Frame It!

Casting, setting, context, frame, camera angle, lighting, soundtrack. Every choice a writer or director makes is conscious. Here's a worksheet that asks readers/viewers to examine these choices and consider how they are used to to create...

Consumer technology has made it possible for filmmakers to create entire movies from the comfort of their home computer. Guide high school film buffs through the process of designing a documentary with an extensive unit published by...

What would it be like to have the power of flight? Let your class's imagination fly with a photography project, which includes a narrative writing component. After planning what they want a mural on flight to look like, kids work...

How do you read a frame? How do you read a shot? Here's a resource that shows viewers how to read films. As part of the study, class members examine the camera angles, lighting, movement, and cinematic point of view in Mr. Smith Goes to...

The frame, the shot, the sequence. As part of a unit study of Robert Mulligan's film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, class members learn to read the visual text of the film, examining the composition of frames and shorts, camera...

Really? Rapping The Odyssey? Really. A discussion of the oral tradition of story telling and its links to Epic poetry sets the stage for a series of activities that encourage improvisation to integrate music into other classrooms....

Experience how a story can drastically change when the point of view is altered. Young scholars first read a review of Disney's film Tarzan, focusing on how the point of view in the classic story is important. They then select another...

How do you slowmo a story? The narrator of a short video models how to slow down the pace of a narrative by using concepts drawn from slow motion filming. Just as slow motion in a film is achieved by speeding up the process so that more...

Mark Twain's frame story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" provides an opportunity for a study of this story-within-a-story pattern. Using an illustrated template, class members record a plot summary of the frame story...

What distinguishes the visual rhythm of a golf, rubber, beach, and bowling ball? Explore the two fundamental principles—timing and spacing—of animation, as well as a variety of other features to consider when discussing the overall...