7/29/2019 Extension Report 3

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Extension Report 3 The Outlook For Someday

On Tuesday 11th

June, I attended the free film-making workshop organised by The Outlook for

Someday Project, who try to inspire young people to make a film based on sustainability. TOFS is a

film competition, and so this workshop was a way to introduce young people to film-making, and

inspire them to enter the competition.

Our first activity of the day was obviously introducing ourselves, and then splitting into random

groups, so we can get to know new people. We then proceeded to discuss what sustainability

meant, to which I answered: preserving resources for future generations. Eli and Rachel (our

mentors), then continued to develop our knowledge. The diagram, or reasoning, that stood out for

me, was the three legged stool. The stool was supported by the ground: ie the environment; the

three legs of the stool were, culture, society, and economy; and all of this supported the top of

the stool, ie sustainability. We also had a class of Intermediate kids in the workshop, and it was

particularly fun to listen to their responses as Eli tried to explain these ideas, and also when we did

activities based on what wed learnt.

After morning tea, Eli then went to talk more about TOFS, and then showed us a few films from the

project. One of which was of the Bugman. His enthusiasm inspired us to find something we were

passionate about, like he was, as his obvious passion made his entire video much more engaging.

We then started learning about Genres, and other film definitions; such as plot, script, location

scouting, etc. This lead us on to pre-production, where Eli and Rachel taught us the steps before

actually filming it. A film starts with an idea, but then we have to develop it, and preferably write a

script. Eli recommended we do a plotlist (?), or a storyboard, where you draw out the types of shots

in the right sequence, so its easier to keep track of what scenes have been filmed. They also gave us

tips on lighting; e.g. using natural light, and most importantly trying to make the shot as perfect as

possible when filming it, so that fixing by computer programs is not needed later on.

We then had lunch, then finally went on to making our own short film. During the day we had had

opportunities to brainstorm ideas, and my group had come up with a film saying that packaging is a

waste, and that the packaged/unpackaged items were most probably the same anyway. We wrote a

script (sort of). Then before filming we made sure our camera could import and export films using

the camera we had (Eli taught us to do this). Finally we got around to filming, and ours I think was

not bad, considering we used kiwifruit as actors. By around 4:30 we were winding down, and so Eli

and Rachel handed out resource DVDs, and left us with a final inspiring message to enter the

contest, and see where it takes us.

Marie Poff, 12VT