Marine Science Filmmaking Guide
The Youth Making Ripples Marine Science Filmmaking Unit is a guide for educators, parents and students interested in creating short marine science documentaries. This guide contains tips and best practices for making your film.
The activities and filmmaking tips outlined in these units will provide a tutorial for educators, parents, and students interested in creating their own short marine science documentaries. Youth Making Ripples film documentaries are meant to be less than 5 minutes in length.
The tutorials we provide are geared toward content shot and edited using smart phones. You can pick and choose certain units to guide you along your way for a comprehensive package on filmmaking. If you are working independently outside of a formal classroom setting can also use these units to prepare your film. These units are designed for any age (elementary – high school) and for a variety of educational settings including formal classroom, camps, afterschool programs, homeschooling groups, etc.
One of the great reasons why educators and students enjoy participating in the Youth Making Ripples Annual Film Competition is that the students have the freedom to be an advocate for whatever topic they are most passionate about. You also have the freedom to work as an individual or in a small group with your friends.
The first thing you will need to do is select your topic. If you are having trouble selecting a topic, don’t worry! This “cheat sheet” provides a few ways for you to brainstorm what topic interests you!
One of the best planning techniques for creating a short film is to create a storyboard before filming begins. A storyboard is essentially a small “comic strip” that outlines and organizes the main points of the film. Once you establish your main points in the storyboard you will then have a focused message and be able to convert your storyboard into your film. The storyboard is a helpful tool to make your outline visual to you and your filmmaker colleagues. We recommend starting with some quick brainstorming exercises to help formulate your story.
Cinematography is the art of visual storytelling. Anyone can set a camera, point it towards something and hit the record button, but the art of cinematography is what controls what is seen by the viewer and what is being presented to the audience. This is also called “shooting” as in “shooting the scene”. Shooting your scene will be a large part of the “artistic and creative” side of your film. Here we provide some basics about the composition (the way the shot is set up) of the shot to help you learn how different shots work together. These tips will help you form a clear narrative for your story.
Audio is the single most reason why a film submission will not score high with our judges. Sound is a vibration, or a wave. And just like a wave that breaks towards the sand, sound gets smaller the further away it travels from the source. The louder the sound, the bigger its wave will be. The bigger the wave, the further it will travel. Apply this concept when you begin recording your audio for your film by creating sound waves that will reach your microphone consistently and smoothly. For example, louder sounds close to a microphone will produce hurricane force waves that distort your audio, while speaking too softly or having the microphone too far away from the source of sound will produce low or inaudible recording.
Please email us your questions to youthmakingripples@gmail.com and be sure to check out our teacher and filmmaker resources.
Download Our Complete Filmmaking Guide
Youth Making Ripples Film Competition is an opportunity for K-12 and College students to use their creative talents and serve as a voice for our oceans. We encourage elementary, middle and high school students to create their own marine related film on a topic of their interest. All submission must be less than 5 minutes. The message of your film can focus on an interesting marine topic, a specific marine related problem or issue, or a call to action for conservation.