These workshops have been designed to target the Australian Curriculum’s Cross Curriculum priorities, learning areas, and general capabilities, including valuable skills for students in the realm of education and filmmaking, such as: 

• English: Incorporating literacy, Information and Communication Technology, Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, and Intercultural Understanding, which are essential for effective communication in AI and AI filmmaking. 
• Art: Students will create, design, represent, communicate, and share imagined and conceptual ideas, as well as emotions, observations, and experiences, fostering creativity that can be expressed through AI Video projects. 
• Technologies: Students are introduced to design and digital technologies, including Generative AI tools, which enhance their understanding of modern filmmaking techniques. 

Other educational benefits include curriculum competencies such as: 

• Self-management 
• Participating and contributing 
• Relating to others and teamwork 
• Creative Thinking and Problem Solving 
• Using Language Symbols and Text

Students will learn:

Storytelling Structure, Writing and Literacy

Students will use the Matthew Donaldson Workshops storytelling method to brainstorm characters and story ideas, before assembling them into a cohesive story structure based on 'The Hero's Journey' format.

From there, the stories will be written as more developed story outlines and then produced as final scripts with character dialogue.
 

Filmmaking Technique - Shot Sizes, Camera Angles and Camera Movements 

Transforming creative scripts into movies requires an understanding of how different shots, camera angles and camera movements combine to tell a story.

Make AI Movies teaches students the language of filmmaking, and shows them the techniques used to make their scripts into storyboards and storyboards into movies. 

Making AI Videos Using Illustration, Acting and Voicing

AI filmmaking isn't just about typing ideas into a computer. 

The best results come when students illustrate the scenes and then become the characters, acting out scenes and using character voices in basic videos. These basic videos can then be transformed into amazing results by adding AI effects and enhancements.
 

AI Tools and Digital Production Skills

With so many AI tools to choose from, it is hard to know which ones to pick for what creative situation.

Make AI movies will teach students how to use different AI tools to: 

- Generate story ideas

- Make still images in any style

- Create different looks for characters 

- Turn scripts into voiceover narration and character voices

- Turn hand-drawn illustrations and still images into high quality video

- Enhance videos by acting out scenes to then turn them into Hollywood-style movies

- Make music and sound effects

- Edit video starting with basic skills 

- Manage files and folders while learning basic computer skills

Thinking, Problem-Solving and Cognitive Skills 

Writing stories is hard and requires a lot of thought about who is where, doing what and when, and most importantly why.
 

Make AI Movies teaches:

- Logical thinking

- Cause, action, effect and consequences

- Adapting existing ideas and scenarios when incorporating new ideas

- Updating changes to the story and existing media files

- Revision and proofreading

Inter-personal, Communication and Collaboration Skills

Students will work collaboratively in teams of five so that they can share the workload, taking turns at trying each different AI tool.

This will involve:

- Negotiating which creative ideas stay in the story and which are discarded.

- Planning tasks and sharing them fairly

- Communicating what has already been done and what still needs to be done

- Sharing creative opinions kindly and diplomatically for best outcomes

Make AI Movies workshops supports: 

• Improved communication of ideas 
• A levelled playing field for young creatives from diverse backgrounds 
• A better understanding of AI tools and their uses 
• An understanding of best prompting techniques
• Improved confidence for students in delivering a project from start to finish 
• Foundational skill building for careers in creative and tech industries 

These workshops enhance the confidence of students in their own abilities while also opening career pathways for them in tech industries and the creative arts. 

The workshops will also create a level playing field for young creatives who are seeking to communicate their unique ideas and points of view to the world in a more effective way. This is because their imaginations and creative talents will be effectively set free from the constraints of production time, production budget and manual artistic skill. 

Learning which digital tools to use at which stage of the creative production process, as well as which prompts to use, will help them to more effectively express themselves in the digital age. 

By the end of each course, students will feel more confident in producing ‘proof of concept’ videos. They will also feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when producing their own creative ideas, watching as they come to life from their imaginations almost instantaneously during the production process. 

From a vocational point of view, by learning how to make proof-of-concept videos, young creators will build confidence in promoting and selling their ideas to commercial buyers in the screen industry, so that they may be developed into more serious professional productions in future.