Video Project Production Steps

If you are thinking about completing a video project with one of your classes, this is the standard process of film production that we recommend following:

  1. Treatment. This is a short paragraph describing the purpose of the video project and could also include discussion on what do I hope to achieve, why I am making it and who is the intended audience. This could be something you give to the students or they write themselves.
  2. Write a complete script. This could just be a straight Google Doc but if you wanted it to look more professional here is a script template to use.
  3. Create a storyboard. This is to help brainstorm, plan out, organize and frame each shot with quick visual sketches. There is also a line underneath each box for voice-over text. Here is a simple template that can be used for this step. You could print this out and have the students sketch with pencil (or they could import it into Notability and use the app’s drawing tools). Note that if the project is going to include still images they should be added to the storyboard.
  4. Filming. Film each individual shot from the storyboard using the Camera app (or something like Stop Motion Studio or Hyperlapse if you want to film using a different technique). Any still images that are going to be used should also be collected and saved at this point.
  5. Editing. Here you have a choice of editing everything on the iPad, using the iOS version of iMovie to stitch the individual shots together, and cut away any unwanted sections of each clip. Or the clips could be uploaded to Google Drive and then downloaded to the library iMacs to be edited in the more fully-featured desktop version of iMovie.
  6. Post-production. Use iMovie to add titles, transitions, voice-over and/or background music (and their volume levels).
  7. Sharing. Each student should share their completed project with you via Google Drive (or uploaded to YouTube) as the file will be too big to email.

You could also think about flipping the order of steps 1 & 2 as this can make it easier for students to organize their ideas before they have to write the script. 

And here are some examples of Hebron Academy student projects that were created using these steps and some of the apps mentioned above:

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