Course:WikiU Film School Course 01 - Learning the Basics of Filmmaking

Lessons in basic filmmaking

Course #1 - "Basic Filmmaking" starts by showing you all the pre-production steps for making a short motion picture.

• Begin learning filmmaking by formatting the script using the free demo version of Final Draft (or CeltX for people who have Linux.)

Your instructor says:

• Please use the free demo version of Final Draft rather than CeltX.

1. The free Final Draft demo has fewer bugs than the beta version of CeltX.
2. You will learn much more from Final Draft because it has many more features than CeltX.
3. It takes longer to learn to use Final Draft than CeltX but Final Draft has better instructions.

Purpose and goal of this filmmaking course

The Purpose (pre-production)

The purpose of this course is to learn the steps needed to prepare to make a motion picture. This is called "Pre-Production".

The final product of this course is a movie of the storyboards which is called an "Animatic".

The heart of this course is the free demo version of FrameForge 3D Studio. You must use this program to create the high-quality storyboards needed for the animatic.

Download the free demo version of FrameForge 3D Studio today and take a look.

Note: As we walk through all the steps of making this movie, you will prepare yourself for entering film school.

The story

The story of our motion picture

The story is simple. A young person and an old person talk about the meaning of the motion picture "Star Wars". That is how the story gets the name "Seduced by the Dark Side!". (See right)

Time to completion

Work at your own pace

There are many steps to make a movie. Go at your own pace. Eventually, you will need to complete all the courses at the Wikiversity Film School to complete this movie.

Student storyboard by Kasturika in Delhi, India

The software

The software is free

Most of the software for this course is free. We use trial version and free versions when we can.

The most important program

This course centers around the FREE demo version of FrameForge 3D Studio. Once you learn to use this program, you will find it very helpful for your entire filmmaking career.

Homework assignments

Submitting your work

All documents submitted to Wikiversity are released to the public under the terms of the GNU Open Source License or public domain. Your effort benefits all students.

The steps of this course

1. Script formatting

You format the script with the free demo version of Final Draft.

2. Choose the first two frames

You decide how you want the movie to start.

3. Thumbnail storyboards

You download the storyboard sheet and quickly draw the thumbnail storyboards. (optional)

4. High quality storyboards

You create the storyboards with FrameForge 3D Studio.

5. Study lenses

Before you create the storyboards, you need to study the effect of the camera lens.

6. Draw the movie poster prop

Before you create the storyboards, you need to create the poster for the storyboards.

7. Record the dialog

You need to record the dialog for the animatic.

8. Select the music

You must decide the moods of the story.

9. Create the matte painting

You must create a matte painting for the last (or the first) storyboard for the scene.

10. Create the animatic.

Finally, you make a movie of the storyboards.

• Completing this course will be easier if you have also take the film editing and film scoring courses.

Start the first lesson

To start, go to the first lesson which is formatting the movie script.

Contact your instructor

Your instructor for this filmmaking class is Robert Elliott. You can email me by clicking here.