Maura N.
The Last Black Unicorn
Film School has started and it is a great moment to start working on your new short film! You can team up with your classmates, use the gear available on campus and ask for feedback from your teachers during their office hours. You might not have a lot of experience now to create a masterpiece, but you can gain a lot of experience as you start working on your next project.
Here are a few easy short film ideas that you can work on with limited gear and cast:
1. Make a short film about your student life
An easy short film idea is to talk about yourself, more exactly, your student life. You are already at the campus and you can film yourself going to classes or to the library. You can talk about your expectations, dreams and what you are learning this semester. You can create this short film only by using a smartphone with a tripod and the microphone from your phone’s handsfree. You don’t have to spend too much time coming up with a complex script and it is a great way to practice your filmmaking skills.
2. Tell a funny story
You can either create a funny story or you can tell a funny story that actually happened sometime in your life. This idea has low technical requirements and you can film it by involving only a few people – or you can play the roles of multiple people if you are short on cast. One character can have a hat, other character can have a mustache and different clothing styles.
3. Tell the story of someone near you
When you have a really limited experience of writing a script, you can try going with the flow. Find a person that has a story to tell that is within your reach and tell the story to the world. It can be the story of your classmate who is very talented at basketball. Or it can be the story of a person who has recently become homeless. Everybody has a story to tell and you can use them as your main actor and their voice as the main narrating voice. This idea can allow you to focus more on how you present the story from a technical point of view in regards of filming and video editing and not so much on how to write a better script.
What short films are you planning to film this year?
Here are a few easy short film ideas that you can work on with limited gear and cast:
1. Make a short film about your student life
An easy short film idea is to talk about yourself, more exactly, your student life. You are already at the campus and you can film yourself going to classes or to the library. You can talk about your expectations, dreams and what you are learning this semester. You can create this short film only by using a smartphone with a tripod and the microphone from your phone’s handsfree. You don’t have to spend too much time coming up with a complex script and it is a great way to practice your filmmaking skills.
2. Tell a funny story
You can either create a funny story or you can tell a funny story that actually happened sometime in your life. This idea has low technical requirements and you can film it by involving only a few people – or you can play the roles of multiple people if you are short on cast. One character can have a hat, other character can have a mustache and different clothing styles.
3. Tell the story of someone near you
When you have a really limited experience of writing a script, you can try going with the flow. Find a person that has a story to tell that is within your reach and tell the story to the world. It can be the story of your classmate who is very talented at basketball. Or it can be the story of a person who has recently become homeless. Everybody has a story to tell and you can use them as your main actor and their voice as the main narrating voice. This idea can allow you to focus more on how you present the story from a technical point of view in regards of filming and video editing and not so much on how to write a better script.
What short films are you planning to film this year?
