How to make a short film?

Films are beloved in the age we are in. Seeing a film can take us to a brand-new fantasy and exciting world and bring us great pleasure. But after you seen all the intriguing, fascinating and inspiring films made by others, have you ever wondered whether you can make a short film by yourself? Expressing your own ideas, and blend your own emotions? Well, if you have, you must have also realized that making a short film is not easy as it seems. But, is also not impossible. With some proper equipment, some curiosities and determinations, you can make a stunning beautiful short film by yourself. Of course, you also need a simple guide to show you the way and build a general structure of the process, and this is just the right place for you.

Part 1: Preparations

How to make a short film? It starts from preparations. Only with proper preparations can you make a nice beautiful short film, and the preparations is also a crucial important component throughout the entire film making process. You will see why.

Here are what you need to prepare before you start making your film.

Equipment

The very basic part is your filming and editing equipment. These are your weapons and tools, nobody can make any film with their bare hands.

First you need a camera to film your movie. A smartphone, or a camcorder also works. Then you'll probably a microphone and a tripod to keep the camera steady. As you get more professional, you may also need lights or reflectors. For editing, you'll need a computer with a video editing program such as iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. To burn your movie to a disc, you also need a burning program like Leawo DVD Creator. We will get to that later.

Knowledge

Not everybody with an idea and a bunch of equipment can make a perfect film. Before get down to filming your work, you have to obtain some knowledge about film language, you have to know how to arrange your camera movement to properly express your emotions and how to tell your story through one scene after another.

Part 2: Making the film

After you done preparing, you can start to make your film.

Get the right idea

The first step to film is to get the right idea. You have to figure out what is the idea that you want to express, what you want to say to your audience and how you want to say it. You must have a clear idea of what kind of story you want to tell, and whether or not your audiences are going to like the story and the way you tell it. A good idea, or story is the very first step to a successful short film.

Start filming

The next step is to take your camera and start filming. In this step you have to find the best shooting spot for your scenes. Of course, you can shoot your scenes in a green room and then add VFX effects later on if you have the equipment and technique, but for a beginner, it's better you shoot your scenes outdoors.

In the process you have to make sure your camera be steady as possible, and the light is properly used. You can adjust everything afterwards but it's better do everything well in the filming process.

Editing

This part is even more important than the filming step. The final quality of your film relies on your editing skill. The software you might use in this stage are Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Leawo Video Converter and more. Make sure you treat this step very carefully and your final cut should be fine.

Part 3: Burning and sharing

The editing is not the last step of how to make a short film. After editing, you need to burn your film to a DVD disc so that you can preserve it in a good way and share it with your friends and families. There are a lot of burning programs on the market but the one I use the most is Leawo DVD Creator.

Leawo DVD Creator can burn your film to a DVD disc with the original quality and sound effects. It allows you to make a menu for your DVD and can even add 3D effects to your film. The most important thing is, it's easy to use and really efficient. Follow the instructions below and you can burn your DVD quick.

Step 1. Download the Leawo DVD Creator and open it. Then you can see all the function modules on the main interface. Click on "DVD Creator" to enter DVD Creator function.

Step 2. You have two ways to import your film. Click the "Add video" button or drag your video file into the frame in the center.

Step 3. After importing your video file, you can click on the edit button to edit your video, and you can make a menu page from the menu template section on the right.

Step 4. When you are sure that you don't want to make any further edit to the video, click on the green "Burn" button to start burning.

Conclusion

It's never easy to explain how to make a short film. But having a general structure, at least you can realize that making a short film on your own is not a mission impossible. Learn what's necessary, get the right equipment, and you can start filming. Finally, don't forget to burn your film to DVD with Leawo DVD Creator and share it with your friends and families. Getting some feedback can always make you do better in the future.