I am absolutely delighted that Elaine Williamson has agreed to lead the ES(O)L Film project with me. Many of you will already know Elaine from the wonderful work she has done as co-coordinator of the IATEFL ES(O)L Sig. http://esolsig.wordpress.com/about/committee/
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| Welcome aboard, Elaine! |
So, with that in mind, don’t feel that you lack the technical skills to work on movies with your learners. Film making is not the expensive, time consuming past time it once was. Here are some tips to get you started…
You don't need to rush along to your nearest camera
shop and splash out on the latest state of the art video equipment. It's possible to make great films using your mobile phone (a number of film festivals are now devoted
exclusively to mobile phone films!) This has exciting implications for film
making in the classroom: more on that in a later post, as we are staying small and simple
for now.
As busy ESOL teachers and learners we simply do not have the
luxury of time which professional film makers enjoy. We therefore need to make
sure that any time we spend on filming in our lessons is used as efficiently as
possible. This is particularly important
when you are filming on location: organisation and planning is everything.
If you are working with a script make sure that your learners can
confidently deliver their lines. Invest time before filming on looking at stress patterns and
features of connected speech, so that the resulting dialogue does not put any strain on the
listener.
Tip Three: Get Help
Perhaps one of your learners has experience in film editing.
If so, ask this learner to share his/her knowledge with the rest of the class.
It can happen, however, that none of your learners are confident in film
editing techniques and if you’re not either, then what?
Newcomers to film making and editing have some steep learning
curves to contend with. I know a teacher
who once spent an evening in tears believing her computer had swallowed two
hours worth of film. * It doesn’t have to be this way. Don’t we all have a computer
geek/ frustrated film maker friend to hand? Friends such as these can often
solve in a minute what might take you or I a week of evenings. Time for a matey phone call…
Teachers with access to computer suites are particularly
fortunate here. In our last film
(http://vimeo.com/46025864) , we copied a folder of video clips to each computer and learners used Microsoft Word Movie Maker to edit and order the clips. The resulting film was a blend of learners’ ideas.
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(http://vimeo.com/46025864) , we copied a folder of video clips to each computer and learners used Microsoft Word Movie Maker to edit and order the clips. The resulting film was a blend of learners’ ideas.
Tip Four: Editing
Free editing software is simple enough to use. I’m no
computer whiz, but managed to figure out Moviemaker pretty much unassisted. If
you work with Apple products, then iMovie is even better. Enjoy yourself, and take it easy - September is a long way off yet!
