DWRL Lesson Plans - IMovie

Setting Up a Studio Environment for Multimedia Projects

Scott Nelson — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:27:16 +0000

Author:

Image Credit:

Matt Jones CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Brief Assignment Overview:

Whenever I teach, I always assign some form of multimedia project, and these practices have helped to set up a studio environment where collaborative multimedia projects can thrive. Rather than post an explicit lesson plan to our site, I thought I’d run through a set of practices that have been successful for me over a few courses.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Course Unit

Semester-long Project

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The pedagogical goals for this assignment are to have students think about what multimedia production skills they already possess and what skills they'd like to develop. Further, these practices foster a collaborative environment where studetns learn to work together toward common goals.

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

Since these are a set of practices rather than a specific use of a technology, what follows can be adapted to any classroom. Because most of the classes I teach are in rooms with computers for the students, I'll assume such a setup. Mainly, the students need some way to communicate with each other outside of class. I use PBWorks wikis for this aim, but a class blog or even email can be used to coordinate student skills.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

While each course's specific assignment may vary, I've sucessfully implemented these practices in many student projects. These projects have ranged from creating infographics to video games to ebooks. What I hope to achieve from these practices is a form of student autonomy that places responsibility for their work squarely with students.

For this aim, it's important that the assignment's product have some form of value outside of the classroom. Digital media needs a real audience, one beyond just the teacher in a particular course. With this in mind, I require that any multimedia project that students create have some venue in which it is showcased. This can be something as simple as posting it to Facebook, or something more complex such as publishing an ebook in Apple's iBookstore. Hopefully, by having an audience beyond the classroom, students will attribute more value to the rhetorical work they do. These projects aren't just for a grade in a self-contained course, but instead rhetorical practices that work upon the networks they inhabit.

Secondly, I set up a type of Craigslist for student skills. Early in the semester, I have students post a brief biography detailing their current skills in multimedia production and skills they'd like to develop. I normally create a new wiki page for students to populate, but this can be done via a course blog or a mass email. This particular stage in setting up the studio environment requires that students think about their relationships to multimedia and the ways they can create in these modes. Undoubtedly, I have students who begin this stage thinking they have no skills in multimedia whatsoever, but a brief class discussion usually gets students thinking about the digital discourse communities they already belong to. Some may be avid social media prosumers, while others may keep Twitter or Instagram accounts.

A further advantage to these Craiglist-style bios is that students can self-select collaborative groups. If, for example, one student has a great idea for a video game, but no skills with Photoshop, the bios are a first step to making those need-based connections. Plus, because students are shopping for skills among their classmates, they tend to create more organic groups with a common goal. This practice seems to reduce the occurances of group members who refuse to contribute to a project and let others "take up their slack." Common interests drive group formation, so individual students are less likely to be bored with the project.

As a final bonus from this practice, because groups are formed based upon skills, sudents tend to create affinity groups that share knowledge. Students teach each other their skills, and thus all participate in the production of the project. While there is the risk that students will only practice what they are already good at, experience has shown me that this isn't the case. Students are genuinely interested in the common goal they've set, and hence, they all work to create a quality product.

The final practice I do in the classroom is to give students time to play. Multimedia takes some time to create, and scheduling in-class time to experiment is extremely important. Digital technologies ask that we manipulate them, to try out hypotheses regarding their rhetorics and grammars. Groups need time to teach each other skills, and studio work days are important for this task.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

As I've indicated above, this is more a set of classroom principles rather than a specific lesson plan. However, they've worked well for my students, especially when they are working with multimedia. A familiarity with programs like Photoshop, GIMP, Illustrator, Inkscape, inDesign, iMovie, Audacity, or GarageBand can help, but I've found the single most important skill to have is flexibility. No instructor can possibly know all there is to know about these multimedia creation applications, so a willingness to learn from students is paramount.

Instructions For Students:

Since this is a set of practices rather than a specific lesson, there aren't any explicit instructions to students beyond what I've outlined above. However, the following may be helpful when attempting to set up a Craigslist-style skill listing:

In a brief paragraph, outline your interests in the upcoming project, listing any type of multimedia you would be willing to work in or learn. The aim here is not necessarily to give only those programs you're already confident in, but instead your interests in creating multimedia using some applcations.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Because I use the Learning Record Online for all of my courses, the practices outlined above aren't assessed in the traditional sense. I circle the room on studio days, talking with students about what problems they may have run into and to get a general sense of the project's progression. The Learning Record allows for these documented processes to be used as evidence for learning, so the multimedia product is much less important than the processes students go through to create their project.

A successful project is one where students learn new ways of communicating in multimedia, and learn to collaborate with likeminded individuals toward a common goal.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

As I've indicated above, these pracitces have been sucessful in a variety of group projects. I've used this with an infographic assignment, a video game prototype assignment, an actual working video game assignment, an interactive image assignment, and an ebook assignment.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

I have successfully used this studio environment in RHE 306, RHE 309K, RHE 312, and ENGL 314J. I'll give each course description below.

RHE 306:

This course is designed to prepare you for the academic writing you do at the University of Texas and writing you will do in your careers and personal lives beyond UT. It is a course designed to teach you not what to think, but how to think on your own. Ultimately, you should learn to be a better thinker, who is able to think critically about topics, other people, and yourself; a better rhetor, who is able to analyze a specific situation and adjust your writing to fit accordingly; and a better communicator, who is able to express ideas effectively.

It will include three units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses (such as RHE 315 and 312) encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Video Games

This course seeks to explore video games as a modern discursive medium. Far from being mere “mindless entertainment,” many video games make explicit or implicit arguments about gender and sexuality, economic systems, corporate practices, geopolitics, and both real and imagined societies. What arguments do these simulations and simulacra mount about how the world is? What arguments do they mount about how the world should be?

Much of the past and current study of digital rhetoric seems to look at the content of computers through applying older means of rhetorical analysis, looking at the text and images contained on computers rather than the processes through which this content is represented. What we seek to explore is a relatively new field—procedural rhetoric—and the ways this new field can inform video game criticism. How do the procedures inherent in video games make arguments about the world?

The course will include three major units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 312: Writing in Digital Environments

This course explores rhetoric across a variety of modes: verbal, visual, aural, procedural, haptic, and kinesthetic. “Writing,” in this sense, refers to a variety of inscription technologies. For example, it can be communicating through text on a screen, through the rules of a game, or through the layout and colors in an image. In this course, we will create a variety of digital communications, most with a purpose of persuasion. In doing so, you will learn about digital discourse communities and will eventually present an argument to a chosen digital community.

Each form of media brings with it a set of affordances and constraints. Much of digital media relies upon the logics and metaphors of earlier forms of media, but does present new avenues of distribution and production to a wider range of people. In this course, you will analyze various forms and communities of digital communication and reflect upon these affordances and constraints. Hopefully, you will leave the course with a greater awareness of not only the communicative power of digital media, but also some of the limitations it imposes upon its users and producers.

The course will three major units, with each culminating in digital composition and textual reflection. Throughout the process, you will participate in peer review of your compositions and maintain evidence for use in your Learning Record.

ENGL 314J: Literature & Video Games

In the popular press, literature and video games are frequently positioned as enemies fighting over time. In a recent Slate article, for example, journalist Michael Thompson states that in the time it takes to play one modern video game, “You could read War and Peace, for instance, then follow it up with Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a few starter courses in a new language” (par. 1). Further, the often-cited 2004 National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading at Risk report places video games among other forms of electronic media as “competing” with literature. But both of these sources (and countless others) fail to examine the more complex connections video games have had with literature over the past sixty years. What at first began as a parasitic relationship of video games borrowing, adapting, or extending literary themes, characters, and plots has now become more symbiotic, with both media now remixing each other.

Rather than view video games and print literature as contenders for precious time, this course seeks to explore the ways literature and video games impact one another. That is, this course looks at literature as a practice and not merely a collection of artifacts. Using video games as a frame through which to study literature, we will work our way through a variety of genres, including fables, fantasy, epic poetry, historical fiction, science fiction, mystery, and gothic fiction. This course helps students prepare for upper-division English classes (as well as a wide range of upper-division courses in other UT programs and departments) by focusing on close reading and critical writing, and by introducing formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts. Students will learn how to use the online Oxford English Dictionary as well as other resources essential to literary study.

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Introducing iMovie

Jenny Howell — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:07:33 +0000

Author:

Jenny Howell

Image Credit:

Brief Assignment Overview:

This activity introduces students to iMovie software and reveals the range of rhetorical possibilities and effects that the program provides.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

Single Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Accessibility

Software

Video

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This activity not only introduces students to a useful software program but also allows them to see the effects that simple decisions--transitions, music, editing, etc.--can have on a visual text.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

iMovie, computers

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

I used this activity late in the semester, just before my students began editing the material they had filmed for their own documentaries. Although some of my students were advanced film majors, many were completely unfamiliar with editing programs, and I felt that a brief introduction would be productive. However, because this activity is designed with an eye toward that larger project, the more detailed instructions (see below) include ideas for using the program for their final projects in addition to using the program in class. I chose iMovie because it is mostly intuitive and user-friendly, and I narrowed down the activity to the tasks that I thought would be most useful and most impactful in editing a film. I handed out the following instructions, and I let the students use the entire 75-minute class to work their way through them:

Your iMovie film should include:

(1) At least one film clip (a screencast, a film downloaded from the Internet, or footage from your computer’s webcam).

(2) At least one still image (a picture downloaded from the Internet, or a photo you take with your computer’s webcam). To take a photo using the computer’s webcam, open the program Photo Booth (use the eyeglass icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen to find it), and take a photo. When you’re finished, simply click and drag the image into your workspace in iMovie.

(3) A voiceover.

(4) Nondiegetic music (a song or a sound effect). Since we don’t have any songs in the iTunes library on our lab computers, you can find free music by going to jamendo.com. Find a song you want to use, click “Download,” and it should appear automatically in your computer’s iTunes library. It should also appear in iMovie when you click on the music notes on the right side of the middle bar.

(5) At least one transition.

(6) At least one title and end credits.

While they worked on these tasks, I walked around the room, helping and offering advice as I was needed.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I familiarized myself with iMovie (mostly by watching YouTube videos) in order to prepare the instruction sheet (copy-and-pasted below). Certainly, though, an instructor doesn't need to master iMovie for this activity to be useful. Following the step-by-step instructions the day before and playing around in iMovie (1-2 hours) should be enough to prepare.

Instructions For Students:

Once you open iMovie, follow these instructions to create your own film:

Step 1: Obtaining Video

There are three main ways to acquire video for your film.

Shoot film yourself. Clicking the camera button at the far left of the middle bar will automatically connect iMovie to any recording device (iPhone, camera, etc.) plugged into your computer. If no device is connected, it will default to the computer’s webcam. The video you record or import should automatically appear onscreen in iMovie in your “Events Library.”
Download film from the Internet (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).
1. Go to KeepVid.com, and enter the web address of the film you want to use. Click “Download.”
2. You may have to “enable” this website, which can be done by clicking the arrow that appears next to “inactive plug-in.” Then click “Allow” when prompted.
3. Save the file as an mp4 file. (On lab computers, it should save automatically to the desktop.)
4. Take a screencast (a screencast is like a screenshot but with moving images; it records whatever is happening on your computer screen). The screencasting software we have access to is Camtasia.
  1. Find the program on your computer (use the eyeglass in the top right-hand corner).
  2. Follow the directions to record what’s on your screen. To finish recording, press shift + command + 2.
  3. Then, in Camtasia, export the screencast you just created. Go to “Share,” then “Advanced Export.” Under the “Export” menu, choose “Export to QuickTime Movie.”

To import film from the Internet or a screencast from Camtasia into iMovie, go to “File” in iMovie, then “Import,” and choose “Movies.” Select the film you want to import.

Step 2: Cutting & Editing

Your videos should now all be visible in your Event Library. To edit them and begin making your film, simply drag them into your workspace (the large "timeline" part of your window in iMovie). If there are major sections of the clip that you don’t want to use, click and drag over your clip while it’s still in your Events Library, using the yellow box to select only the sections that you want to use in your film. If you want to use the whole clip, you can right click, choose “Select Entire Clip,” and then drag it into your workspace.

Once you’ve dragged a clip into your workspace, you can click on the gear icon in the lower left-hand corner of the clip (it appears as you scroll over the selected clip) and select “Clip Trimmer” in order to more carefully choose which section of this clip you want to include in your film.
You may also want to divide your clip into parts (for example, if you wanted to separate two sections of the same clip to place in different parts of your film or if you wanted to apply video effects to one small section of a clip but not the entire thing). To do this in your workspace, select the section of the clip that you would like to split by clicking and dragging the yellow box. Then right click and hit “Split Clip.”
Now that you’ve adjusted the content of your clip, edit it in other ways: select the clip and then the “Inspector” icon (the “i” with a circle around it in the middle of the middle bar).
Play around with all the settings here: Under the “Clip” tab, you can add video effects and adjust the speed of your video. In “Video” you can adjust what your film looks like (brightness, exposure, etc.)
You can also crop the frame in your video (or in a still photo) by clicking on the gear icon and selecting “Cropping and Rotation.”
Also experiment with adding transitions between clips. Click on the rectangular icon (between the “T” and the globe) in the middle bar. Select your transition and drag it into your workspace. Adjust its duration by clicking on the “Inspector” icon or on the gear icon that appears in a blue box in the lower left-hand corner when you scroll over the transition. (Remember, though, that transitions can be jarring, so you’ll want to use them very carefully in your final film project.)

You may also want to insert still photographs. To do so:

Find an image (on the Internet, on your phone, etc.) or take one on the computer’s webcam using the program Photo Booth.
If you want to edit it, import the image into iPhoto and make your adjustments using that program.
Add your image to your project: You can easily import photos into iMovie from iPhoto by clicking on the camera icon on the right side of the middle bar. To add them to your workspace, simply click and drag. You can also just drag photos from your desktop or from a folder on the computer into the workspace in iMovie; it will automatically import them.
Note that iMovie automatically adds animation to your photos. Its default setting is the “Ken Burns effect.” To make any adjustments to the effects (e.g. to delete it, to change where in the frame the effect stops and starts, etc.), scroll over the photo in your workspace and click on the gear icon that appears in the blue box in the lower left-hand corner of the photo. Go to “Cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation” and play around with the options. Selecting “Fit” will remove all effects from your photo.

Step 3: Audio Editing

You’ll want to think about adding audio to your film through voiceover, sound effects, and/or music.

To add voiceover:

You will probably want to lower or silence the sound in the particular clip you’ll be talking over so that it doesn’t distract from your voiceover. To do that, select the clip and click on the “Inspector” icon. Select the “Audio” tab at the top and make the necessary adjustments to the volume of the clip.
Click on the microphone in the middle bar, and follow the instructions on the preview screen to create your voiceover.

To add sound effects and music:

Click on the music note located at the right of the middle bar. You should have iLife sound effects, iMovie sound effects, and whatever is in the iTunes library.
Click and drag the sounds you want to use into your workspace. Again, select the clip and click on the “Inspector” icon to edit the audio. Select the “Audio” tab at the top and make the necessary adjustments to the volume of the clip. Note: “Ducking” is a way to privilege certain sounds over others. Play around with the settings in this feature to achieve effects like decreasing the volume on a song just before an interview starts playing and then increasing it again as soon as the interview ends. (To achieve this, you would edit the audio of the clip or the audio track you want to privilege and choose “ducking” there so that the other audio tracks quiet down.)
You can also click on the gear in the lower left hand corner of the audio track and select “Clip Trimmer” to edit which parts of the song you want to use. (iMovie will automatically start from the beginning of the song.)

Step 4: Titles

A “title” refers to any words that you place in your film. To insert a title:

Go to the “T” icon underneath the preview window.
Click around for different styles (to see a preview of the effects, scroll over a title).
Note that at least 3 of these options are particularly relevant to your documentary film: the opening credits, the “Lower Third” to introduce words that enter at the bottom of the screen (to identify an interviewee’s name, for instance), and the ending credits.
To insert a title into your film, simply click, drag to the point in your workspace where you would like your title to appear, and drop. Decide if you want it to appear between clips or over a clip.
Click on your title and enter the text in the preview screen.
Double click on the title (or click the “Inspector” icon) to adjust the duration of your title sequences. You can also drag them around in your workspace and extend them manually so that they are on screen during a number of clips.

Step 5: Saving Your Work

Make sure to save your work on an online storage system or to a USB drive. (Lab computers will erase anything on the hard drive as soon as you restart the computer.)

Evaluation Suggestions:

I did not grade this assignment, but in retrospect I should have at least assigned a completion grade in order to keep them focused during class time.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The activity went well. I think students were genuinely surprised at how editing, music, transitions, titles, etc. can completely change the meaning of a piece of raw video. As I mentioned above, I think I should have raised the stakes a bit, giving out a grade for completion because the temptation to watch YouTube videos or listen to music was too great. I also would have liked to screen a few of the completed films in class to use as the basis of a discussion about how and why the student made certain rhetorical and visual choices.

Course Type:

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

I teach RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Documentary Films. The course considers both the rhetoric about documentary films (e.g. "what is a documentary?") and the rhetoric within documentary films. In the final unit, the students make their own short documentary film in groups.

Tags:

Film

IMovie

Video