Drama 

Students in Drama this week continued developing the stories that they have conceptualised by working on character dialogue. What do characters say to each other when they are presented with a problem or challenge? What do they say when trying to overcome that problem in different ways? And what do they discuss when they are perhaps successful or unsuccessful?

We spoke about how precious our stories are to us; how they are a unique creation to us and therefore we covered the idea of intellectual ownership. The level to which some students organised and presented their ideas ready for filming was astounding. 

Therefore, it was time to begin filming some footage! Students were shown how to set up their devices on a tripod to ensure that the footage was uniform and still and ideal for editing later. We spoke about the importance of lighting so that actor’s faces could clearly be seen. We discussed the importance of complete silence and stillness on set during filming so that audio was ‘clean’. And we spoke about the importance of framing and focus so that action within a scene is clearly captured. 

Students were introduced to a film slate (or ‘clapperboard’) and stepped through how we use it to label different ‘takes’. We also tested the theory of filming multiple ‘takes’ in order to refine and perfect the running of a scene. Once our favourite take was achieved, we would then label this for editing later. 

It was absolutely wonderful to see students completely dive in to this process with enthusiasm and how engaged they were during the process of filming. The hope is that they may now apply what they have learned from this demonstration to start filming their own scenes from the stories that they have developed. 

Next session, will begin to look at iMovie and how students can use this simple but effective application to edit their footage together to create their own short films or presentations.