Film Making

A new breed of courses is now being offered to incoming college students. Students are now not limited to taking the usual profession of their parents such as becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and the likes. There are now lots of courses being offered that also promotes self-expression and creativity. One of these new popular courses is Film Making.

In the Philippines, Film making as a course was first introduced at the University of the Philippines, Diliman in 1984 as a Bachelor in Arts degree program called Film and Audio-Visual Communication. And now, 26 years after, this course is being offered nationwide. Some of the film schools that have emerged in the Philippines aside from the UP Film Institute are Asian Pacific Film Institute and The International Academy of Film and Television. Top universities such as The Ateneo University, Miriam College and College of St. Benilde now also offer film making under their Multi-Media Arts course.

This course is becoming popular because of its great money making potential and because it gives the film maker an outlet to express oneself. Big film companies such as Star Cinema earn as much as half a billion per year from the movies it produces. While smaller independent film companies also earn through international recognition and awards. Also in a world that shouts individualism and self-expression, filmmakers are able to convey messages through their story and visual imagery in films.

Film making in the strictest sense is capturing images through a film stock. A film stock is celluloid which is sensitive to light and is able to captures images. A moving film usually needs 24 images per second to produce a smooth moving action. Film makers now can also use digital video cameras to produce films. Digital film making is more budget friendly especially to budding film makers.

There are different genres in making a film. This means that a film maker can tell his or her story in different treatments. Narrative story telling is the most common way of storytelling in mainstream movies. This is where the fictional characters deal with a conflict and a resolution is given in the end of the story. Documentary storytelling however is reality based. The film maker shoots the events in the life of a certain subject, wherein he has no control of the story. After compiling all his materials, it is only then that the film maker can write his or her script depending on the materials that he has gathered. Experimental film making, on the other hand, has no rules unlike narrative and documentary film making. No structure in story telling is needed. Shooting in video a burning tree and attaching scary music in it in editing can already be called an experimental film.

Those who want to be film makers should keep in mind that film making is an art and a venue for self-expression more than a means to earn big money. Once a film maker puts heart in his or her film, the success of the film will surely follow.