While working with students, I’ve noticed that it can be difficult to make an entertaining product that still informs the audience. I’ve been a part of plenty of projects where students had an informational project all planned out, but something becomes lost in the process and students are left with films that don’t have any message.

            I’ve found that one way to get students to create more effective projects is to approach the project like a PSA, where students are always considering the subject, purpose, and audience, and asking themselves the question, “Is it effective?” With a PSA, because of its length, filmmakers can only afford to include content that directly contributes to their message, and a video project should operate the same way.

During all phases of filmmaking, from storyboarding to editing, you should have students ensure that everything they add to their film is contributing to their intended message. That way, students are the ones making sure they don’t get off track, and this is an easy way to decide whether or not something will appear in their film. When they reach the editing phase, it’s a simple matter of allowing them to keep the information that’s on track, and getting rid of everything else.

One other thing for students to consider is what an audience will learn from their video. Creating a movie about the water cycle that simply shows pictures of the clouds doesn’t teach anything. Making sure students actually explain a concept or give factual information will ensure that they’ve learned something in the filmmaking process, aside from just finding images on Google.

            Overall, it can be difficult to guarantee that students are learning while they’re creating a video, but by using these techniques, you can make sure that they will make effective projects that have an educational benefit.

  If you have any additional suggestions on how to get your students to create an effective project, please mention them below. 

Storyboarding can be a great process for students, especially those who struggle with writing skills. A storyboard is a visual representation of how your film will turn out. Think of it as a comic book for your movie. A storyboard shows, shot by shot, what the audience will see on screen.

            The storyboarding process doesn’t begin until your students have decided exactly what will happen in their film. If your students have enough writing skills, have them write a story synopsis first (refer to the previous post to find out about writing a synopsis). Ideally, each sentence in their synopsis will be a different frame in the storyboard.

            The advantage to storyboards is that they will help students be able to project how their film will look and have an easier time filming. Make sure students draw each storyboard frame to reflect how they will film it. A wide shot in their film should look like a wide shot on paper, same thing with close ups and medium shots. Students can draw arrows to convey camera movements.

            One thing to watch out for is the way many younger students or first time filmmakers will approach storyboarding. They tend to create frame after frame of full body stick figures, even if the storyboard occasionally calls for close ups and medium shots. Always remind students that the storyboard should look the way things will look on camera.

            Fortunately, many DVDs contain samples of storyboards in their special features. Many of them have side-by-side comparisons of the final film. Below is a short list of DVDs that have storyboard samples.

Panic Room (3 Disc Special Edition) (phenomenal storyboard feature, but watch out for the language around eight minutes into it)

Monsters Inc.

Back to the Future Trilogy

Dragonwars

            Be careful though, many of the special features will be on the second discs, and renting the DVDs at Blockbuster will only give you the first disc. So you’ll need to purchase the DVD to view the special features.

            Another option for teaching storyboarding to students is to have them watch a brief sequence from a film and storyboard that themselves. I recommend the first few minutes of Let Them Eat Cake on your iDEA DVD or the opening scene of Napoleon Dynamite.

To find more about storyboarding along with some blank sheets, refer to pages 41-46 in your iDEA book.

           When dealing with first time filmmakers, it can be difficult to teach them the importance of telling their story visually. Students don’t initially see the importance of breaking their movie up into separate shots. Breaking a movie into shots can help the audience understand what’s happening better, make the movie more interesting, and make the filmmaking process easier for students.

First time filmmakers will naturally shoot a movie like a stage play; set the camera up in the corner of the room 20 feet from the action and run through the entire movie at once. Having students write a synopsis can help them better organize their project and break their film up into different shots. Have students write down, part by part, what happens in their film. Students should only write what the audience will be seeing on screen, make sure they leave out any explanations of how a character feels or why they’re doing something.

For instance, the following could be a synopsis for a brief sequence:

A student is sitting at his desk, writing. Suddenly his pencil breaks. He gets looks at the broken pencil and frowns. He sees a pencil sitting on another student’s desk. He stands up and walks over to the desk and takes the pencil. He sits down back at his own desk and continues writing.

This synopsis is simple, it explains what happens part by part, and only explains what the audience sees. If it had said, “the student’s pencil breaks so he can’t finish his test and gets sad” there would be no clear way to get this across visually. Make sure students only write what we can see. If a character needs to feel sad, ask the students how they can get that across visually.

Once students have finished their synopses they are ready to storyboard or start filming. Each sentence in the synopsis is a new shot in their movie. Students only need to worry about one piece of action at a time, rather that filming everything at once. Again, we’re not filming a stage play. When students come across the sentence, “Suddenly his pencil breaks.” They’re only goal is to get a shot of a pencil breaking, nothing else matters at the moment. This means they can get a close up or extreme close up of only a pencil breaking.