Creating a Swede

Harry Potter Swede

A swede is a short film that is created with little or no budget. They are based on popular films and created as a parody or short summary. An example is the Harry Potter Swede linked above.

As the first part of our course, we had to create our own swede. We decided to base our swede on Lord of the Rings

In making this film we learnt how to organise props, actors, costumes, scripts and filming locations. We had problems filming this as one of the actors was missing at the time, and I personally had been on a course during the planning lessons and therefore was not in school. This cost us because we did not get as much time actually filming as we had to reorganise our plans. This could happen in professional film making as actors could fall sick or have personal events that they have to take time off to attend. Directors need to plan for this and always have a second plan ready to take action.

In professional film making, there are a lot of stages that go into the pre-production of a film. These include:

- Write or acquire a screenplay you want to produce.
- Following the law, go after the money. This will require strategy, persistence and enthusiasm.
-Finalize your script. Get it to a point where you aren’t going to keep changing things. Once you get to this point, consider it a locked script.
- Number your scenes. Then break down your script, grabbing each element, location and character. Create a schedule.

A director also has to arrange actors and their crew, including producers, stunt men, camera operators, prop/costume designers and financers.

A producer has to make the storyline into a profitable cinematic, making sure that everything the director wants can fit into the assigned budget.