Science Retreats and the Biodiversity Chair at the University of Évora are jointly organising the third edition of course on Film Making. 

A short teaser about the course is available here. 

This 5-day film-making course will take you through all the stages of making a short documentary about your work. It includes:

- Documentary theory: what makes a good film? How to think about using film and video to promote your work. The language of film: Shot sizes, camera movement, and how to use them.

- Pre-production: Planning your film, researching content, organising shoots. Understanding equipment, copyright and permissions, story-boarding.

- Production: Shooting interviews, shooting additional material, getting good quality sound, lighting your interviews

- Post-production: Editing your film, boosting the colour and audio of your film, best use of music, adding simple graphics, titles and web links.

- Promoting your film: Upload to Youtube, search engine optimisation, social media, getting your film seen.

Each day will combine learning theory in the classroom, with practical, hands-on experience of filming techniques, and analysing footage. Each participant will have the opportunity to be involved in every stage of the film-making process. They are invited to come prepared to make their own film on the course, and will be taught all the stages to produce a finished film after 5 days.

Requirements

No special requirements although we are expecting to recruit students or professionals with a commitment to communication.

Language

English

Fees and funding

The fees include full participation in the course and course material, provision of a certificate of attendance, half-board accommodation at Casa Morgado Esporão for up to 5 nights including breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks (offering assortment of coffees, teas, fruit juices and cookies).

In order to maintain the hygiene and safety protocols, no participants shall share accommodations during the course.

Unfortunately we have no scholarships on offer. We do offer early bird discounts (before the 30th of April) and shared accommodation is provided for those with more limited budgets. 

Cancelation policy

If you wish to cancel your participation in this course, cancellations up to 60 days before the course start date will incur a 40% cancellation fee. For later cancellations, or non-attendance, the full course fee will be charged.

In the unlikely event that the course is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, accepted candidates will either be entitled to a full refund of the course fee, or the fee can be credited toward a future course. The organisation is not responsible for travel costs, or any other expenses incurred by the candidate as a result of such cancellation. Every effort will be made to avoid the cancellation of the planned course.

In case of any governmental laws are updated, and either Portugal or the participant's origin country forbid the exit or entrance of foreign people during the period of the course, a full refund will take place. For any other reason, the cancellation policy should be applied.

Participation

The course accepts a maximum of 9 students.

Contacts

For any additional informations about the course, please contact us at "scienceretreats" "at" "gmail" "dot" "com".

About the instructor: Dr. George Chan

I’ve worked in TV and film for eighteen years after joining the BBC to work with Sir David Attenborough on the series State of the Planet. I’ve been fortunate to travel the world producing and directing on internationally renowned documentaries, such as Planet Earth and Wild China, and I now bring a wealth of high quality broadcast experience to research and enterprise taking place in the UK. My early career started with a PhD in Evolutionary Biology and I have continued to work alongside scientists and researchers on an almost daily basis – translating and bringing discoveries and ideas to life on screen. It’s been a real privilege to be able to film ground-breaking research and meet the people behind it. Currently I lead Blue Fire Films that focuses on science film making in a range of disciplines.