ISTE at Your Pace

Didn't have the time or money for ISTE? You can access videos of key speakers/presentations here.

There goes my day....

Wow

Via Laurie Halse Anderson's Facebook page...some students in Oregon put together this music video with an original song, based on her book, Chains.  Notice, especially, the excellent use of multiple camera angles to good effect, and the superb selection of the MLK video at the end. I admit, I teared up.

Set Music Free

I am always on a never-ending quest to find open access content for use in video projects.  Thanks to a post I ...um....posted...on LM-NET, on another topic, someone sent me a link to Musopen.

This site hosts music from the likes of the US Marine Band and your local high school.  Most of the selections are classical, all are downloadable and free.  Performance quality varies (as you can imagine), but, hey.  It's free!

I still like Freeplaymusic best (it organizes music by mood, for one thing!), but options are good!

Free Final Cut Exptress 4 Tutorial

It never rains, but it pours, eh? I go weeks without posting, then post five times in two days.

I'm forcing myself to learn Final Cut Express as I definitely need to upgrade from iMovie. It's not an inherently intuitive program, however. Videographer Izzy Hyman has put together a good, basic video tutorial that you can access/download here.

If you do much at all with video editing, it's well worth exploring his site for tips on other aspects of video editing. Some of the video podcasts you can only view with a membership, but some are available for free viewing.

Google Educator Video

Here's the video for my Google Teacher Academy application. It's supposed to be a one minute video on the topic of Innovative teaching OR Motivation and Learning. You'll notice I combined the three. Are they really separable?



Uploading it really made the voice sound weird--not sure where that tinny sound is coming from!

BTW, if you're in the New York City area, the closing date for applications is October 10.

Music Videos 2: Lyric Analysis and Planner

Part One

Because a large focus of my film class explored how words are translated into images, I wanted my students to think seriously about the meaning and imagery within their chosen lyrics. The lyric analysis sheet asks them to focus solely on the lyrics' words and intent, without worrying about the video at this point. You'll really need to emphasize that they shouldn't be thinking about the video yet, as they immediately want to start planning how to shoot it.

I realized the importance of this step as I wandered from group to group; several students completely missed the meaning behind some of their lyrics, and even ended up changing songs.

Once they've worked through the lyric analysis, they move on to the planner. This is where they start thinking visually. The planner moves them from the overall mood they want to create to more specific plans for creating that mood. It also asks them to create a story to tell--this can be directly related to their lyrics, or an idea taken from the lyrics.

In the planner, they'll develop the characters and setting, and brainstorm the types of images they plan to incorporate. They also need to describe the effect they think their images, characters, etc will have on the audience. The students struggled the most with this and, to be honest, I wasn't very happy with what they came up with. They're so anxious to get to the shooting, they wanted to rush through this, without putting much thought into the effect.

This should make it more interesting, however, when we do the feedback on their rough cut. As they hear responses from their audience and begin to recognize what does and doesn't work, I hope they'll realize it's worth while to spend more time planning.

Next post: the storyboard a great site for filming/editing tutorials.

"Feeling Not Sound": Creating the Music Video

A few posts ago I mentioned I was doing music videos with my film class. The kids are really into this project, needless to say! I've never seen them quite so eager to do their storyboards. I'm a bit clueless on this myself, as I don't know all that much about music videos, and the few books I've seen are for the professional, not the high school teacher! Online lesson plans have been more basic than I wanted, too.

You can download my handouts here, and I'll describe my tentative phases below.

Because I wanted this to be very much about translating words into visual images in order to create an overall mood or tone, I wanted students thinking more critically about music videos than they tend to, normally. I handed out the assignment sheet, discussed the requirements, then fired up the LCD projector for a little whole-class viewing.

We started by comparing Marilyn Monroe in "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" with Madonna's "Material Girl" and discussing the use of imagery, costuming, etc. (i.e. mise en scene) to create the idea of wealth and luxury. With the Madonna video, we also looked at the contrasting story lines or story within a story--the chanteuse singing a song about material desires, while in real life choosing a "regular guy" as her boyfriend over the high-powered director. Both videos also use great camera work (close-ups, tight framing) to focus the viewer on specific elements.

We then switched to Uncle Kracker's "Follow Me," which has an interesting story line, makes good use of a recurring motif (the truck travels through the different story lines) and has nice little fantasy segments with an easy-t0-recreate special effect.

Finally, we ended with 3 Doors Down and "Loser." The kids were bothered by its rather depressing message, but did a great job of analyzing the use of camera angles and mise-en-scene to create the feeling of loneliness and isolation. The video also is good for discussing the use of establishing shots.

I might add that, in my continuing effort to try to be more copyright-responsible, I bought the music videos on iTunes (except for the Marilyn Monroe clip).

This seems like a good place to close for now. I'll post tomorrow about the next step: having students analyze their lyrics.

Free Moviemaking Curriculum Guide

Apple and movie-guru Marco Torres made this curriculum guide available--for free! It's a great resource (good in conjunction with the guide from AFI), especially for upper-elementary and middle-school aged students, where the focus is more on actually producing a video than on content/style.

I've been teaching a film studies class this semester, which I love. We've combined formal film analysis with students producing their own videos. While we haven't accomplished nearly as much as I'd hoped (I always overplan!), the kids are just beginning their final project--a music video.

Now, I know squat about these, really. So I was excited to see a section on music videos in the Apple guide. However, it was VERY basic--more what I'd use for 6th graders, to be honest. I wanted my students to do a critical analysis of their lyrics, then plan their video in detail. I put together a rough set of handouts; they need fine-tuning, however. As soon as I have a semi-final version, I'll post them!