0 Story

For our IB Film class, I'm always looking for good discussions on what makes a good story.  Because there is no simple answer, I like to try different approaches and pull in as many different ideas as I can.  However, I can't think of anything that captures so much of what makes a good story in so succinct a discussion as Ken Burns does in this short video:


Ken Burns: On Story from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo.

The funny bit is, that after watching this video and thinking about what Burns says in terms of finding a little piece of history and finding the interesting story in it, I finally watched this little clip on the 'real' history of American Gothic that colleagues and friends have all sent me links to - I'm sure other art teachers out there have found this in their respective in-boxes as well.

A little fun for covering art history in your class.

Detail: Story

0 Cracking the Egg Mystery

My radar for egg-related content has been on this year.  A little background: one of my IB Art students has created an incredible new club at our school, known as "Eggschange" .  Jin Jin and her club raise money to buy chickens for poor local farmers.  They then buy the eggs from the farmers, sell the organic eggs to the community, and then use the money to buy more chickens.  Its an amazing project, and she was just featured in a local magazine along with some other local 'green heroes'.  You can read the online article here.

Now, IB Art is all about making connections to your personal life, and Jin Jin is all about eggs.  So when I heard this week's Science Friday podcast about the mystery of the spinning eggs, I had to share it with my IB Art class.


Even though this is a science podcast, this is completely an IB project.  One thing that they don't reference in the video, which is mentioned on the podcast, is that the original idea of the egg spinning in milk came from Truscott's teacher who was interested in photography.  This was, apparently, a trick that photographers would use to get cool fast shutter speed shots.  Truscott's interest as an engineer translated this photography technique into an engineering investigation, and even suggests use for pumps without internal parts.  Again- that's a photography trick that turned into a plan for a new kind of pump! Brilliant.

In the context of the video, they discuss using different shapes, objects, liquids of various viscosity as they investigated the physics behind why this was happening.  That sort of deep, guided investigation is the perfect example of how to approach their workbooks.

Detail: Cracking the Egg Mystery

0 Adobe Story

INT. CLASSROOM.DAY

A teacher who is busy preparing his IB Art art students for their final exhibition stops for a few rushed minutes to sit down at his computer and type. For some reason he says all of this out loud:

TEACHER

I don't fall in love with software often, and when I do, its rarely at first sight. However, I have to admit that I'm just a little giddy about Adobe Story. Not only is it an intuitively constructed scriptwriting program, but it allows you to easily shift scenes and ideas around with a simple drag and drop! As you type, a dialogue box appears to ask what your next line will be - this is actually a lot less intrusive than it sounds - in script writing, you're constantly switching from lines of dialogue, character names, and scene names. And the constant formatting back and fourth can be a pain. You can also share your story with co-editors, commenters, or readers. You can even tag your script so that when, say, the costume department gets a hold of it, they can easily jump to the parts of the script that is relevant to them. This is really a gem if you're teaching an IB Film class.

I kinda want to scrap what we're doing in class tomorrow and jump into some writing.

The teacher slams down his laptop lid and runs off to check student work.

Detail: Adobe Story

0 Vimeo Pulls Ahead

So I've got accounts on both Vimeo and YouTube, and have a slight feeling of dissatisfaction to have my videos spread out over two sites. I'm not sure why this is, since organization isn't exactly one of my defining characteristics, but I like having all of my stuff in one place. However, the more I use Vimeo, the more I like it. Aside from its classier feel, it can do just about everything that YouTube can.

However, with the introduction of their Video School, Vimeo has just pulled ahead. With lessons that are both from Team Vimeo as well as crowd-sourced, there are some excellent tutorials and explanations here for your video classes. The videos are also neatly categorized by topic. Here's one from their Video 101 Basics section:

Detail: Vimeo Pulls Ahead

0 Recut Trailers

Back when I started this blog almost six years ago, I came across this fantastic spoof trailer for The Shining, which I suggested would be a great lesson for talking about the power of editing. I finally used it as a project for my IB Film One class this year, and love the results!

A few of the students haven't uploaded their trailers yet, but here's the first few. If you're curious about what The Game would look like as a love story, or the horror film Amelie, have a look. You'll also see a trailer for a film about crazed obsession (Meshes of the Afternoon), Kurasawa's Horror Masterpiece, Stray Dogs, and the story of a man who takes a stand against cruelty to living-impared humans, Shaun of the Dead.



Here's a link to the playlist on youtube.

Detail: Recut Trailers

0 Brainstorms and a Shower of Resources.

Today I'm going to throw out a bunch of resources and links that I've found recently, or have dug up to use in my

One of my students sent me this terrific link of out of print instructional drawing books from Andrew Loomis. Great reference material for just about any HS art class.

My IB Film students are just starting to plan out their final narrative videos. We've been spending the last few days on writing prompts (except today, but that's another story). Most sites that I've found have some pretty lame writing prompts. However, I've found some pretty interesting ideas at Language is a virus and Plot Scenario Generator. Both can be hit or miss, but then I suppose that's going to be the case with prompts in general. Distractionbeast's BRAINSTORMER has a great interface - similar to The Idea Generator, but a little cleaner.

Although we've covered this before, Kurt Vonnegut has a great explanation of drama here. Teacher Rob McMinn has some fantastic powerpoint presentations up on slideshare that together constitute a goldmine for any IB Film teacher. I just showed the students his explanation of how to write a screenplay, but his shot-by-shot breakdowns of films are truly fantastic. For example, here's part one of his brilliant breakdown of Jaws:

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 1

View more presentations from Rob McMinn.

Part II:

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 2 - the Kintner boy

View more presentations from Rob McMinn.

...and there's more where that came from.

Detail: Brainstorms and a Shower of Resources.

0 We All Shine On...

For the last few years, I've kicked off my IB Year 2 Film classes with Stanley Kubrick's classic The Shining. In addition to all the thematic layers on which it can be analyzed, the amazing technical aspects, and how those elements intersect in such fascinating ways- its just an engaging film that (to my mind anyway) its still scary-as-all-get-out 30 years later.

Yes, but what is the shining? It's the question that is always asked and also helps dive into the textual analysis of the film. As we discussed it this time around, I threw out this tangential bit of trivia- Stephen King originally got the idea for The Shining while listening to the Plastic Ono Band's Instant Karma. You know, like "we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun"?

Interesting little tidbit of information anyway, but I also came across this neat bit as well- the image of the twins was inspired by the Diane Arbus photo (pictured above) Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967. This got me thinking about how interesting the confluence of multiple sources of inspiration result in totally new works of art. An energetic John Lennon song and an Arbus photo of two innocent little girls who happened to look alike. Who could have seen The Shining as a result of those inspirations*?

How do you teach "mash up anything that inspires you and make it new"?

*granted these are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only influences that resulted in The Shining.

Detail: We All Shine On...