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The Movie Making Process |
Go Behind the Scenes of our New Movie!
In our classroom, we enjoy making movies to extend our learning. Writing scripts and working together to display our knowledge in a creative way are both benefits of movie-making in the classroom. We use the movie-making process to help us understand, reinforce, and review new concepts we are learning in different areas of the curriculum. We also make creative movies to enhance our ability to write interesting stories.
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When we decide on a topic or theme for a classroom movie, we always begin by brainstorming ideas as a class. This is a way for all students to be involved in the planning process. Students explain their ideas to the class, and a list of ideas is created.
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We then create a storyboard on chart paper. Using PowerPoint, I type the agreed upon scenes into PowerPoint slides on my computer and project them on my TV for the entire class to see. The storyboard helps us organize and sequence our ideas to determine the different scenes that will ultimately be part of the movie.
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Each student receives a copy of the PowerPoint slides (printed as handouts) so that we can create a list of the actor roles that we will need to make the movie. Together, we create a list of the roles. I type up the list of roles, and students rank their role choices on their own copy of the list. I try to give every student one of their top five roles.
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Students then work in small groups or on their own to write the lines that they will perform in their scene in the movie. After all scenes are written, students make a list props that they need to make or bring from home. After practicing their lines with others in their scene, I tape the scenes in class or during recess.
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  Sometimes
we film scenes in front of our makeshift "green screen" using turquoise sheets.
This allows me to project images behind the students when editing the video on
the computer. For many movies, students look like they are in different
states and countries.
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The scenes are captured onto the computer and edited using a software program called Pinnacle Studio. The final movies are burned to DVD and sent home with students as traveling DVD's to share with their families and friends. We also show some of our best movies to the entire school on the morning announcements. All class movies can also be viewed in Windows Media Player on our website.
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