My Advice for Filmmaking in Lockdown

This blog post is all about my experiences making short videos and films during lockdown. I talk about the software I use, how I found the software and whether I would recommend it. I hope this page gives you budding filmmakers some inspiration and perhaps helpful advice about useful editing software.

1.) The first piece of advice I have is for you is to pick a subject to brighten people's mood!  What people are looking for during lockdown is some escapism, and people have turned to bingeing box-sets and watching films to do this. So pick a subject for your film that will really entertain people and cheer them up during this time that for many people is quite bleak.

An example of this was a really fun little video (as shown above) that I made during the Coronavirus lockdown in April time this year. I was unable to film all the of the footage myself due to the lockdown so I got my friends to film their and their family's parts- they really enjoyed doing this and the finished product was thoroughly enjoyed by all the participants and by people on social media. It was really great to have an activity that our group of friends could do together during a period of time where we weren't able to see each other!

This was another really fun little video that I made during the Coronavirus lockdown for my tennis club in May/June time this year. I was unable to film all of the of the footage myself due to the lockdown so I got the members at the tennis club, who wanted to take part, to film their parts- which I then edited all together. This film (and the process of everyone filming their own sections) gave a great boost to the morale of the club members, who were missing being able to play tennis, which is why I believe that picking a joyful subject that will brighten people's mood is a very important aspect to filmmaking in lockdown.

2.) My next piece of advice is to use easy-to-use software! During lockdown, there will be no opportunity for you to ask for help using software from classmates, technicians, teachers or co-workers! There might be useful tutorials on-line, but try to pick a simple-to-use software or a piece of software that you're familiar with for editing your film.

 A software that I would recommend would be Splice. This software is very handy as it can allow you to edit videos on your phone (through downloading the Splice app), which could be extremely helpful if you are unable to access your usual software and devices -which may be at your school or workplace- due to the lockdown. I found Splice to be a really easy and good software to use for video and sound editing. I was able to use the software for free as I used the free trial, so this option is also available, as long as you haven't used the trial before obviously. 

I would also really recommend using Premier Pro for video editing as I have found this software very simple to use in my experience. However, it can be pricey to have the Adobe Suite Software on your personal devices, if lockdown has prevented you from accessing the software on your school or work devices. However, it may be worth looking into whether or not your educational facility has a package for students to access the Suite for free, as many places do.