Table of Contents

 

Motion Pictures/Film Study
©2006  Frank Baker, media educator


national teaching
standards for film

 


 
Links to online film
lesson plans/related resources


Recommended
film periodicals

 

 
Recommended
texts (K-12)

 


Recommended
Teacher Texts/DVDs

   
Other text recommendations
  *


 



Film School Curriculum

 
bfi
British Film Institute

 



 

 


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Resources on how to read a film, integrating film studies into instruction
see also:
Using Film in The Literature Classroom
Movie Trailers As Persuasive Texts
Scriptwriting In The Classroom;
Documentaries in the classroom;
To Kill A Mockingbird film study guide


NEW: 
Media Literacy: Reading Between The Frames, curricula
         For Your Consideration: Analyzing Oscar Worthy Film Ads
         Becoming Screen Literate (NY Times)
         Movies no place to learn real history
         Using Movies In The Classroom (NCTE, May 2008)
         Literature Into Film (English Journal, Sept. 2007)
          
PBS Mini-series: history of Warner Brothers Studios
          
Film: A 21st Century Literacy/ The Meaning of Movies
         New Indiana Jones Film:  Production Elements / Spielberg Directs 
                                                 
UK kids to study film as media education
                                                
Hollywood's Version of Archaeology



Analyzing Oscar: Deconstructing the Academy Awards

Set to Screen
Podcasts and lesson plans on the making of the film Australia

INTRODUCTION
More than ever, teachers are using film in the classroom. This web site is designed to help educators better integrate film into instruction and help their students learn the "languages of film."


KEY QUOTES

  "If video is how we are communicating and persuading in this new century, why aren't more students writing screenplays as part of their schoolwork?"  Heidi Hayes Jacobs, education consultant

"If people aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or write?" George Lucas, interview for GLEF.org

"Of all art forms, film is the one that gives the greatest illusion of authenticity...of truth...A motion picture takes a viewer inside where real people are supposedly doing real things...We assume there is a certain verisimilitude, a certain authenticity, but there is always some degree of distortion."
Annette Insdorf, film historian (author of Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust) quoted in the documentary "Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust"


"Movies are a door to knowledge--about society, about prejudice, about history, about art --and teachers are eager for someone to help them make the link between education and film."

Margaret Bodde, The Story of Movies/The Film Foundation  (Source)


Additional Resources

Because of Winn-Dixie

Read my exclusive interview with
Steve Werblun, the storyboard artist from the Walden Media production of "Because of Winn-Dixie;" plus see some of his original storyboard drawings

Weekly Reader's WRITING magazine (February-March 2007) themed issue Reeling with Words: Screenplays, home movies, and film reviews--we show students what it takes to write for and about the movies. Resources

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD (Jan. 2007)Can you believe that the earliest movies cost only a nickel and that the first movie stars were silent? In the January 2007 issue, discover how the first, soundless motion pictures developed into "talkies" and then full-color films. Learn why the film industry moved from the East Coast to a dry, sparsely populated town in California, and discover what light bulb inventor Thomas Edison had to do with it. Learn how Hollywood remakes old classics, works to preserve original films, and uses computer-generated technology to thrill viewers today. Meet the visionary men behind the earliest studios and movies, like producer Samuel Goldwyn and animator Walt Disney. Join COBBLESTONE ® as we explore America's love affair with motion pictures by looking back to when it all began.

Media Literacy Film Resources:
Teacher resources for media literacy films to show in the college classroom

Focus On Film: Learning It Through The Movies
Middle Ground Journal, NMSA, October 2006


*LIGHTS, CAMERA, EDUCATION!,
AFI curriculum available via Discovery's UnitedStreaming
(link to
press release; release; link to curriculum)

Reading Movies (profile of the Story of Movies Project)


MOVIES AND VIDEOS MISUSED IN THE CLASSROOM
(June 2006) link to full study

Viewing the Films: Not Whether or Not, but How?
http://www.hhsdrama.com/documents/OrganizingaFilmClass.pdf

Using Film to Increase Literacy Skills
English Journal, Vol. 93, No. 3, January 2004
(companion:
How to Organize a Film as a Literature Class)

Using Film, Video, TV In The Classroom
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-929/film.htm

Film and the Composition Classroom:
Using Visual Media to Motivate First-Year Writers
http://sites.unc.edu/daniel/131spring99/papers/Mazer.html