Movie Project

Theatre Project - Awake & Sing

Created by Ms. B. d'Amato

Script Upload | Movie Upload |Movie Scripts

In your movie, you will include the following components:

Identify a social issue or problem (be specific).
Describe the problem (portray) using video clips; written work- poetry, fragments of a story or an essay, quotations from other writers' works (displayed on Power Point Presentation slides); music; photos and drawings etc with your voice over ( or a record of a song -clips of songs that help describe the problem.)
What do other people think about this problem?
- Interview- Ask people their opinions on the issue and suggestions for solving the problem. Choose people from different age groups or cultural background.)
- Survey
- Film clips from Unitedstreaming.com as the supporting historical events.
- If you can't find any relevant documentary clips, create a script and invite your peers to act it out.
- Newspapers and magazines
- Online resources
Your analysis and commentary will be based on: interviews, surveys, news article, eyewitness stories ( use references from history).
Your reflections and "conclusion": Suggest a resolution to or your vision about the exiting social problem.
Movie length--5 minutes to 10 minutes.

Lesson Plan : Using Film-Making As the Ultimate Form of Communication Using Multi-Intelligence Artistic Expressions

Author: B. Wu, English Dept. Murry Bergtraum HS, Pearl Street, New York, N.Y. 10038

Subject: English

Grade Level: 9-12

Overview: The lessons are designed to assist students in

producing a movie in a collaborative group
understanding and playing a specific role
examining a social/personal/historical issue critically to create a narrative to describe the situation
understanding and creating multimedia files such as digital photographs, digital video, website, movie clips etc. to describe and portray an identified issue and then apply multimedia files to creating a movie;
learning to blend the new media with traditional methods of expressions such as written poetry, essays, research report, music and fine arts form such as props, etc.
conducting primary research to collect data, for example, interviews and surveys and secondary research such as database and general online research ;
analyzing and synthesizing data to construct the contents for the movie.
creating an original movie by assembling data and editing your collected images and footages.

Objective: Through creating this Personal Message movie, students will

Increase the awareness of citizenship and its social responsibilities
Strengthen literacy skills
Explore multimedia method of expressions
Create an inquiry-based movie project

Materials: Camera ( digital or non-digital), computers, Internet access, Window Movie Maker ( Video Blender), Quick Time, Image Editing software-Fireworks, web composing program-Dreamweaver

Activities and Procedures:

Activity One- Identifying the problems

Brainstorm: What are some of the social problems are our concerns?
Elicit responses and write them down on the board.
Ask each student to examine the listed concerns and identify one issue that s/he is really interested in inquiring further.

Activity Two- Open your eyes, what do you see?

Make a list of imagery that are associated with the social issue-still, moving, emotional, propaganda, painting, documentary, photos, imagery from a story, poem or music.
Select three most vivid imagery and create a-
- collage
- poem or reflective writing ( or editorial)-for voice over
- movie clip(s) of a documentary
- collage of topic-related photos

Activity Three- Stop and listen, what do you hear?

Formulate questions for interviewing the general republic
Discuss how to conduct the interview
Create a survey
If you are not the first one to inquiry about the issue, what have the rest of world said about it( editorial, columnists' comments, government authority, a well-known public speaker, talk show host, radio show host, etc.) Get other people's voices on this issue.
Are there any books or visuals, drama, and , subway poetry, pop songs created to portray or voice over such an issue?
Is there documented history of the issue?
What newspaper or magazines have also reported the issue? What did they say?
Go online, do data base research.

Activity Four- Reflect and Analyze: What do I think ?

Now you have all the data, what do you think about the problem?
Is there a prospect toward the issue?
What has been done to solve the issue?
What is your suggestion we need to do to resolve the issue?

Activity Five- Pick a camera and start taking photos and footages for the movie project.

Take still images
Shoot movie clips
Creating collages
Record your voice of your poem or story( voice narrative)
Add music
Add texts
Include bibliography

Activity Six- "Composing" and Editing the movie-The fun begins! How would we organize the files and what effects should we add to create a movie that tells a good story, conveys a clear message, visually-enticing and compelling, and heart-wrenching?

Import all the files (word, image, video, and sound) into Movie Maker or Video Blender
Edit the movie

Activity Seven-Show and Tell

Extended Activity: Use the movie you just made as the beginning of a full-fledged documentary. Collect more data, look more into history and our current society and keep searching for your answer to the problem.

Rubrics:

Contents \ Quality	5	4	3	2	1
Main Idea: A narrative that has a manageable and clear focus; exhibitions of understanding and analysis of the topic; exhibition of awareness of audiences;
Development: Ideas developed using supporting media components such as research, personal narrative, film clips
Organization: structure, direction and coherence
Artistic Expressions: variety of artistic expressions: written, sound or fine arts and props, etc.
Sources: Clear citations first and secondary sources
Originality: Both technical and language arts components
Product Quality: clear sound, image and motion clips

Role and Responsibilities in a Movie-Production Group:

Roles( certain roles require a number of students)	Responsibilities	Skills Required
Project Manager /Movie Producer
Director /Script Writer((s)
Researchers
Artists (digital /traditional)
Cinematographer
Video /Sound Editors
Camera Operator
Interviewers
Narrator

Resources: