Media Makers: Film Project

Movies, digital shorts, animation, cartoons, tv shows, youtube, and more infiltrate our society and our  minds throughout the day. Video has become the standard when it comes to entertainment and with student attention span shortening, videos and movies are a great way to reach them. Teaching high school students the fundamentals about movie making and production will help them think more critically about the content they consume and allow them to become more analytic when it comes to the movies/videos they watch.

To begin this assignment, students must first learn a brief history about the medium itself. A short powerpoint and a formative Kahoots assessment will suffice for this project since this class is not centered on film as a medium alone. I will jump right into the technical aspects of movie making starting with camera angles, shots, and movements. As another formative assessment, students will demonstrate that they understand different kinds of frames and shots by recreating them like the picture to the left. We will watch clips from popular films to demonstrate the information.

Once students have a firm grasp on filming techniques, they will be separated into groups and asked to make a very short film (2 minutes minimum) that acts as a sort of public service announcement (recycling, food quality in the cafeteria, parking, policy changes, ect). Students will decide on their theme, come up with a detailed story board that includes various angles, camera movements, shots, and scenes along with a short script. The planning period is emphasized and each group should have every frame of their movie throughly thought out and pre-determined. Students will be given an ample amount of time to hash out their ideas/story boards/scripts/plans but only a few days for actual filming (just like on real movie sets). They will have to create an itinerary to keep filming days on schedule. Editing the films will take place in IMovie (like the stop motion animation project) and will have similar guidelines outlining requirements for titles, transitions, music, and credits.

Students will have a critique/viewing day for all movies at the end of the project and will be expected to grade themselves within the group, along with their other group members. Each team will be assessed as a class and given a grade for the whole for the teacher to consider. Allowing students to critique and grade themselves reveals a lot about what the student has learned throughout the process (and often times they are right on point with the given grade, or too harsh on themselves).

The above example is from a 16 year old student at Carmel High School in Indiana. He submitted this work into the Indiana State Thespian Conference and received an excellence ribbon for writing, filming, and editing the work. While this example is extensive, it serves to set a high standard for what the class will be able to achieve.

This example is not student made, but is a great example of a social issue that students can tackle in their PSA. It won many awards including: Audience and Jury award at The Next Film Festival, Best International Short Film at Fresh Film Festival, Jury Prize at Seoul International Youth Film Festival, among many others. While it contains adult language and themes, upperclass students should be able to handle themselves while watching the film.