Once Upon a Time .... my Film Festival movie journey

Once Upon a Time .... As part of our MDTA learning journey we had to contribute a movie to the Manaiakalani Film Festival! We had many sessions throughout the year on using iMovie and I definitely can tell that I've been on a major learning journey! Prior to beginning this year, I'd never made a movie before, and today I see my movie on the big screen - not once, but three times (including the evening session!!)

Once Upon a Time .... There were challenges!! I wanted to use the costumes as my learners really enjoy "dressing up" - show me a five year old that doesn't! I decided to use the Green Screen and create a fairy tale land - a tall order indeed! Finding backdrops that suited my needs was hard, and I have learnt from this experience that pre-deciding on the backgrounds in advance makes it much easier! You can film to the background rather than try and fit a background to your filming!

Once Upon a Time .... Sound was an issue! Again, I made many discoveries that I will use in future films to ensure I have high quality audio to work with - I had to try and rerecord my audio and match it up to my actors which took a significant amount of time! 

Once Upon a Time .... We have a movie! I can't wait to see the reactions from the learners when they view it (for the very first time - no previews were given to them!) on the big screen later today. The filming experience, from scripting, to costumes, to editing was an amazing learning journey and I'm actually excited to do it all over again next year. Its an experience which I believe my learners will benefit from being a part of (even though it is more teacher directed at my level) and they will be able to look back on in later years with pride.

Once Upon a Time ....