BFI Film Academy 5: Adekemi Roluga on Developing New Skills…

Adekemi Roluga is one of the participants on our fifth BFI Film Academy. Below, Adekemi discusses the various skills she’s learnt whilst working on her short film project…

The BFI Film Academy was an opportunity I came across by chance and so far has been such an amazing way to experience practical work on a short film and learn more about the film industry. Before joining the academy I had no skills in practical filmmaking and this course gave me the perfect opportunity to explore this and give me hands on experience with equipment I had never used before.

At the beginning of the course, we began working through the pre-production stages of a film. So, working with each other and our mentors, we created an idea and wrote a screenplay for the short film. After this stage was complete we began the production phase over the October half term.

Whilst on set it was completely professional and although there was a variety of experience levels, everyone was treated with the same amount of respect and helped throughout the process by either peers or mentors. This helped me a great deal as when starting the project I was extremely anxious but with reassurance I became more confident in my abilities. When filming I was tasked with multiple roles; cinematography; boom operating; sound mixing and lighting.

Cinematography was a role I was especially interested in and I feel that throughout the days filming I developed my skills and became confident in using the equipment. During this role I was tasked with changing lenses, camera movement, working with the director to properly map out the scene and using camera settings such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO to affect the exposure. Additionally, lighting was another interest of mine and learning the different ways to position equipment to light a scene and adapting natural lighting using diffusers when outdoors, was enlightening as it showed me the different ways in which lighting contributes to the mood of a scene.

Overall, working on set with professional mentors and peers on this short film has been interesting. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with different equipment and shaping my skillset into one I can use on different film projects and I hope I can expand on the knowledge I have gained while I have been a part of the Film Academy in the future.

Find out more about our BFI Film Academy, head here.

HOME Digital in association with Virgin Media Business

Virgin Media Business