News Article

Learn the basics of filmmaking in two weeks


6/6/2003 1:17:41 PM


The Basic Filmmaking class shot and edited a 10-minute short film, which was later screened in front of an audience for live feedback.

By Ann Shea

June 6, 2003 - Good news recently came to those who wanted to heighten or gather information on Basic Filmmaking. A two-week course on basic filmmaking started at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook in late April and finished at College of the North Atlantic in Stephenville in May.

Justin Simms, an award winning producer, writer and director who had his films screened throughout Canada and the United States, instructed the course. He has eight year’s experience in filmmaking and has two awards to show for it. He received both at the 2nd Annual Nickel Independent Film and Video Festival for his film Ashore, where he won the Audience Choice Award and Best Cast Ensemble Award.

Simms is a filmmaker in residence at the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Cooperation (NIFCO). NIFCO approached him and asked if he would teach the course.

“It felt good, but I’m not really a teacher so it was a bit intimidating,” explains Simms. That was until he got into the classroom and met all the people who were to be his students and realized there was no reason to be nervous. “There were 21 people in the class and they were all excellent.”

The majority of the students who participated in the course had backgrounds in visual arts, theatre arts and media production. The amount of response the course received was bigger than NIFCO had expected.

“NIFCO originally said that there would only be 10 people in the class and that went up to 21, so the response has been overwhelming,” says Simms.

The course started because an instructor from Sir Wilfed Grenfell College was approached by a group of students who wanted to learn about a film. That instructor made contact with Cyril Organ, the associate district administrator at College of the North Atlantic’s Bay St. George campus, and proposed the idea.

“They had a lot of things for theatre arts, but they did not have anything for film so they did one week in Corner Brook and finished here,” says Organ.

The college has been trying to introduce a film program, but whether they will or not is dependent on receiving funding.

“For this two-week program the college is interested in getting the students to learn how to tell a story with a camera,” says Organ. “It seems to me that the people in the course enjoyed themselves.”

Jason Sellers, one of the students in the course, is very happy with it. He finished his acting degree at Grenfell and decided to get a basic knowledge for this side of the career he’s chosen.

“I haven’t done any film so I thought that I would give it a try,” says Sellers. “It’s really great, we shot some film and then got to pin it all together, so we got a taste of everything.”

Participants of the course got to go through exercises that taught them various aspects of filmmaking such as using the camera to tell a story, lighting for film and writing screenplays. The class also wrote, shot and edited a 10-minute short film, which was screened in front of an audience at the college’s lecture theatre.

-30-

For more information contact:

Stephen Lee
Communications Manager
(709) 643-7929

or

Tanya Alexander
Public Information Officer
(709) 643-7928