Archviz Course | The Guide to Architectural Short Films

We start the course with an introduction to what's in store, an amazing precedent short film to inspire our own results, the iconic project, and a few key principles to set us on the right path together. You'll understand the fundamentals of architectural storytelling, learn how to analyze successful architectural films, and establish the conceptual framework that guides effective architectural cinematography from initial concept through final production.

Before we dive into the meat of the course we dive deeper into the project and how we setup our cameras to show off the piece of architecture and what areas to focus on and what areas to avoid to not undermine the short film as a whole. You'll master camera placement strategies, understand focal length selection for architectural storytelling, and learn composition techniques that highlight spatial qualities while maintaining cinematic flow and visual interest.

The perfect short film showcases off the best parts of the project, and focuses on both the wide angles and close up details to let the viewer immerse themselves within the building and use their imagination. This lesson shows you how to achieve all of these angles, whilst picking the right lighting and mood per shot, creating scenes along the way ready for the video clips to be formed. You'll learn to balance establishing shots with intimate details, understand how lighting affects mood and spatial perception, and master scene composition that guides viewer attention through architectural narratives.

With the views and scenes set, we work through all of them to create short video clips that will be used to collate our film. The key advice here is to create subtle, smooth camera movements to keep the film classy and watchable for the viewer. You'll master camera animation techniques including smooth dollies, elegant pans, and sophisticated crane movements while understanding timing and pacing that maintains viewer engagement without causing motion sickness or distraction from the architectural subject.

In this final lesson of the CGI section, you'll learn how to render out your clips in the most efficient, realistic way avoiding error and retaining your progress in case of computer crashes. Crashes are more common with animation rendering as you often have to let your machine render overnight, or several nights. You'll understand render settings optimization, learn file management strategies for large animation projects, and master techniques for batch rendering that maximize efficiency while maintaining visual quality standards.

The final chapter covers all you need to know on video editing and pulling your renders together to create a beautiful short film. In this first instalment you'll learn how to bring your rendered sequences into Adobe After Effects and some basic title effects to introduce your project. You'll master file organization for video projects, understand sequence settings for optimal quality, and learn professional title design techniques that complement your architectural narrative without overwhelming the visual content.

What makes a short film easy to watch is a series of clips that match the beat of the backing track. Here, you'll learn how to source royalty free music, add this to your short film and cut clips perfectly to the backing track for a seamless and enjoyable watch. You'll understand the psychology of rhythm in visual storytelling, learn audio editing techniques that enhance architectural narratives, and master synchronization methods that create compelling viewing experiences that maintain viewer engagement throughout.

We round the course off with some final tweaks to the short film and the perfect render settings to export your video to MP4 format, ready to upload to the likes of YouTube to distribute your work easily. You'll learn color grading techniques specific to architectural visualization, understand compression settings that balance file size with visual quality, and master export workflows that ensure your architectural films display correctly across different platforms and devices.