The P6 Film Club at Williamsburgh PS were recent runners up in @intofilm_edu film of the month. They have been asked to submit their film for the Film of the Year Awards in the under 11 category and  ‘Changes For a Better World’ category. Well done to them! Thank-you to their teacher Mr McMaster for sharing what they did!

Four primary 6 pupils, wrote, story boarded and filmed their movie. This was their first independent film, so they chose to a powerful theme. They decided to use camera angles, framing, music and direction to get their message across. They spent a long time figuring our the correct angles to use to highlight the emotions of the piece. They shot the film in two units, out of sync (relying on storyboards) in just under 2 hours. The scene numbers were written on whiteboards and placed before the camera prior to calling action, making it easier to identify the scenes by the thumbnail in the camera roll. They auditioned class mates and rehearsed with them prior to filming and scouted for the best locations to film. Throughout planning they searched on YouTube and tunetank.com to find appropriate music for their film.

The children wanted to make people aware bullies can make their victims feel miserable, worthless and isolated. They drew upon their own experiences and the experiences of others to create this short film. They wanted to show that, for the victim, just knowing someone has their back means they are not alone and they are valued.

We were given some fantastic feedback from the judges :

• This is a sensitive and important film. It explores some really important themes. The use of music really created empathy and helped the audience realise how emotionally hard the experience of bullying was for the main character. The use of the written titles and facts about bullying were very effective. As well as raising awareness this film had a sense of a story structure.
• Without dialogue the acting has to be very good for a film like this to work and they do a great job! I felt so sorry for the poor girl but they really made me believe they were nice and did the right thing during the do-over. It was all very well planned out and the music was matched well to the emotions of the film.
• I really enjoyed this film. It was an interesting take on the bullying theme and showed a real understanding of how camera angles can be used to tell a lot about a story and different characters. The narrative flowed really well and I really enjoyed the use of the alternative ending and how the group used the ‘rewind’ effect. I think there was good use of sound and that the actors played their parts very well
• This was a strong campaign film about the impact of bullying and empowering young people to stand up to it. It communicated the situation really well and gave information and alternative ways to act to help prevent bullying. Showing the different points of view to build up the feeling of what it’s like to experience bullying, as well as rewinding to show an alternative outcome was really effective.

Check out the video here!

The children have have spent the past few months passing on their skills to the P5,6and 7’s at our after school club and are now planning and writing scripts for their own tutorial videos to teach the upper school classes and teachers how to use iMovie and apply film theory to improve storytelling.