Recut trailers reveal the power of music in digital storytelling

When we teach kids to tell a story digitally, a key element is helping them understand the power  background music has for setting the mood. It is a device kids don't have when they write and so it's not always natural for them to include it. Look no further than youtube for an impactful and extremely entertaining way to demonstrate this power.

Somewhere in the course of human creative history, our species became inspired to take original movie trailers and remix them with a completely different look and feel. Although the order of scenes has an effect, more than anything the background music really drives home the new mood.

With students, take time to find ones that feature movies that students know. "Scary Mary" is a remix of "Mary Poppins" and perfect for showing this concept...to adults. Many of my elementary kids haven't seen the Disney classic. As old as that makes me feel, I just had to accept it and find others. My personal favorite is "The Shining" recut as a romantic comedy with Peter Gabriel's happy "Solsbury Hill" as the background track.

This is another one that only a certain portion of the population will "get" because of the age of the original film but I love it.

The recut trailer I have found that resonates most with older elementary kids is the "Elf Recut as a Thriller". Another relatable project is the remix of Pixar's "Up". Most know the originals well. There are some "Frozen" remixes out there and a slew of "Finding Nemo" recut trailers to explore.

One challenge I found in looking for the best to use with students is that there seems to be an abundance of horror themed trailers. It's either horror movies being made happy or it's happy movies being made into horror movies. There's nothing really graphic but definitely preview all of them and decide on the fit for your classroom. It's most likely that you'd be employing these examples with fourth graders on up and it is my guess that most can handle it. Although it would be nice to have an abundance of genres to show, the contrast of happy to horror really hammers home the point of how music can really change the mood. 

When you are building that cinematic narrative or digital storytelling unit, hook your young filmmakers with one of these memorable examples of the power the right background music has on setting the right tone.

Taking the Shooting Gallery to the Wild Side - Jon Corippo's new book

[caption id="attachment_704" align="alignleft" width="225"] Studying environmental impacts and learning to think cinematically[/caption]

Yesterday presented a chance to work with innovative teachers and embed some technology instruction into middle school math and science investigations. Despite the 49 degree temps and constant mist, it proved to be a tremendously rewarding afternoon.

A lesson I have used for three years now is called the Shooting Gallery. It was developed by Jon Corippo as a way to lay film making foundations for students in the classroom. It is one thing to provide the opportunity for students to share learning in video form, but it is a whole other ballgame when you can give them techniques that greatly ramp up the quality of video they are producing.  That is how I use this lesson and it's why I approached a couple of our middle school teachers who are leading an integrated math and science class that studies our local watershed.

Students in the STREAM class at Hamilton Middle School by Ted Malefyt and Nate Alkire study and then share their learning in a number of ways beyond pencil and paper. Coming up they will be presenting projects to a panel similar to the ABC show Shark Tank. We want to give these kids all of the digital tools we can so that their work impresses somebody besides their grandma.

Here is a slide deck Jon and his students built.

Shooting Gallery Level One from Jon Corippo

Download the shot sheet here so your students can track their progress as they practice these cinematic angles.

Here is an example from years past of kids using iMovie to assemble all of their clips. 

In addition to these resources you can now download Jon's free iBook that is an expansion of this lesson. It can serve as a great digital text for giving your students more tricks and tools for making great videos.

 

Make the amazing by combining Discovery Education and iMovie.

Here is a step-by-step screencast for using the great footage available from Discovery Education Streaming in conjunction with the superpowers the iMovie trailer feature delivers.

In the video I demonstrate making trailers on a Mac. The same can done with an iOS device as well. The process is similar but varies slightly. One of my edtech pioneer heroes Kathy Schrock offers up this super guide.

Check out additional hints and ideas on this process as I host Discovery's "DENvice" this week on Facebook.