Video transcript
The Arts Unit @home Art Bites – Filmmaking – How to make a TV show

[music playing]

DAVID TODD: Hi, my name's David. And today, I'm going to take you through the steps of how to make your very own short TV show at home.

[music playing]

We all love watching great TV shows with our friends and family to unwind after a long day. But have you ever thought about making your own TV show? The first part of the planning process is to come up with an idea. Keep that idea something that you're interested in because that always works best. And the most important thing to keep in mind is that your idea is both informative and, most importantly, entertaining.

Different kinds of TV shows that you could create are a sitcom, a talk show, a news program, animated show, or a reality TV project. For your first attempt at this, keep your idea really short and simple. The TV show I'm going to create is going to be a competitive cooking show called 'Home Cooking Battle.'

Hi, everyone. I'm Foodie McFood. And welcome to 'Home Cooking Battle.' On tonight's show, we have a battle royale in the kitchen with Tropical Terry taking on the wacky Jackie J. Our chefs will attempt to make the ultimate cupcake in an episode not to be missed.

Once you've come up with your idea for your TV show, start writing down some dot points to provide a basic structure for your program. You can also start storyboarding some visual ideas here. As with any kind of storytelling, keep the structure of introduction, complication, and resolution in mind when planning your show.

As you're creating this TV show at home, it's important to make sure that you have everything you need at your disposal. This might be a good time to use your art and craft skills to make any props that you don't have lying around the house. For my cooking show, I'm going to create a trophy for the winner of the show.

[music playing]

For the most part, you should be able to use things you already have around your house for your TV show. So get them all ready. If you have space in your room, a prop table is a great place to collect everything you need for your show.

Now that you've got your idea, it's time to rehearse what is going to happen in your show. Some TV shows aren't scripted, such as reality TV. Other shows have fully realised screenplays, such as sitcoms. So you can either practise off a script, or you can practise improvising.

If you have someone from your house joining you in your show, it will be your job to direct them in rehearsals. If you are the only cast member, you may need to play multiple characters. So start looking through that dressup box and creating and rehearsing them.

As I said before, keep your ideas simple. For set design, this means keep your TV show to one location. For my show, I'm going to film the entire program in the kitchen. The key here is to make the set look interesting but not too cluttered. Unless you're setting a show in a messy bedroom, make sure it's clean and tidy because videos last forever. And you may not want everyone seeing your floordrobe.

Now that you've prepared your characters, props, and sets, you're ready to start filming. Make sure that your device, such as an iPad or smartphone, is fully charged and ready to go. If your film is scripted, you'll be able to plan out your shots quite carefully. Make sure you use a variety of different shots to keep the video interesting for viewers.

The basic kinds of shots you can use in film are extreme closeup. This is good for close details. Closeup, which is good for details such as facial expressions. Mid shot, this is a very common shot which allows for focus on a person or object while giving them some context. Wide shot, generally a great way to start the scene, as it shows the whole picture to establish context.

Tracking shot, this is where the camera moves for effect to follow the action. This kind of filming is great in reality TV as the movement of the characters is more unpredictable. For my show, I'm going to keep most of my shots quite simple, mid shots for when the chefs are talking, extreme closeups for the food, and wide shots to establish context.

Sometimes, we can't achieve exactly what we want when we're making a film at home with limited resources. This is where camera tricks can come in quite handy. In my film, I'm going to use a split screen cloning technique. This trick makes it look like both the characters I'm playing are in the same shot at the same time.

For this trick, you'll need a slightly more advanced editing option. For mine, I'm going to use Final Cut Pro. The key to making this work is to set up your camera in a still wide shot. The camera can not move. Also, make sure you keep the lighting exactly the same. Indoors is a much better option for this as we can't control the sun.

Once you've set up your shot, make a mark on the floor roughly in the middle of the shot. This mark is a do not cross line. Character A is allowed on one side of the line and character B on the other side. Film your first character, and then quickly get changed and film character B. Once you get into editing with this trick, you'll need to put one clip on top of the other in your timeline and then crop the top clip to the safe halfway point.

[music playing]

Then you'll notice both versions of you appearing as if they were in the same room.

First, upload your footage into the editing software and start arranging your shots in the right order. Keep your editing nice and tight. Only use the shots and lines that are necessary. Long takes where not much is happening are not very interesting to the viewer. Now, graphics and titles are usually pretty cool on TV shows. So make sure you use the coolest presets in iMovie when you're designing yours to make your show look like it should be on Netflix.

[music playing]

Name's Terry. My friends call me Tropical Terry. I'm not going to go into why. Today, I'm making my grandmammy's famous raspberry coconut cupcakes. And they mean an awful lot to me. Oh, no. I think I put in too much vanilla.

What? You used all the vanilla? What am I going to do? So I'm Jackie J. And today, I'm going to be making a banana and chocolate cupcake. And I'm so excited. This is going to be the yummiest cake ever.

The judges eat your cake.

What? He just said the judges eat the cake.

[music playing]

Composing and performing your own music is always a great idea when making a film. But if you'd rather use pre-recorded music, you can actually find some really great stuff in iMovie. They have prerecorded jingles and sound effects.

Alternatively, you could check out the YouTube audio library, which has a huge range of copyright free music. Avoid using music in your TV show by artists that you love. Their songs have copyright attached to them and are only available for large sums of money.

In my show, I'm going to create a montage to music. A montage is a series of images that show a progression or an improvement set to fun music.

[music playing]

When you're satisfied with your final cut, export the project out of your editing software and into your camera roll so you can share it with your family and friends.

Thank you for watching. I hope you had fun making your own TV show. It's such a rewarding experience to make something from scratch using so many different skills. Now that you're finished, maybe you can start working on episode 2. Good luck and we'll see you next time.

[music playing]