5 Making A Narrative Film

Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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Making a narrative film The most successful projects have been where the whole class has worked together to make one long narrative. There are examples on this CD, made by Year 3 and Year 4 children. (The somewhat ‘jagged’ look of these films reflects the short space of time in which they were made, not as extended projects, but in a few hours of curriculum time.)

Choosing a narrative This may be partly determined by what characters you have to work with. You need duplicates of the main characters, so that they can be animated by different groups, all working on different parts of the story at once. For example, ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ film on this CD was made with the following: 3 x one little boy; 3 x two villagers; 3 x two sheep; 2 x one wolf. It can be complicated to plan, with even this amount. Here is the plan for the film: Shot no.

Voice-over (to be recorded afterwards) to accompany each camera shot

Characters needed

Group no.

1

There was once a shepherd boy who was very bored.

1 x Boy 2 x Sheep

Demo

2

So he took a big breath and shouted, "Wolf! Wolf! A wolf is chasing the sheep!"

1 x Boy

1

3

The villagers came running to drive the wolf away.

2 x Villagers

2

4

But when they arrived there was no wolf.

2 x Villagers

2

5

The sheep were grazing happily in the fields

2 x Sheep

3

6

The boy laughed!

1 x Boy

1

7

"Don't cry 'wolf' when there's no wolf!" said the villagers.

2 x Villagers

4

8

Later, the boy shouted again: "Wolf! Wolf!"

1 x Boy

5

9

Again, the villagers came running. But when they arrived there was no wolf.

2 x Villagers

4

10

The sheep were grazing peacefully

2 x Sheep

3

11

The villagers were very angry. "Don't cry 'wolf' when there's no wolf!"

2 x Villagers

6

12

But the boy just grinned and watched them go away grumbling.

1 x Boy

5

13

The next day, he saw a REAL wolf coming to eat the sheep.

1 x Wolf

7

14

The sheep ran about frightened.

7

15

The boy leaped to his feet and shouted loudly: "Wolf! Wolf!"

1 x Wolf 2 x Sheep 1 x Boy

16

The villagers heard him, but thought he was trying to fool them again, so they didn't come.

2 x Villagers

6

17

The wolf chased the sheep away.

9

18

The boy watched. There was nothing he could do.

1 x Wolf 2 x Sheep 1 x Boy

19

He watched the wolf coming closer and closer… and you can guess what happened then.

1 x Wolf

9

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

The careful allocation of shots to groups (shown down the right hand side of the plan) meant that there were enough characters to go round! One way round this is to make characters. For example, for ‘The Story of the Gingerbread Man’ (also on this CD), the only repeated character is the gingerbread man himself, and he was easily manufactured in duplicate, using Plasticine. The ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ story was made entirely with home-made Plasticine characters. Another way round is not to worry about characters looking different in different parts of the story. For example, in ‘Alfred the Great’, it was appropriate that he aged as the story went on, so he never had to look the same – just older. There were enough medieval Playmobil characters to do this!

Creating characters Playmobil characters have been very successful. They can be animated easily, and not too much of them moves, keeping it simple. They are also easily sourced from children in the class! Plasticine characters can be made very easily. Make a strong skeleton (or ‘armature’) using pipe-cleaners, like this.

Pack the Plasticine tightly and thickly to the skeleton. Each group of children can become experts at manufacturing identical models of a particular character.

Scripting This might be done with the children, or it might be done by the teacher, or you could use a readymade script. For example, one of the films on this CD used the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. The important thing is that it is short, short and can be conveniently divided up into sections.

Storyboarding This part of the process is essential, and is where much of the learning about film takes place.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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Show the children examples of storyboards for existing films. The example below is for a short demo film on the ‘Intro lesson’ PowerPoint presentation, on this CD.

Also on the PowerPoint presentation on the CD is a slide showing a storyboard frame alongside the actual filmed shot, which should play when clicked.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elicit what a storyboard is (a plan for a film – like a set of instructions – showing not just WHAT is in each shot, but how it will be FRAMED. This is essential, and can be a hard conceptual jump for children, who will go on drawing figures in long shot, while claiming that it is, or will be, a close-up. Discuss the way that each film is composed of a mixture of different types of shot. There is also a page on the PowerPoint presentation showing the range of shot-types below, which can also be found on this CD. These could be printed out and laminated as a reference resource.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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2

Divide the story up into chunks – one for each group of children. Blow these up as big as possible, and pin or Blutak them to the wall, in sequence.

3

Then model the process of storyboarding, by discussing each camera shot, drawing it on a piece of A4 paper, and putting it up below the chunk of story, like this: The emphasis here is on how pictures tell stories, and on choosing the right type of shot. The discussion will also suggest work on verbal literacy: here, for example, children can identify the verbs, and decide how they suggest particular types of camera shot. The choice of a closeclose-up shot on the wolf reflects the focus of the poem on his feelings (“… began to feel…would like…”)

The choice of a medium shot here reflects the new emphasis on action (“went… knocked”) and the introduction of place (“Grandma’s door”).

The choice of an overover-shoulder shot reflects the shift to Grandma’s viewpoint (“she saw”), whilst allowing the audience to see the wolf’s face, and to see him speak (“May I come in?”)

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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It is worth introducing some strict rules here, which will need modelling: •

•

To ensure that characters are correctly placed within shots, rule that their eyes must be about two thirds of the way up the frame.

To ensure that long-shots are properly constructed, insist that there must be some ground shown in the storyboard frame, and that the characters feet must be standing in it, like this:

Otherwise, children will tend to draw long-shots like this…

…or like this.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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•

Insist that children draw their shots to show where objects will be in the frame. Children will often tend to draw all their shots as long-shots, even if they label them as close-ups.

•

Insist that each group has at least one close-up in their sequence. This ensures variety.

It is very useful to have the webcam set up while storyboarding. This makes it easy to experiment with the actual characters the children will be animating, to test out shots. It is also an effective way of teaching some principles of shot construction, by deliberately setting up shots in which characters are not correctly positioned – too close to the top of the frame, or with their feet cut off, for example. (“What is wrong with this shot?”) 4

As groups complete their storyboards, they can bring them and add them to the complete storyboard, on the wall, like this:

This allows whole-class discussion and revision: it is easy to remove and replace single frames. It also makes discussion of continuity very easy.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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Building sets Each group should build the set for their part of the narrative. These need to be coordinated, so that colours and shapes are consistent from scene to scene. The horizon should be close to the floor, rather than high up, or it will not be seen in shot. Corners of cardboard boxes are good.

Animating It is worth animating one or two of the storyboarded camera shots as a whole-class demonstration, in order to revise the procedure, including: •

creating a new ‘project’ in Stop-motion 4, and naming it properly (see below)

•

setting up the shot carefully, taking time to get it right

•

using Blutak to secure the set, the webcam and the characters

•

focusing the webcam

•

moving the characters tiny amounts between each frame

•

taking it in turns to move the characters and to click the mouse

•

correcting errors using the ‘Editor’ function to delete frames, and by using the ‘Onionskin’ function to reposition the characters

The groups can then work on animating their own scene, or section of the film. Each shot should be created in a new ‘project’, and should be named according to a strict formula, so that they can be identified later: eg ‘Wolf Scene 6 Shot 3’

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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Saving the sections of the film Use the ‘Make movie’ function in the software to turn each shot into an AVI movie file. These can be saved to a central place on the network, or transferred to the hard drive of one computer.

Recording the soundtrack The soundtrack will probably include a narrator’s voice, characters’ voices and sound effects. It is also possible to put music on. The simplest way is to plug a microphone into a computer, and record the sound using software, such as the Windows Sound Recorder, which you will probably find under ‘Accessories’ in the list of programs on a PC. This will save the sound to the hard drive of the PC, as a ‘Wav’ sound file.

Editing the film together This is best done with simple editing software, such as Windows Movie Maker, which is on any PC with

Windows XP. 1

First, collect the shots on the hard drive of the computer which you will be using for editing.

2

Open Windows Movie Maker. This may be hidden away somewhere under ‘Accessories’ or ‘Entertainment’ in the programs list.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

3

Use the ‘Import into Collections’ function to import the shots.

4

Next, import the sound into Movie Maker. If this was recorded directly onto the computer, then you can import it in exactly the same way.

5

Add the soundtrack to the ‘Audio/Music’ track on the ‘Timeline’, by dragging it down from its ‘collection’.

6

Then, carefully assemble the shots on the timeline.

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Primary Schools Animation - Making a Narrative Film

The Parkside Federation Excellence Innovation Collaboration

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It will probably be necessary to cut up the sound and leave some gaps. You can ‘slice’ the sound track (or any of the clips) with the ‘Split clip’ tool. It will probably also be necessary to trim some clips, or to repeat some, or to slow some down, in order to make the sound and images fit. To slow a clip, right-click on it, select ‘Video effects’, select ‘Slow Down Half’, click on ‘Add’, and then click ‘OK’.

You can also use the ‘Video effects’ to fade clips in or out. 7

To save the finished film, use the ‘Save Movie File’ function, in the ‘File’ menu. The best ‘Movie setting’ is probably ‘High quality video (PAL)’. This will take up little space, but will be of a reasonable quality. _________________________________________________

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