Workshop Registration

Smartphone Filmmaking: 4 Sessions

The question is always asked: What’s the best camera to get if you want to develop your filmmaking skills? The answer is: The one you already own. Smartphone Filmmaking teaches you to leverage your smartphone and turn it into a filmmaker’s Swiss Army Knife. With a $19 software add-on, your phone evolves into a sophisticated DSLR filmmaking camera. 

Creatively you can compose shots, control light, colour, motion, focus, depth of field, frame rate, resolution and audio. Participants will learn the software, and the creative techniques that have turned smartphone filmmaking into its own genre. The quality of work you can produce from your phone is remarkable, easily up to the standards of vlogging, commercial and brand video work, documentary and narrative film work.

Once we learn to create and produce with our smartphones, we’ll focus on the social media strategy. Now we’re thinking like mobile producers. We re-imagine the work we’re producing, rethinking it and reshaping it for social media. We’re creating unique content for each social platform. We’re showing our creative process real time: producing behind-the-scenes snippets, explainer videos, outtakes or sidebars. Each social platform is different. We’ll learn to engage each audience with stylistic editing and formatting and adding music, graphics and animated titles right in our smartphones. When you share your work-in-progress through social media, you’re building anticipation and building an audience for your work during the creative process, this is often described as mobile journalism, but it’s not specific to the news media. Anyone -- entrepreneurs, creatives, brands, non-profits, teachers, filmmakers -- can use these skills.

READ BEFORE REGISTERING
Prior to the class, please create a profile on Zoom and download the free version of the application. You will receive an email from LIFT with an invitation link to join the workshop one hour before the classbeginswhich will prompt you to open the application or web browser. Please ensure that you log in using a Zoom account with a profile name that appears as the same name registered for the class. If not, for security reasons, you may not be permitted to join. During the workshop, we advise that you keep your microphone on mute to minimize external noise and that you unmute when participating in class discussions. Please also arrive to the session on time for attendance and class participation. ONLINE workshops may be recorded for staff and facilitator assessment. Recorded material will not be made available to participants. Review all workshop policies before registering.

part 1: Mon 24 March 2025, 6 - 9 pm   
part 2: Wed 26 March 2025, 6 - 9 pm   
part 3: Mon 31 March 2025, 6 - 9 pm   
part 4: Wed 2 April 2025, 6 - 9 pm   
(Registration deadline is Mon 24 March 5:00 pm)

Instructor: Stephen Knifton

Stephen Knifton is a Toronto-born video producer and brand journalist. He began his career in network television news, working as a senior producer for the CBC in Toronto, and News Corp in New York City. He covered and produced multiple live and breaking news events; including 9/11, Gulf War, Iraq War, and has produced US election coverage and debates. He designed, created and produced a number of news and current affairs programs. Following a career in television news, he started an online video production company, and went on to produce digital content and brand journalism for a wide variety of architects, designers, business development groups, developers, non-profits and government agencies in both Toronto, New York City and DC. He teaches video production, video storytelling and post production at two different Toronto-area colleges, and won both a Peabody and an Emmy for his work in network news.



Location: 1137 Dupont Street, Toronto, Ontario M6H 2A3
Category: Filmmaking Intensive
Maximum Capacity: 15
12 hours of instruction in 4 parts$200 /member$225 /nonmember
Registration opens
Mon 6 Jan at 10am