In Reflection: Lesson on Cinematic Techniques

For my Level II field experience they were working on making "Sweded" movies out of some of their favorite films. (To check out some really fantastic Sweded movies hit up YouTube, the Jurassic Park is one of my favorites as is The Shining, shown here.) For my lesson I chose to introduce the students to some cinematic techniques. I showed a video along with my lesson (I'll hopefully get that linked in sometime soon) and talked about mostly camera angles and how they can be used effectively. They then were to use these techniques while shooting their movies to create a higher quality product.

Overall, the students were really interested in the lesson. Using clips and stills from movies that THEY knew and recognized really made a huge difference in their motivation for learning. I found that the students really got to understand camera angles and how they make the viewer "feel". The downfall of this lesson was most definitely trying to assess the lesson's success or failure. I watched their Sweded videos but it was hard to tell whether they were actually using camera angles for the right reason or if perhaps the camera person was simply holding the camera crooked.

If I were to do this lesson again in the future I would probably utilize storyboards so that the students need to deliberately choose the angle of the camera and the technique they will use in order to create a better product. Those storyboards would definitely give me a more clear sense of whether or not they understood the purpose for the cinematic techniques. I think another fun idea is to send students home with an assignment. Watch tv and movies and come back to school with an example of the use of one of these camera angles, what technique they used, when they used it and why they used it. This would be a more clear assessment for me as a teacher and it would really make the material relevant to the students' everyday lives.