I have grade 4s researching how mass media can affect their decisions. They are looking at a few techniques and mediums. As part of their formative assessment, they are creating commercials to sell products from our school store. They are using iMovie and came up with some pretty good ideas for only two days of work. They scripted, story-boarded and filmed. I wish I stressed more camera work with them though. Several did vary their angles and perspectives, but a few were also static.

I could have let them play with xtranormal first. This may have been a good experience for them. I decided to create the above intro video for the next group I will have to emphasize this point. xtranormal is kind of fun but the hurdle I had was shortening my script. I was over the allowed space and had to make several adjustments to shorten it. Below is a screen shot outlining the process. You simply type in your script and then drag the action icons into it. Give it a try. It’s free but requires email registration. Other film info, resources and lesson ideas can be found on my wiki here.

(I will be on holiday for a week so I’ll also give your RSS feed a rest. Most likely no posts next week.)

UPDATE: I imported the video into Screenflow to add some titles and have placed it on YouTube here.

For those interested in fonts (click the picture to enlarge).

; )