Today was a very interesting day at the workshop on film making with Tim Skousen, an American director who has made award-winning films and commercials.
There are 5 aspiring Mauritian film makers from very varied backgrounds who are attending, all of them young but whose passion for telling a story with images is very much alive.
Tim Skousen presented the different facets of film making in a very structured way, from directing actors, cinematography (including shots, POVs, gaze, camera movement, lighting), editing, sound design and music to production design.
All the while, he was showing extracts of a wide range of movies starting from the Lumière Bros’ L’Arroseur Arrosé, Georges Méliès’ Voyage sur la Lune, and Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery. We also watched closely extracts from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey, John Hugues’ The Breakfast Club and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.
Quite a feast for the eyes and the mind as he proceeded to provide some very insightful analysis of key scenes!
We were also asked to work in teams of 3 to make a short film with only 3 still shots. And here’s what our team did in under 30 minutes (to find the right idea, find a girl in the classrooms around to act the role, and finally shoot the scenes):
We’re looking forward to the next 4 days!
To find out more about how the University of Mauritius is involved in the film festival Île Courts 2015 and for the programme, read
Le Septième Art à l’Université de Maurice
