Final touches for your film

Establishing shots are all about setting the scene where your story takes place - where your subject lived or worked, or where they feel connected. This is often done with a very wide shot, before focusing on the subject. 

 

Aerials are great for this as they can reveal your point of interest in many ways; flying in from a distance, a slow reveal from directly overhead, or circling around.

 

The mood of your film will also be set by your first shot – a slow reveal of a beautiful farm might indicate a calm and thoughtful film to come, while a fast moving zoom to rugged terrain might flag a dramatic and stormy tale to be told.

 

Timelapses, by compressing a long time into a few seconds, can also establish or close your story with a large scale sense of time and space.

 

Finally, think about adding some music to support the mood of your story. We will have a range of styles and moods of film music  available for downloading at the last workshops.

 

There are examples of aerials and timelapses in the videos below, one with chill music and one with dramatic music.  Look and listen to both videos and see which shots work best with the calm music and which with the dramatic music. Use this as guide for any aerial shots and music that you want for your documentary – which will be available at the last workshop.