[Background ambience sound]
[keyboard typing sounds]
-He's right.
Yannick! We're making a short film!
[Cinecom's intro music]
Hey folks, my name is Jordy for cinecom.net
and let's start off by congratulating Ryan Connolly and his team from Film Riot
with their latest short film ‘Ballistic’.
If you haven’t seen it yet, then go do that right now.
I mean, after this video.
I wanna start off by thanking BenQ for sending us a very nice new monitor,
this one goes to Lorenzo who is actually sick today,
‘cause he was still working on some old monitors that were pretty small.
So this 32" BenQ monitor came right on time.
It's actually a very affordable 4K monitor packed with a ton of functionalities.
For instance, this dongle which allows you to quickly jump through different presets.
It also claims to cover 100% of the rec709 and sRGB color space.
And this is something huge if you're taking color grading serious.
I'll leave a link to it in the description below if you wanna check it out.
Now, it's been about six years since I last made a short film.
Back when I was a student I used to make one or two shorts every year,
but I stopped doing that once I started working.
And I think the main reason was because I was still doing my craft.
You know, I used to make corporate films and commercials.
And also with those kind of productions you have to write out a story,
definitely for commercials.
But those who've been following me for a longer time
know that I stopped working for local clients in the beginning of the year
and now only focus on Youtube.
So, yes I'm missing the art of visual story telling.
And I'm very happy that Film Riot has once again inspired me
and that the comment from Film Universe was a nice kick in my butt.
So, we're making a short film! And that starts off with the scenario!
And I wanna share some tips from my experience so far.
The first short film that I've ever made was...
...way back before I did anything serious with film.
I was a gamer and played World of Warcraft,
but I was always intrigued by creating videos,
I just didn't really know what I was doing.
So, I made a short film inside of the World of Warcraft game.
We went through all the stages, from writing a scenario, pre-production
testing, filming it, voice overs, etcetera.
Now, the short film... sucks!
I'll have a link to it in the description below,
but I'm not sure if anyone can watch the entire 11 minutes.
However, I did learned a lot and that's where my first tip comes in.
If you're writing comedy, make sure to test your jokes.
When you're writing in a room alone or with a friend
most of the jokes you come up with are inside jokes
or thoughts that are only funny because you're in a certain environment
with a certain people.
Have you ever had that moment where you had a great laugh and...
...then a couple of days later you wanna explain to a friend how funny that moment was.
But for some reason your friend doesn't start to laugh.
Well, that's one of those!
Our World of Warcraft film was a disaster
because none of the jokes were funny.
They seemed to be funny when we were writing out the script with four people.
We laughed our asses off. But nobody else did that when they saw the film.
So, test your jokes. If you can't get other people to laugh,
then leave it out of the script.
-Am I scoring already?
-Totally not.
-Damn it!
A couple of years later, I went to film school
where I learned the real craft of filmmaking.
And I produced the short film Tempus Fugit.
Again, a link in the description below.
Tempus Fugit was also... a disaster.
I still believe that the story was okay, but...
...what I did wrong was writing a script that was way too complex to produce.
I had zero budget and often just 30 minutes of time with the actors,
as they were mostly my friends who found it okay to help me out for a minute.
I had to film in so many locations, I needed way too much different actors
and that eventually became such a big mess.
I was spending more time on the phone trying to arrange everything
than actually filming.
This resulted in bad camera work, bad lighting,
and the story that just felt apart because
so much has changed during the production.
So, tip 2: write a scenario that is also realistic to produce.
Limit the locations and the actors needed,
so that you have plenty of time left to focus on better camera work,
directing, lighting or other filmmaking tasks.
Then came the next short film, which was a self portrait
which I unfortunately lost due to a computer crash.
Here are some pictures during the production, but that's all I have.
So let's skip it and head straight to the biggest production I've ever done
and that was the short film 'Can you hear me'.
Now, we had a crew of more than 25 people.
And, just so you know, my previous crew were four people, me included.
So this was a very big step forward!
For the first time we arranged sponsors, baked some cookies to sell,
in other words, we had a budget.
This could have actually been something good...
...but it ended up not.
I know, I only make bad films. But...
...I learned again a valuable lesson and one day I will make a short film...
...that I'll be proud about!
So, what went wrong this time, Jordy?
Well, being a film student I wanted to show my skills.
Hollywood sucked and I was going to be better than them.
You know those typical films: Something happens to the protagonist,
he tries to find a way out but he fails at it.
But then luckily something saves the day and everyone is happy.
A lot of stories go this way and I found it boring.
I wanted the audience to think, tell a story full of surprises.
Something that is not obvious.
Unfortunately, nobody understood the story.
I have again a link to the film in the description below,
you know what? those who can tell me what the film is about will get a free T-shirt.
So, don't write a complex story.
As a writer you obviously know what's going on in your head,
but other people don't.
So this comes down to the same thing as with the jokes.
Test your scenario. Let other people read it before you go in production.
And don't make the same mistake as I did:
I would first explain what the story is about
and then I would let other people read the story.
Of course they would understand it if I explained it upfront.
So the next time, just give your script to a friend
and don't tell them anything upfront!
Then the next year we produced the short film 'Sandcastle'.
Finally the first short-film I can look back on and say:
we did a good job!
The group of friends that I made all these short films with
was starting to fell apart.
So, we were left with a group of three
and none of us had much time to produce the short.
So, from my experience, I knew that I had to write something simple.
Work with a few actors and limit the locations!
I worked together with a poet writer who also played the main role and did the voice over.
He wrote a poet and I would write a scenario around it.
The story is still a little bit complex, but...
...because the essence is super simple, you could definitely understand what's going on
if you pay good attention while watching.
And for me this was a great success.
So, when it comes down to the fourth tip: keep it simple
and limit the actors and locations needed.
I'm also going to link to a short-film that I find amazing.
It's called The Black Hole and...
...the entire film plays late at night in an office
and there's only one actor without any dialogue.
The story is super simple, nothing complex happens.
Everyone will understand the story and...
...this simplicity is what makes this short-film so great!
And that brings us to the last tip.
Sandcastle was the last short film I created,
after that I produced a ton of commercials.
Also in here I would always work with a story and not a boring advertising.
I wanted to make sure that the people who weren't interested in the product
could also enjoy the story of the commercial.
Usually, you have 30 or even 15 seconds to tell your story.
So, simplicity is at the essence here.
Now, working in advertising, every hour you spend becomes important.
The phrase 'time is money' is actually true here.
If I would have one day to write a scenario, I only have that one day.
If I would spend more time on it, then it would by at my own cost
because that was not what I and the client agreed on.
So, I kinda developed a format that would help me to write a story.
And this is a very simple one:
you have the setup, then something happens which puts the actors on a different path
And finally the outcome, which should be surprising to the audience.
An example: two people at a bar are talking.
This is the setup. Suddenly one person says:
'last night someone tried to brake into my house'.
This is not a normal conversation anymore, the actors are put in a different path,
which is in this case a different emotional state.
Finally the outcome is that he puts his most valuable stuff in a safe
which the burglars cannot get into.
This appears to be his wife who's still in there
as the two guys are drinking a beer at the bar.
Super simple scenario, that you can write out in just a few minutes.
Just because of that format.
It is not something that I have invented, there're actually many tools
and structures that you can find on the web.
One of them is the periodic table for storytelling by James Harris.
It helps you to find the ingredients you could add to your story
and how those ingredients should act and how they evolve.
For example, you could start with the three act structure,
which is the most used narrative structure because it always works.
You have different settings you can choose from,
how the plot evolves, who the bad guys are, etcetera.
Every element has a whole description. For example, the creepy child.
You can read more about what they do, how they should look, etcetera.
So, as the final tip: make use of existing tools.
This periodic table is one of them, but there're many other templates or guidelines
to help you put your idea into a structure.
Now, let's go back to the beginning of this video.
We're going to make a short film.
Now we're not just going to start filming stuff and some day upload the short film.
No, we wanna share the whole process with you guys
and share as much experience and tips as we possible can.
In fact, we're even pushing it further than that.
We want you guys to be part of the crew.
We're not sure yet which helping hands we need, because...
...there's literally nothing yet.
The first thing we need to start with is a story.
So, we're looking for someone to write the scenario.
That's why we've opened up an application form
to which you can find a link to in the description below.
Based on the idea that intrigues us the most
and is the most realistic to produce at the same time,
we'll select one writer that we shall work with together.
Because, after all, it'll be your story and not ours.
And that's why we want to involve you as much as we possible can
in the further development of the story
and the production as well.
So, here's what you have to do:
in the application form you will see a list of rules.
Important is that you read this carefully.
We have some requirements such as keeping the dialogue to a minimum,
because we have poor access to native English speaking actors.
There's also a clear deadline. As of the upload day of this video,
you have ten days to submit your idea.
So, after you've been through the rules, you write out your story.
You film yourself for a maximum of 30 seconds where you introduce yourself
and pitch the idea to us.
This is your elevator pitch and it does not have to tell the entire story.
You need to get our attention with that video, because...
if we do we'll have a look at the second field you have to fill in
which is the synopsis.
This is not the whole scenario. You can write it out in five sentences if you like,
as long as we get a clear understanding of how your story starts,
what happens in the middle and how it will end.
Later down the road, we'll put it into a real scenario format
and think about character transformation and other stuff.
And that's it! You hit submit and wait until the third week of July
when we shall announce who we'll be working with together.
Thank you guys so much for watching, good luck with that,
and always remember:
stay creative!
-Jordy said Lorenzo is getting a screen.
Well, think again.
He's sick, I'm here.
It's mine now.
It's mine!