Big Screens, Little Folks Study Guide 2017 - Parts 1 & 2

2017

WISCONSIN FILM FESTIVAL Big Screens Little Folks Study Guide

INTRODUCTION The Wisconsin Film Festival...........................................................................1 A Guide to the Guide......................................................................................2

PART ONE Film in the Curriculum and Common Core Standards..........................3 Media Literacy and Critical Thinking..........................................................6 Preparing to see a Movie...............................................................................8

PART TWO: Filmmaking Create an Animated Image: Make a Thaumatrope and Experience Persistence of Vision.........................................................10 Storyboarding: Visual Storytelling............................................................ 12 Stop Motion Animation for Beginners..................................................... 16 You Oughta Be in Pictures: An Introduction to Making Videos....... 18 The Power of Music and Sound................................................................ 23

PART THREE: 2017 Movies NOTE: Details will be added closer to the Festival: K – 2: Shorts Program.....................................................................................– Grades 3 - 5: Feature Film.............................................................................–

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INTRODUCTION

Wisconsin Film Festival Established in 1999, the Wisconsin Film Festival (WFF) is the largest university produced film festival in the United States with an average of 150 film screenings and up to 30,000 attendees.

The Arts Institute, in partnership with the Department of Communication Arts, presents the WFF every spring. The Festival is known for its diverse film offerings: American independent, international cinema, documentaries, experimental and avant-garde, restored classics, the Wisconsin’s Own Competition (selections featuring Wisconsin filmmakers, themes, or settings) and Children’s Cinema: Big Screens, Little Folks. The Film Festival strives to make films screened during the Festival accessible for all audiences.

The venues for the 2017 Festival include 4070 Vilas Hall, Barrymore Theater, Chazen Museum of Art Auditorium, Union South Marquee Theater, and Sundance Cinemas.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison Arts Institute is dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary arts research and creative work. The Institute speaks for and on behalf of the collective voice and vision of the arts at UW–Madison. We advance the arts as an invaluable resource to a vital university, and we promote all forms of artistic expression, experience and interpretation as fundamental paths to engaging and understanding our world.

For schedules and further information, please visit www.2017.wifilmfest.org.

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A Guide to the Guide The Big Screens, Little Folks Study Guide is intended to help K – 5 teachers: ☛☛Integrate film studies and a trip to the Wisconsin Film Festival in their curriculum ☛☛Prepare students for a trip to the cinema ☛☛Introduce teachers and students to the art of filmmaking and production The readings and activities are listed in the chart below so that you can determine which of the activities and goals work best for your class and curriculum needs.

Choose one or more activities and feel free to modify them to fit your grade level and schedule.

Part One gives you information about how Film and Media Studies can enhance your curriculum and meet Common Core Standards. The activities and information help students learn how to be a good audience member at the movies.

Part Two offers filmmaking activities and resources. Students understand an art form best when they have the opportunity to create a piece of art. The focus should

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be on the process, rather than a polished product. The students will understand the challenges and the problems to be solved, and will appreciate the way in which media artists tackle and solve those problems when they have had to wrestle with those challenges themselves. Don’t be afraid to jump into an art form that you have never tried before. There is no right or wrong answer. And there is little to be learned when you stay in your comfort zone!

Many of the articles provide websites with more information or activities. Please use these resources to expand your exploration or find additional activities appropriate for your grade or needs.

Part Three will arrive closer to the Festival and provides information about the specific films that your class will see, and some activities inspired by those films. This section includes some links to trailers so you or your class can preview the films.

Again, please use your judgment about whether or not this will help your class prepare for their field trip. Many students attend with little knowledge of the films they will see and have a wonderful experience.

Film in the Curriculum Adapted from materials developed by teachwithmovies.org. http://www.teachwithmovies. org/common-core-standards.html.

Today’s students live in a world of personal screens, television, movies and video games.

More and more information is presented as a combination of word and image.This hybrid provides students the texture and complexity to better interpret and challenge what they see, which is vital to their development of reading and writing skills, critical thinking and empathy for others.

Film offers teachers the opportunity to help students develop Visual Literacy.

Dr. Diana Dumetz Carry, Ed.D defines Visual Literacy as “the ability to decode, interpret, create, question, challenge and evaluate texts that communicate with visual images as well as, or rather than, words. Visually literate people can read the intended meaning in a visual text, interpret

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PART ONE

the purpose and intended meaning, and evaluate the form, structure and features of the text.” https://readingrecovery.org/ images/pdfs/Conferences/NC09/Handouts/ Carry_Visual_Literacy.pdf Teaching with Movies advocates for the use of film in the curriculum. “Screenbased stories are the literature of today’s youth and teachers who don’t use movies as an integral part of their lesson plans are denying themselves and their students a powerful motivator.

They are foregoing the benefit of the strong current of modern technology to assist in education.” http://www.teachwithmovies. org/common-core-standards.html Some of the new Common Core State Standards refer specifically to the use of film and other multimedia, and movies can be very useful in meeting many of the standards that make no specific reference

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to film. Below is a list of Standards identified on the Teaching for Movies website that you may find useful as you develop a Visual Literacy curriculum.

CCS STANDARDS THAT REQUIRE OR SPECIFICALLY PERMIT THE TEACHING OF FILM: 28 important CCS Standards, most relating to grades 6 - 12, refer directly to the use of movies, employing the word “film,” the term “diverse media” or similar terms.

Several standards refer to “drama,” which on page 57 of the Standards is defined to include filmed versions of plays.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS GRADES K - 12 Reading: CCR 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Grade 4: RL.4.7. Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version reflects specific descriptions and directions in the text.

Speaking and Listening: CCR 2. Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Grades 1 - 5: SL.1.2. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. [Standard 1.2

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for Grades 2 - 6 contain increasingly complex activities with text read aloud and information presented . . . in “other media” or “diverse media.” These activities include distilling and describing the main ideas, paraphrasing, etc.]

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS GRADES 6 - 12 Reading: CCR 3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Grade 6: RL.6.3. Describe how a particular story or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

Grade 7: RL.7.3. Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).

Grade 8: RL.8.3. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

Grades 11 - 12: RL.11-12.3. Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).

Reading: CCR 5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text

(e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Grade 7: RL.7.5. Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning.

Reading: CCR 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

LITERATURE Grade 6: RL.6.7. Compare and contrast the experience of reading a story, drama, or poem to listening to or viewing an audio, video, or live version of the text, including contrasting what they “see” and “hear” when reading the text to what they perceive when they listen or watch.

Grade 7: RL.7.7. Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version,

analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each medium (e.g., lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film).

Grade 8: Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

Grades 9 & 10: RL.9-10.7. Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment . . .

Grades 11 & 12: RL.11-12.7. Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text.

(Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)

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Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Adapted from The YouthLearn Initiative http://www.youthlearn.org.

In our media-saturated world, kids are constantly bombarded by messages, images, opinions and ideas. Add the Internet, Web, email and wireless devices into the mix, and it’s difficult for any of us to escape the information—and misinformation—glut.

Adults increasingly are finding that they need to teach the important skills of analyzing messages and information for validity and bias. Analyzing and assessing sources are essential parts of all inquiry-based learning projects, but our multimedia world means that we have to teach students not just how to assess data and arguments, but also how to discern emotional appeals made through pictures, music and video. This important topic is too big to thoroughly cover here, but we can give you a few pointers and resources for further explanation: ☛☛When we teach how to do photography, we’re also teaching students to really look at the images they see. They come to understand the emotional effects inherent in a photographer’s choices about angle, focus and other aesthetic elements.

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☛☛When we teach image-editing programs like Adobe Photoshop, we show students how images can be changed to distort the truth or fabricate untruths. ☛☛When we teach about video, students learn more about the differences between reality and acting and how subconscious elements like music or setting can alter the emotional reactions to a scene.

Just as we try to teach students to read with deeper awareness and conscious analysis, in a visual world we must teach them to look closely at the images that sometimes pass by them in a flash. You can use some of the following activities to reinforce those skills: • Bring photographs from newspapers and magazines to class occasionally for brief discussions about what they show and mean. Combine this activity with vocabulary exercises in which you show the students a picture and ask them to write as many words as they can to describe the picture or its effects. Do the same thing with TV commercials or bits from TV newscasts.

• Show students photos and ask them to write captions for them.

• Take a photograph that has emotional power and make a copy.

Now make copies that show just parts of the image. Make several more copies that show a gradually larger area of the image from each of the focal points, until you have the entire image showing again.

• Show the students the smaller images, and ask for their impressions of what each image shows or means.

Then show the larger images and ask for impressions until you’ve finally shown the complete photo. Talk about how their impressions changed as they saw different parts of the photo.

• Show students part of a TV situation comedy that includes music and a laugh track. Ask them how hearing the music and the laughing affects their impressions.

• Find some photo-based advertisements in magazines and copy them, taping over the words and text. Ask the students what they think the ads are selling. After discussion, show them the full ad.

• Take extreme close-up photographs of parts of everyday objects and see if the students can figure out what they are. For a twist, use objects in your classroom and hand several photos to teams of students and see if they can find the objects.

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Preparing Your Class for the Movies With increasing access to movies online or through Netflix and other services, some students may not have much experience in the movie theater. Here are some guidelines to discuss with your class and a fun activity to help them think about theaterappropriate behavior.

1. Ask students to generate a list of Theater Dos and Don’ts. Or start with our list and add some additional advice.

Movie Theater Dos • WHISPER. It’s fine to talk before and after the film. And PLEASE laugh as often and as loudly as you wish.

But once the film begins, you should whisper to your companions.

• LISTEN ACTIVELY. When you watch television at home, you can squirm and get up and walk around and eat and do other things. When you watch a film in the theater, you are expected to sit quietly and really listen carefully so that you can understand the story.

If there is no dialogue, watch carefully so you can remember the story.

• USE THE RESTROOM BEFORE THE MOVIE. Once the film begins, it is

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distracting to others if you get up and push past their legs to exit the aisle. If you really need to use the bathroom, of course you should do that. But try to be as quiet and quick as possible.

Movie Theater Don’ts • KICK THE SEAT. Be careful not to kick your seat or the seat in front of you because it is very distracting and uncomfortable for other movie watchers.

• CRINKLE WRAPPERS OR SLURP YOUR DRINK. If you bring candy or a snack or a drink, unwrap or handle it quietly so you don’t disturb others.

Especially in those quiet, dramatic moments!

• CHEW GUM OR THE ICE IN YOUR DRINK. Again, the noise will distract and annoy others.

• SHOUT AT THE ACTORS ON SCREEN. They cannot hear you and you only disrupt the movie for others!

2. Explain that you will create two tableaus: The Respectful Audience and The Rude Audience. If students are unfamiliar with tableaus, define

the term for them. A tableau is a frozen picture of a scene using live performers.

3. Set up chairs to simulate the theater and divide the class into two groups, the Respectful Audience and the Rude Audience.

4. Begin with the Rude Audience. Have an assistant distract the other so they do not listen or look at the group working to create the tableau until it is time to present.

5. Ask the Rude Audience actors to find dynamic positions in the simulated theater that demonstrate your list of bad behaviors – kicking the seat in front of them, talking on a cell phone (if appropriate), crawling on the floor, talking loudly, etc. Ask each to create one line about what they are doing.

For example, “I’m kicking the seat in front of me!” or “I am arguing loudly with my friend.” or “I’m texting!” When you are ready, call the Respectful group to see your work and have the Rude Audience freeze in their action poses. Have one student (or teacher) point to each to cue them to speak their line. At the end, they can all say the final line together: “We are the Rude Audience!”

7. Repeat the process with the Respectful Audience. Tell them that it more challenging to find dynamic poses for the Respectful Audience, but challenge them to find levels and variety. They can demonstrate your list of good behaviors – attentive listening, quiet eating, a quiet whisper, etc. Ask each to choose one line to speak about what they are doing. Examples might be “I am wondering what will happen next!” or “I asking my friend a question in a quiet whisper!” or “Even though I don’t really understand what is going on, I am watching and listening attentively.” When you are ready, have the Respectful Audience freeze and present the frozen picture to the rest of the class. Again, have someone cue each actor to say their line and conclude with everyone saying, “We are the Respectful Audience!”

8. Ask the other group to analyze and comment. Would they want to watch their favorite movie with this group?

9. If you see some of the Don’ts during your field trip to the Festival, you might remind them to adjust their behavior by prompting, “Respectful Audience!”

6. Ask the rest of the class to comment on the tableau. Would you want to see your favorite film with this group?

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PART TWO

Create an Animated Image Make Your Own Thaumatrope and Experience Persistence of Vision A film is made up of many individual pictures. When they pass by our eyes very quickly on the screen, our brain holds one image and blends it with the next one.

This is called Persistence of Vision. You can trick your brain into blending two pictures by making a Thaumatrope, an optical toy popular in the 19th century.

YOU WILL NEED TWO 3” X 5” INDEX CARDS AND TWO 2” RUBBER BANDS. 1. Think of two images that you would like to see combined. Here are some examples: • A bird and a birdcage • A dragon and someone riding on its back • You and your best friend 10 2017 Wisconsin Film Festival Big Screens Little Folks Study Guide

2. Hold the two cards together and make a hole on each side. You can use a hole punch or ask someone to help you.

3. Draw one of your pictures on the first card.

• For example, to create the illusion of a bird in a birdcage, draw the cage on first card (See Example A) and the bird on the second card (See Example B) 4. Hold the second card on top of the first with the holes lined up. If you cannot see the picture on the first card through the top card, hold both cards up a window or to the light.

5. Draw the second picture on the top card so that it lines up with the picture on the first card.

6. Now put the two cards together back to back, with the second card upside down, with the holes lined up. The top

of the front drawing should be back to back with the bottom of the back drawing.

7. Put a rubber band through each side of the cards to hold them together and to make handles (See Example C).

Example A

Spin the Thaumatrope and look at the middle of the cards. Can you see the two images together? Do they seem as if they are one drawing? Your brain put them together for you!

Example B

Example C

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Storyboarding: Visual Storytelling A storyboard is a sequence of drawings, often with some directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a movie or television production.

Students use many reading skills and strategies when creating a storyboard, developing a strong sense of narrative structure and sequence and using explicit mental pictures as they strive to represent their vision.

The following is excerpted from an article found in the online journal InformED, Using Storyboards In Education by Andrianes Pinantoan, May 20, 2013.

Storyboards have been around practically forever in one way or another. 30,000 years ago, early humans “storyboarded” their hunting exploits on cave walls. Egyptians perfected this kind of visual storytelling 24,000 years later with hieroglyphics that tell pharoahs’ entire life stories.

Of course, that probably isn’t what most of us think about when we hear the word “storyboard,” which brings us back to a word we used earlier: outline. What do we mean by calling storyboards an outline?

Well, the modern storyboard we’ve come to know over the last 80 or so years was

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never intended to be the final version of something. It’s a tool that people use so that others see how something is going to be.

This type of storyboard was created by an animator at Disney Studios. Instead of using comic-book style panels for his work, he drew each picture on an individual sheet of paper and then pinned them all up side-byside. This allowed multiple people to see them and make suggestions at the same time – perfect for brainstorming sessions and pitches to executives. The format became so popular that it spilled over from animation to live action, where directors frequently storyboard big action scenes before shooting them to give executives a sense of how they will play.

Today, with the emergence of new digital technology, the definition of storyboards has somewhat reverted back to its broader original meaning as a visual way to tell stories, though most of the time we still incorporate idea and language from film and television. This very old definition has plenty of new uses and tools, though, such as Power Point presentations, webpages, and computer screens. And storyboards have not only escaped the world of Hollywood, but started to pop up in one of the most seemingly unlikely places: our classrooms.

Storyboards today should always seek to convey certain things to your audience: ☛☛Who or what is in the frame? ☛☛If we can see characters, which way are they headed?

– now use computer programs to create storyboards. Others cut out pictures that they find in magazines or take their own photos and use them.

☛☛How much time has passed between storyboards?

Don’t worry about it not looking pretty. The point is to clearly convey information, so panels with stick figures and simple shapes where everyone understands what’s going on are better than gorgeous drawings of people and battles that don’t make sense.

☛☛Where is the camera in the panel, and what is it doing?

MISTAKES, TIPS, AND TRICKS

☛☛Are the characters saying anything? If so, what?

Creating Your Own Storyboards KEEP IT SIMPLE Making a storyboard is pretty easy. There are lots of free templates and even storyboard creators out there with libraries of stock characters and backgrounds, but you can also design your own with minimal effort.

Remember to think of it like a comic book.

Individual pages have multiple panels, each capturing a specific visual moment of the story. Your storyboard template should follow that general look, with a “window” for you to draw the action and a space for you to write in dialogue.

The simplest and easiest way to draw a storyboard is to use a pencil so you can erase mistakes and create rough images for what’s going to happen in each specific panel, but you don’t have to do it that way. Many people – even professionals

People most often make one of two mistakes when creating a storyboard: either they leave out too many details and no one can tell what’s going on, or they put in so much detail that it’s confusing. Finding that balance is the key, and the best way to reach it is to show your storyboards to people who don’t know the story or the lesson at all and work to fix things that confuse them.

Here are some of the most common areas where you can go wrong and how to avoid it.

FORGETTING DIRECTION When we’re watching characters, your storyboards need to tell us what direction they’re going in. This is especially important when you’re storyboarding a fight or another big action sequence, but even simple scenes can be confusing if the audience doesn’t know which way is up.

Include arrows that do what arrows do best – point us in the right direction.

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WHERE AM I? Along those lines, while simplicity is great, it’s important to include at least some geography in each panel so that the audience doesn’t get lost. Imagine a bank heist sequence that goes from the bank to the streets to the back of a car and how jarring it would be if you couldn’t tell where the characters were. Make sure you have some kind of anchor that lets us know where we are even if it’s as simple as an exit sign.

WHAT ARE THOSE LUMPS SUPPOSED TO BE? You don’t necessarily need a lot of artistic talent to create your own storyboard, but it does you no good if you can’t tell what anything is. Drawing isn’t your strong point?

No problem! Try labeling buildings, cars, even people if you need to. It’s not ideal, but at least your audience will know where they are and who’s in the panel.

Classroom Storyboard Exercises STORYBOARD A STORY YOU JUST READ. OR USE SEVERAL STORIES, ONE FOR EACH GROUP ☛☛Divide into groups of six. Give each student an 8”x11” piece of paper, a pencil and an eraser. One member of each group should draw the introduction to the place and character, the beginning. One student in each

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group should draw the end moment.

The other four students should draw four important moments of the middle part of the story. ☛☛Ask each group to come up and hold up the their panel. They must rearrange the images in the order that tells the story. Let one student tell the story using the panels to illustrate. ☛☛Just for fun, change the order of the middle panels and tell the new story!

STORYBOARD A FAIRYTALE OR FAVORITE BOOK ☛☛Using the storyboard temple on the facing page, ask each student to create her own storyboard to tell a favorite fairytale. ☛☛The first panel should show the place and the key character or characters.

The last should show the end. The middle panels show what happens to the character that leads to that end. ☛☛Tell the story using the Storyboard to a partner or small group. Or have several students share with the whole class.

Did the visuals help your audience “see“ the story the way you do? Could you film the story using this outline?

Of course, when students are comfortable with this process, they could storyboard an original story or a short film that they would like to make.

STORYBOARD TEMPLATE

HERE ARE MORE ARTICLES ABOUT THE USE OF STORYBOARDS IN THE CLASSROOM: https://beta.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/what-are-storyboards/ http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/lessons/storyboarding/b.html#close https://www.teachervision.com/drawing/create-movie-storyboard

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Stop Motion Animation for Beginners Stop Motion Animation is a film making technique in which inanimate objects or figures appear to move. The Wallace and Gromit movies use this technique, and some of the films that students may see in the Wisconsin Film Festival are made using Stop Motion. It is a very easy way for elementary students to create short films of their own.

Animation is a perfect STEAM project, incorporating Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math.

The basis of Stop Motion is simple: you take a photo of a figure, move it just a little bit, and take another photo. Repeat this process many times, and then play the photos in sequence at a very fast pace. The more photos you take, the smoother the action will be.

An iPad or smart phone and a Stop Motion Animation App are the essential elements.

Stop Motion Studio is a free app for iPad or iPhone. There is also a version for Android.

Here is what you will need: ☛☛Two pieces of white foam core to create the studio ☛☛Objects or small figures to animate ☛☛Smart phone or iPad.

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☛☛Tripod or stand to hold your device steady ☛☛Stop Motion Animation App like Stop Motion Studio on iTunes or Google Play. http://www.cateater.com/stopmotionstudio/

Create the Studio Place one piece of white foam core on your table, and the other piece vertically in back of it to form the background. Place your studio in a well-lit area.

You can also provide some additional lighting with a lamp or worklight, but be careful not to create shadows on your set.

You can also use a tri-fold presentation board as the backdrop, but you may need some supplemental lighting.

If you prefer, you can use colorful foam core. Colors will absorb more of your available light. Photos from a magazine can also make great backdrops. Of course, your students can draw backgrounds as well.

Use a tripod or iPad stand to steady your camera.

Choose Characters Students can create characters with any of the following:

☛☛Action figures or small dolls or animals

Shoot the Photos

☛☛Clay figures that you create

Open the App and shoot the first photo.

Move the figure only a little bit. Or move its arms or legs, if it has appendages. Shoot the photo and repeat.

☛☛Wooden blocks ☛☛Small household objects such as paper clips, Band-Aids, or bottle caps.

☛☛Drawings that they create

Generally, twelve frames make one second of film, so the more photos you can stage and shoot, the better.

☛☛Candies

Playback your footage.

☛☛Paper cutouts from magazines

☛☛Whatever object they would like They will need a way to make the object or the paper cutout stand up for each photo.

Imagine the Story Students can simply plan a sequence in their heads, or they can storyboard the action first. Storyboarding may help produce more satisfying stories. However, students may discover a great story through simple improvisation with the materials.

This is a great team project for two or three students who can collaborate and take turns shooting the photos.

STORYBOARD TEMPLATE

Photo by Rachelle Doorley, TinkerLab

Incorporate Lessons Learned in the Next Video You will learn a great deal about how many photos to take, how to create convincing movement, and how to structure a story with your first attempt. Students will be eager to make use of these lessons in their next film.

You can add titles that you write on a board or create using letters you have in the classroom. Be sure to shoot multiple shots of the titles and of the opening setting for your film.

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You Oughta Be in Pictures: An Introduction to Making Videos From The YouthLearn Initiative http://www.youthlearn.org.

Imagine saying to your students, “Let’s make a TV show or music video!”

Few projects can engage children like video projects. They’re fun, and what could be more gratifying for a child than to see his or her name rolling in the credits, just like in a movie?

Making a video isn’t difficult, even though you may have little experience with video yourself. You probably know more about it than you think.

Video can be one of the most powerful forms of communication, and it offers a tremendous vehicle for learning.

Experiencing video production, even in its most basic form, can open new career opportunities and avenues for personal expression. It teaches kids about multimedia communication with action and motion, and it helps them reinforce a variety of other skills, including critical thinking, literacy, interpersonal communication, collaboration, public speaking, composition, storytelling and group decision making.

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Studying video has another advantage: It helps teach vital media literacy skills so kids can understand how the many images they encounter every day affect them and so they can observe those images with a more critical eye.

Working with video isn’t something you can just jump right into, however. Children must be prepared for it with preliminary excursions into concepts like storyboarding and photography. Each stage can be made fun and educational, and at the end of the project, the children will understand how all the pieces come together to make a video they’re proud to show parents, friends and the world by putting it on the Internet. Children as young as age five can make a video with the proper guidance and preparation. Below is an overview of the stages involved.

RECOMMENDED TIME: Plan on working on the various elements of this project for about 30 minutes per day over several weeks. Break it up into modules that make sense for your program schedule and the age of your students.

Young children will require more time with modeling and practicing various segments.

GOALS • To teach kids about simple video production techniques • To explore storytelling in more depth • To learn basic photography skills

MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT ☛☛Digital cameras capable of capturing short video clips or video cameras ☛☛Computers ☛☛Panel book ☛☛Sheets of white paper for drawing ☛☛Assortment of pens, crayons and/or markers in various colors ☛☛Oversized pad, at least 2’ x 3’ (preferable) or blackboard for mapping

PREPARATION (BEFORE YOU BEGIN) Making a video incorporates a number of other skills with which you should be familiar. You can introduce them to the kids in earlier projects, or introduce them as part of this one. Either way, be sure that you are familiar with the following: • Using mapping • Using storyboards • The basics of drawing • Digital photography You may also want to introduce simple

animation techniques as a brief unit to help kids start thinking about motion in storytelling.

ACTIVITY STEPS STEP 1: GETTING TO VIDEO WITH STORYTELLING Making a video combines many traditional skills as well as some that may not be familiar to children. It’s important to take your time and prepare kids with the fundamental, nontechnical elements before actually introducing the camera.

Think of a video project as having three parts: concept, storyboard and production.

More sophisticated projects with older children might include an editing stage, but that involves technology and training beyond introductory activities like this. In the beginning, have children make short pieces of 30 seconds to one minute. You can get more sophisticated later, if you have the facilities, but children must first master the fundamentals.

Before you start a video project, make sure that children understand what makes a good story, especially one that involves pictures as well as words. Try panel book activities and storyboarding. We also recommend introducing animation and multimedia authoring before tackling video to help ease students into the process.

Exercises like these help children not only understand the elements of story better 2017 Wisconsin Film Festival Big Screens Little Folks Study Guide

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but also improve their language skills and graphic sense.

STEP 2: GETTING TO VIDEO WITH SOUND AND PICTURES Also fundamental to video is a basic understanding of sound and photography.

Both can be introduced while working with multimedia authoring projects before getting to the video stage.

It’s especially important to sensitize children to the impact of sound. Although it’s something they know is all around them, they tend to think more consciously about words and pictures than sound effects and background noise. In the video production phase, sound effects will become even more important because they’ll have to be reinforced. An actor walking in sneakers, for example, may not make footsteps loud enough to be picked up by the camera’s recorder. You’ll need a sound effects person on your team to focus on such things.

Preparation and understanding are the keys to a successful video project. The more you do low-tech things, the higher you can up the creative ante later with technology.

Projects like this are not just about the tools; they’re about inspiring creativity, confidence and learning in children.

When it comes to camera work, don’t get too deeply into theory just for this project, but cover the basic techniques of photography. With video, the photographic

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essentials of angle, pan, distance, level, focus and framing are combined with a new element— movement—of both the camera and the subjects being filmed.

If the digital cameras you used to introduce photography also allow for the capture of short video segments, you won’t have to introduce the kids to an additional piece of equipment. Using digital cameras rather than full-fledged video cameras has another advantage: Because they capture the images on disk instead of tape, it’s easy to add them to multimedia presentations and Web pages.

STEP 3: CONCEPT AND STORY Once you’re confident that the children are ready, it’s time to begin a group video project. Start by showing them an example of a short, simple video as a model. TV commercials can be helpful because the good ones effectively combine the essential elements of sound and picture to tell a story in a minute or less.

Find an example—one that’s fairly minimalist—so as not to distract or intimidate the children with fancy production values or special effects. In their first video, you’ll have them copy the basic structure of the example, so keep it simple. Show the children the example at least twice, each time asking them to pay particular attention to one element of the piece, such as sound or camera position.

Now step the children through making a storyboard of the sample you showed them. In addition to the basic sketches of the action, each frame must include such elements as associated dialogue, camera position and important sound effects.

You’re basically drafting all the cinematic elements of each shot as thumbnails for understanding the story and how it was told. Do this exercise interactively and ask lots of questions to point children to the elements they may not notice at first.

Once the children understand the model, spend some time helping them apply it to their own projects. The most basic elements of a story of this type are problem, solution and how we obtain the solution. In the case of a commercial, for example, the equation might be as simple as the following: • Problem: A person has no furniture • Solution: Buy some furniture • How: Use the store’s catalog Use mapping to help generate ideas; take a look at a sample map to begin a storytelling project. Divide the group into teams of five or more and have each team come up with their own problem/solution/how equations.

After a few minutes, have the teams share their ideas with the whole class, and pick an idea to produce as a demonstration video.

Once you’ve selected a concept, storyboard it in detail with the entire class. Let the whole group write it while you act as questioner, coach and facilitator.

TIP:

When helping kids choose an idea for the demonstration—and for their own projects as well—guide them toward practical concepts that are “do-able.”

Choose ideas for which all necessary props are on hand and that won’t require extraordinary skills, effects or technology that is beyond the group’s capabilities.

STEP 4: MAKING A DEMONSTRATION VIDEO As we stress over and over again, good modeling is the essence of good teaching.

For the demonstration video, you will be the director working with a crew. By producing the demonstration video first, you’ll be able to model the various roles in a production crew and show the children what shooting a video will be like.

Half the fun of creating a video is that it’s a team project—not just a group of people working alongside each other, but a real team that must totally coordinate all of its ideas, work and efforts in order to succeed.

For example, the camera person must learn how to follow the actors, and the lighting person must understand how the camera person will move around. Repeated modeling, practice and rehearsal are essential.

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Assemble your demonstration team, and either assign or let the members select their roles. In addition to the director, a production team needs a camera person, a sound person, a lighting person and a props person, along with whatever actors are called for in the script. You can adjust the responsibilities according to the number of people in your group. Some people may be able to play more than one role: For example, one person can usually handle both props and lighting. Conversely, you may want to have more than one person doing sounds.

Don’t overlook the importance of lighting, by the way. It’s something few adults notice, let alone children, but it can make all the difference in how a film or photograph looks. Spend some time demonstrating lighting effects. You don’t need special equipment, just one or more lamps you can move around the room.

Using your storyboard as a foundation, help the demonstration team understand their roles by modeling in front of the class.

You may end up deciding to adapt certain

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aspects of your storyboard, such as lighting, camera placement or where the actors walk. Once your team has figured it out, rehearse a couple of times. Preparation and confidence is everything. Have the camera and sound people practice coordination with the actors, but keep it simple. This is a demonstration to help the entire class feel comfortable. They’ll experiment with new techniques once they begin their own projects.

Now that everyone is ready, it’s time for action. Have your team shoot the video, then show it to the whole class and talk about it. The teams can now go off and shoot their own films.

The YouthLearn Initiative offers youth development professionals and educators comprehensive services and resources for using media and technology tools to create exciting learning environments. YouthLearn, created by the Morino Institute and now led by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), provides the assistance you need to start or strengthen both after-school and inschool programs.

The Power of Music and Sound This is a simple but very effective demonstration of the way that music and sound effects tell us how to feel about a scene. Sound is a powerful storytelling tool.

We are often so focused on the image or story that we are unaware of how it works its magic on us!

You may use the images provided here, or any image that can be interpreted in multiple ways. And you can use any music from any source. Be sure to use contrasting pieces of music – scary, romantic, funny, suspenseful.

You will need: ☛☛Images and a way to project them.

You can copy the images provided in this activity and paste them into Power Point or other slide show. Or simply find an online image that you like. Here are a few potential sources: http://www.literacyshed.com/theimages-shed.html http://mrsgraveswebsite.weebly.com/ uploads/1/2/6/8/12686140/the_ mysteries_of_harris_burdick.pdf ☛☛A range of music and a way to play it so that all can hear

Image courtesy of Louise Brookes @lobroo on Twitter 2017 Wisconsin Film Festival Big Screens Little Folks Study Guide

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Step by step: 1. Choose an image from the following examples or from the Internet. Begin with an image that is fairly neutral. As the exercise progresses, experiment with more specific images – a man laughing or a potentially scary image – and see if the addition of music that suggests a contrasting emotion can change your perception of the mood or story.

2. Project your image and ask students to look and listen to the music you are about to play.

3. Play a romantic tune, and ask students what they think might be happening in the picture. Did the music tell them about the mood or story?

4. Using the same image, play a contrasting piece of music, suspenseful or scary. Ask students if they imagined a different situation or mood. Could either soundtrack work with the image?

5. Try a third choice, or let students suggest another mood to try.

6. Project a new image and try several musical choices. Discuss how the image seemed to tell a new story with each new soundtrack.

7. To expand the exercise, you could use recorded sound effects or noise makers you have in your room, to add a sound effect to the musical score.

What did students imagine happened?

Images from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg 24 2017 Wisconsin Film Festival Big Screens Little Folks Study Guide

We hope that all teachers will enjoy introducing film studies and filmmaking to their students, and will find ideas and activities that lead to new explorations in this Guide. Please feel free to pick and choose activities that best suit your time, resources and needs.

which activities were successful in your classroom, please email Terry Kerr at terry@wifilmfest.org.

Part Two of the Big Screens Little Folks Study Guide will provide information about the specific films in the 2017 Festival, and offer additional resources.

If you have questions about any of the activities in the Guide, or feedback about

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