etc.))

STEP 2: VIDEO SKETCHING WORKSHOP: 6 Nov, 14-17

Raimo Lång from Finnish Broadcasting Company come to visit us to tell how he teaches FBC people do short films/journalistic reports

STEP 3: SCRIPT

After Raimo's WS, you need to create a story, script it, and create a storyboard. This is the tool you use for designing the movie: think about the story line, what kinds of pictures you want, create a sound plan.

STEP 4: PRODUCTION PHASE

Finding material, producing new material. Creating narrative elements. Creating dramatic elements:

- Locating pictures and video from your hard drives
- producing new video
- producing sound
- guaranteeing rights for music
- creating narration (in English - with someone like Cindy Kohtala, Timothy Austin, or Salil, depending on gender and dialect you want

Organizing files for the editing workship.

((Backend process: Salu and Ilpo create a Web template for the movie))

STEP 5: EDITING WORKSHOP, 4. DEC, WITH SALU

In the morning of 4 Dec, we gather for a video editing workshop.

Salu teaches techniques he has developed over the years, and goes through Sony Vegas and some sound editing sortwrae (SoundForge?). Mac users learn iMovie and GarageBand, taught by Ilpo and Salu.

Salu helps you to edit sound into a movie.

Two versions are done: one hires for the big screen, another lores for the Web.

STEP 6: PREMIERING THE MOVIES

When Open Day begins in the afternoon, the movies are on the Website, are shown in the evening, and

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PREPARATIONS FOR 6 NOV

To prepare for 6 Nov, we go through these two steps:

1. Dramatization: thinking about a story line

Ilpo checks whether we get one of our film makers to talk to us around Nov 10th about storytelling and storyboards. Let's aim at Nov 6th for this preparation workshop.

2. Collecting initial materials

Then you have about 4 weeks to go through your hard drives to find existing material, or to produce new material (photos, video, sound), and to make sure you have rights for music, is you want to use music in your videos.

Inspiration material

There are many ways to do videos, and I feel you need an angle to be able to tell about your research in 3 minutes. This angle can be dramatic development, jocular, aiming at conveying feelings, journalistic.

Some inspiration material exists here:

http://www2.uiah.fi/~ikoskine/misc/videos.html

The angle should not be too complex, though. Do not try to tell about your research by making use of a parodic version of 1950s advertisements.

Of course, you can add graphics in your movies.