Creating a narrative

First, the film is available here and can also be found at: http://youtu.be/wG11OS4k9sk

BUT SERIOUSLY, WATCH IT ON THE YOUTUBE LINK, NOT THE BOX POSTED BELOW - I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT THE QUALITY IS TONS BETTER ON YOUTUBE!

And now let's discuss the process of creating a narrative assignment...

The lesson plan is shared on a google doc that can be found at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Qmd7A5DPV5Z0M5OEV3ZW15WlU/edit?usp=sharing

And the shooting script found at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Qmd7A5DPV5S0JHbVlkcjZnd3M/edit?usp=sharing

To begin, I was actually excited about this assignment.  I, as stated in blog posts prior, really do love the art of storytelling. And I find it exciting and challenging to open up storytelling with my students in a new way, and specifically creating a process through which they can encounter, interact with, and create media.  To be honest, that is the main reason I decided to do this program.  I love teaching, and to be forthright and blunt, I am pretty darn good at it.  I have seen lots of success in my eight years at Lehi, but I find myself falling behind the students daily interactions with their mediated world.  I wanted to find a way to bridge the gap and incorporate media into what I am currently trying to do in the classroom and on the stage.

Now, as with all of these assignments we have encountered thus far, I certainly faced an uphill battle with more challenges than I originally anticipated.  And I might hate myself for saying this later, but I really appreciate that we are not only designing lesson plans, but trying them out ourselves.  I have had some moments go beautifully and some become tragic failures.  But the process of creating and adapting has been surprisingly refreshing and rewarding.  (If only my tired brain could retain all the things I am learning, so I don't have to keep asking the same questions...)

While perhaps my idea of taking a song and turning it into a short film may seem strange, I try to choose hooks and inspiration that I think my students will enjoy tackling.  They are always so excited to share their music with their friends, and with me, that I thought this would be a nice and fun approach.  Further, I think my idea of collaboration with the video production class will be really rewarding.  I know that class is often looking for material, and we live in an age where the term "cross-curricular collaboration" is like music to an administrator's ears.  I have spoken with the teacher at my school about this idea and he is excited to try to do something together.  Honestly, he wants us to get to the place that we are team teaching and creating a full fledged film with our classes...but this class has taught me that I need quite a bit more work and training before I'm ready for something like that!

The lesson plan has to be more like a 5-class period unit in order to assess that they have learned the material and have the opportunity to view, create, and critique new media.  But I like the prospect of taking their learning and skills up to this point and finding a new way for them to get excited about sharing it.  I further realized, that due to time and resources, or lack thereof, that this must be done as a group project.  While often group projects are hard because some slide by while the rest do the work, I make it a point in all of the group projects that I do in my classes for my students to, upon completion, give me a self assessment and a peer assessment for everyone in their group as well as a justification for each grade.  Further I assign the groups.  I find that this helps to prevent a lot of the problems usually accompanying group projects.

When I began filming, I faced quite a few sound problems and by the time I had them resolved, I didn't have my actors for much longer.  So we had to hurry and reshoot, and I wasn't able to get all of the shots I would have liked.  But this just taught me to test all of my equipment before and assure that I use my actor's time wisely.  It was a good lesson to learn.  Overall, I am pleased with how the project turned out, especially with the time constraints and learning curve.  I appreciate my former students coming to my rescue.  It's such a blessing to have people who will just take my direction and run with it, who trust me implicitly.  Of course, I wish there was better lighting, that I had turned off my air conditioning to have better sound, that I had a few more shots (especially shot, reverse shots, and a better transition between the day and night scene), I still found the process to be informative and fun.  And for extra measure, I added a truly cheesy moment at the end...but wasn't that the point of 80s hair band ballads?  Let's just call it my ode to Bon Jovi!

Dialogue Editing Exercise

AKA...the hair twirling debacle.

Video is available here or can be found at: http://youtu.be/5c776LMob1I

But the quality is much better on the Youtube link.  I would suggest watching it there instead!

Initial thoughts on teaching narrative film...

Much of what I teach in a drama class is focused on narrative.  Either construction or de-construction of the narrative plays a central part in my day to day instruction.  Of course, this is because I teach drama and the focus is on story and the techniques involved with telling the right story, the right way.  I love story and I love teaching students how to break apart its pieces, figure out how it works and put it back together.  There is pure joy found in the minutia.

Teaching narrative film is another beast entirely.  I think the most perplexing part is the introduction of technology.  While a lot of the preliminary work involved does flow chronologically, and therefor logically, once production commences, technology seems to take the forefront and all flow seems to disappear.  Ok, perhaps I am being slightly melodramatic, but the references to hair twirling as of late have got me second guessing a lot lately.  I think the point is to try to find continuity mixed in with all the technology.  And that is when narrative film starts to take place.

Perhaps it is easier in an ongoing film class, particularly in college, to teach these things, but as I begin to finalize and test out my lesson plans, I find that multiple days of instruction are necessary to really help students understand composition, continuity, and narrative.  Just a simple cursory overview will in no way be substantial enough to assess that they understand it all.  Further, they need hands on participation and application in pre-planning, filming, and editing in order to really give them any sort of a background.  They need to actually do it themselves to understand and do it several times.

So, my initial thoughts are these: that it takes careful planning and substantial time and resources to really teach these principals.  But if all we can initially do is get them to think more thoroughly about the films they watch and contemplate their construction, then at least we are giving them a foundation for real assessment and reflection on the media they so readily consume.

Composition Exercise

First, The video portion of this assignment can be found at: http://youtu.be/SjvyxuXDwt0

The assignment can be found at: https://drive.google.com/a/alpinedistrict.org/file/d/0B8BtsF97JUhfcDZIWTJUcm9ETG8/edit?usp=sharing

So...let's talk about the process...

My goal with the lesson plan was to introduce different shots to my students, and help them both start to notice the composition of those shots in the media that is around them today and learn how to create those same shots.  I think specifically, I wanted them to be able to identify which shots would work best in each moment so that they could create story boards and shot lists that would actually make sense.  After designing the newer version (the video one) of this lesson plan, I was sure that it would be accessible and fairly easy to accomplish.

But I didn't take a few factors into account.

First, I thought that taking their existing screenplays and deciding which shots for several moments would help to simplify the process, and while it did, I also found it highly limiting.  While shooting, I found that some moments weren't really conducive to the shot that I originally planned.  Additionally, during the editing process, that I wished that I had more shots and better angles than I had planned.  In retrospect, it would have been wiser to have them get 2-3 different shots for each moment that they could then use to determine the best one for the final project.  While this is more time consuming, it would give them a practical understanding of how elements of composition need to work together to tell a full story.  I thought that the shooting process could be easily accomplished in one class period.  After all, I was only asking them to get 10-12 of the shots they had planned out prior.  But even for me, shooting in one location, the process took over two hours.

Further, I wish so much that I hadn't chosen to do an outdoor scene, and I wish even more that I could have gotten people at a different time.  But as it was, I could only get those kids together on a Saturday afternoon when the sun was blaring down, the light was terrible, it was 102 degrees outside and my actors were miserable and wanted to leave...not a pleasant mixture for a decent film.  As much as I tried to adjust the camera, the white balance, the f-stop, etc., I still feel like the project came out with really harsh colors and looking amateurish.  And I know I could be capable, even with my inexperience, of creating a better final product.

Were I do actually do this with students, I would put them into groups and only choose one screenplay to work with.  I would give them plenty of class time in which to complete the product.  I would have them discuss and plan out shots beforehand, storyboarding it with stick figures, so they could cut down the set up process.  I would have them focus primarily on the shots and deciding which worked best to create a final project.  They would need editing tutorials to be able to finalize it, but that could be in a follow up lesson plan or two.  Further, I think finding proper equipment is going to prove difficult.  I need to find a solution for that issue.

Overall, I found this informative and discouraging all at once.  I thought I had enough footage to make a decent final project, and though I accomplished all the tasks on my worksheet check list, I don't feel like it really allowed them to see why each shot works. That's why I would make the changes discussed above.  I know there are several aspects of composition that I didn't cover in my lesson plan, but, knowing high school students as I do, you have to build upon concepts.  And the foundational elements, the basics, first need to be mastered (or at least clearly understood) in order to really add to the end goal of practical and thorough application.

Editing exercise

Video can be found at: http://youtu.be/sOt_bLr5JTE

Process of composition...it's hard!

Ok, so the reality that is dawning on me, the one I am sharing with several former students, is that the process of filmmaking if far harder than I ever thought.  Sure, I knew it would be complicated, and that the technical aspect was one that we would have to learn through study, trial, and error.  But honestly, I don’t know how anyone could do this job without having gone to school for it.

I appreciate that I am beginning to see elements of camera technique, editing, and composition in the films, television shows, and commercials that I watch.  The more I view them, the more I’m struck with how difficult it is to get it exactly right.  And especially to do it with apparent ease.  Perhaps, that it the point.  It needs clear and practiced technique.  But composition is all around us.  Even the background screen on my laptop, which changes frequently, practices the rule of thirds. 

In designing a lesson plan for high school students to help them understand the elements of composition, I found that I would need to do it within a directing unit.  Granted, this could be a section of a filmmaking unit, but the principles are the same, nonetheless.  I also found that it was difficult to progress from an elementary understanding to actually demonstrating those principles with a camera in a mere lesson.  Students need a foundation upon which to build.  Additionally, in a school like mine, getting access to video camera is going to prove difficult, though most have phones with at least some video capability, and certainly photographic ability.  That’s why I initially chose to go that route; though I see the necessity of demonstrating an understanding of how to capture the elements of composition with an actual video camera.  It’s something I’m trying to figure out how to balance within my curriculum. 

I truly see the benefit of teaching composition, in all of my classes, film or no.  But I do think I need to create a space for my students to first start observing the type of shots and what they communicate, the use of balance, nose room, angles, pans, tilts, focal length, etc. in their everyday encounters with media.  I think this observation and understanding of how and why things function as they do will help to make things more clear in their minds and their practice. 

A final note, though I teach in a classroom and am quite accustomed to pacing with my lesson plans, I find that I feel so very far behind when it comes to an understanding of the principles involved with filmmaking, and especially with the equipment.  Honestly, I film things with my iPad.  Yesterday in class was the first time I ever touched a real (non-old school home movie style) video camera.  I know that sounds preposterous, but it’s true.  I’m not only out of my comfort zone here, I’m on a different level entirely…which is not a bad thing.  It just takes some adjustment.  It’s a process, like anything else worth learning. 

Story and Screenwriting Reflections

I have always been a storyteller – how good of one is, perhaps, yet to be seen.  But my life has always revolved around stories.  From a young age I was inundated with stories from my father.  Every place we went had a hidden story.  Every car trip began with an “I remember when” and every complaint was properly answered with a “When I was your age” tale of hardship.  In my current life as a drama teacher, my focus is always on the story.  I find them the most powerful resource in teaching a concept or principal or opening the path to feeling.  I always encourage my students to focus on the story, on the journey of the characters.  My head is filled with stories of my childhood intermingled with the books that I am obsessed with reading and the musicals and plays that consume my work life.  For me, fiction becomes real.  And words become a scene.  I love reading Alma and staging the battle and trickery sequences in my head.  I encounter the written word, especially in novel form with the eye of a stage director.

So, if nearly every element of my life is focused on visual storytelling, screenplays and writing them should be simple, right?

(Insert sarcastic joke that I am far too exhausted to write.)

When it comes to screenwriting, I find that dialogue is a struggle for me.  I decided to take the story that I shared in the first assignment, but that was of me when I was a small child.  I find that I don’t really know how kids talk and find it extremely difficult to make the dialogue I write sound authentic, seeing as though I don’t spend much time around children.  I think the old adage that you should write what you know should be expanded to say, “Don’t write what you don’t know.”

Perhaps at this point of time, it would have been wise for me to switch gears and choose another story that was easier to conceptualize…perhaps about a group of argumentative people trying to put on the largest stadium fireworks show in America…but that would have far too much profanity for an assignment at the Lord’s University. 

So, instead, here I am.  I’m writing a piece, focused on a memory that really does mean something to me and was rather foundational in my life, but I find it challenging to make this story reach and audience and create a theme upon which to make a meaningful piece of theatre.  Is anyone else going to care about this story – which seems so everyday and insignificant?  I also found that the memory I chose to use for my story was only a few moments long in real time.  I think, for shooting purposes, it would be best to do this in either real time or elongate time a bit to emphasize certain poignant moments.  I struggled with how to end the piece as well.  I didn’t want it to be too sappy, though my memory is, of course, covered in sugar coated marshmallow memories.  I think I need more format research work and to try to break out of the novel format to which I am naturally drawn.  Ah, well.  It’s a work in progress.