I Should Be Marking

Want to look at filming techniques? Camera angles? Dialogue?

Xtranormal is a really useful site. You choose your characters, type your dialogue, set your camera angles and movement and away you go. It renders in seconds and works really well.

I had a couple of minor issues this morning when I first used it in anger, mostly due to my own mistakes – but the staff are incredibly quick to offer support via both Twitter and email and I’m looking forward to some promising developments due in the near future.

Two birds with one stone here. I’m leading some INSET with ICT staff on some basic Flash Actionscript and I’d also like a handy document to share with KS4 & KS5 students working on Flash.

I want it to be very short and snappy, with just the bare essentials. Feedback on the examples I’ve chosen would be very much appreciated – and if you would find the document useful then feel free to ‘borrow’ it.

My Y10 iMedia class are working on the Video Editing unit (Unit 6). We have a couple of very short scripts provided by our head of Drama/Theatre Studies which are very good for introducing media language and such, but I’m not able to add to that repository myself. Having the students write their own script at this point is not what I’m after (although it will be) and so I set off to find some ready made examples.

Just a few short hours (!) later I came across SimplyScripts, a home for unproduced scripts, film scripts, TV scripts and more. I found literally hundreds of short scripts just ripe for the using. Of course I had to filter through a lot of inappropriate files (I know how it feels to deal with a publisher’s slush pile for a few hours) due to length, setting, tone, content, etc. but came up with 5 really good scripts to use (and I’m only up to the end of the Ds!).

A bloody useful resource I reckon.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, we recently bought the Adobe CS3 MasterSuite for the entire site. It cost a fair few thousands but we get access to every Adobe package – Fireworks, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, Soundbooth, Acrobat and Premiere Pro to name but a few.

On Thursday I filmed ‘Scoop’, the school dance group (troupe?), performing in the main hall and obviously needed to edit it. I started out with iMovie, the standard Mac movie editing package (think Windows Movie Maker with a few extra bells and whistles) – but found it tough going.

I needed a half hour crash course in Premiere from the drama/media techie who showed me the ropes but editing, particularly with multiple cameras, was a doddle.

The next decision is whether I attempt to use it with the Y10 iMedia class. I think they would struggle with the plethora of options, and I certainly don’t intend to throw it at them straight away. It’s worth a look though as it is far superior to the packages you get with Windows and OS X as standard.

It’s not the right word, but I’m having a mental block. Settling, acceptance, being too focused on just getting coursework in on time and getting the exam classes prepared. Between that and feeling guilty for not completing my iMedia writeups here has kept me from posting for far too long. (Edit: Re-reading that it makes no sense, but hopefully you can figure out what I meant)

I feel a bit of reflection would be pretty useful at the minute. I’m starting to worry that I’ve lost that drive to self-evaluate every lesson in order to improve and started going through the motions of teaching a lesson and just moving on. I suppose it’s inevitable that a bit of that young, enthusiastic edge would wear down (young, fnaar) but I’m determined not to lose it entirely so self reflection begins again in earnest.

What have I found out during the hiatus?

• Edexcel Applied ICT Unit 10 (multimedia – done in Flash) is hard work and we really need to get Flash going a lot earlier in the school. I need to get a Y7 unit put together for next year. (DJ Phillips – formerly of GCSEICT.com has a fantastic resource here)
• Scratch is great. I’ve had classes making simple ‘dodge the ball’ games, car racing games, helicopter games – I’m going to get my iMedia group to make a version of Pong if I get time.
• You can lead a Y10 class to enlightenment, but when you stick a video camera in their hands they’ll stick act like prats, forget the meaning of the word ‘continuity’ and somehow ‘forget’ to record half of their script (and that’s if they remember to take their script with them!).

It’s been hard work, but fun (the best way to be IMHO) and I was promoted to Asst. HoD last month (which means I’m either doing something right or I’m hiding it well). We’re also interviewing for a new colleague on Monday, should be fun!

Will write again soon, promise.

I’m still here and I haven’t forgotten my promise to write up the iMedia units. Unfortunately I was ill for a large chunk of last week and am on half term this week – and left all of my notes at school. Tsk. I’ll have to do some marking now instead.

Incidentally – I had the ‘experience’ of a whole day’s PD day on the new ICT curriculum. The one interesting part of the day was comparing our current Y7 Scheme of Work to the new learning outcomes. And we’re already meeting or exceeding each one.

I had been looking at HoD jobs in the area, but if I have to sit through a number of those days as a result then I wonder if any amount of money can really be worth it…

OK, so following up from my training, here is my abridged tutor handbook for Level 2, Unit 1. Expect the other 7 in due course. I’ve included the key notes from what I was given plus notes I made myself during the day. Any inaccuracies are my own fault and if in doubt – check with Alison!!! Read the rest of this entry »

I know I said I was going to write-up comments for each unit over the weekend. Well, it’s still on the list of things to do, it’s just that other things have temporarily taken over.

I’m sat here with a rare 15 minutes spare and I’m contemplating what to do next with my iMedia group. The project brief I gave them, to create an advert for a local business, allows sufficient depth to meet the assessment criteria – a minimum of 3 edits with different tools. So basic cutting, adding titles, transitions and/or video effects ought to be fine. I’m still not sure they’ve got enough theory under their belts though, and I’m not sure they’re all good enough for my liking.

I’m trying to think of an alternative project brief for next time and, inspired by the montage sequence in Team America: World Police I was going to get them to make a trailer for a film. Of course they need to capture the footage for themselves and the more I think about it, the greater the gulf between professional trailers and our low-timescale, low-budget attempts  seems.

Another thought was a music video, but I’m not entirely convinced that this will lead to anything other than messing around for a couple of weeks. So what else? An interview? A documentary? An advert for the school? The course? A chosen GCSE subject? Do I give them all the same script? (I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to as that’s not part of the assessment criteria – although storyboarding is).

It needs to be a project that will allow them to film with a minimum of props and other equipment, and in a short space of time. Being able to film people without needing a change of clothing is useful, and the ability to add effects, transitions and edits without it looking too ‘primary school’ is key.

Feel free to offer suggestions. I’ll let you know what we decide…

NB: I’ve added an iMedia category to the blog but have not (as yet) retrospectively tagged previous posts. I won’t make any promises but Multimedia should provide similarly themed posts in the archive.