From Text To Storyboard: Developing Our Vision

By Author: David Matthew
Total Articles: 24
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As with any writing piece, students start digital video projects in the planning phases. On the first day of our project students received the project directions and a story board and were directed to read over their passage, annotate, highlight, and discuss what lines were necessary to create the narration. After these steps were completed, students then used a storyboard to create a rough sketch to start the marriage of the multiple modes (visual, text, music). Students were also encouraged Tag Heuer Grand Carrera Replica to develop a concept for their film to avoid creating a seemingly random set of images/shots or a strictly literal interpretation/imagining.

Using a writing workshop approach, I functioned as a facilitator in these sessions. I visited with different groups and asked the simple questions characteristic of writing conferences. Usually asking "How's it shaping up?" is enough to gauge group progress and give useful feedback in these types of sessions. I like to think of myself as a producer in the grand design of the project. Before being granted a camera, students ...
... have to convince me that their idea is doable and has merit. To assess progress and potential, I had sat down with each group to trouble-shoot their ideas. A few groups of students experienced immediate problems. One group of girls had never worked with digital video and they were not sure how to proceed. Another student insisted on working alone yet was uncertain about what he wanted to do with his vision. Yet another group had experienced personality conflicts and attendance problems and could not agree on one idea. Many groups had minor challenges such as props and costumes. These early conferences were essential to the project as they gave us opportunities to avoid common pitfalls.

Furthermore, by granting students authentic spaces to collaborate toward a goal, they were continuing to develop essential skills for our new century (Lanks-hear and Knobel; Miller and Borowicz).

The planning stages provided a glimpse into the changing classroom dynamic that accompanies digital video projects. Digital video seemed effective even with a 2,000-year-old text. Whereas one-third of my students tend to be active in a traditional class discussion, the digital video project engaged the vast majority in group discussions. As I strolled from group to group, I encountered extended and authentic discussions about the text. The group using the messenger's speech was negotiating, attempting to figure out which lines were necessary to tell the Tag Heuer Replica story and convey the tragedy of Jocasta's suicide. Another group was trying to determine how to stage the power distribution in the conversation between Creon and Tiresias. Another student, working independently by choice, was struggling to conceive a way to show the pestilence and destruction that the gods had inflicted on Thebes. The vast majority of students worked in diverse teams to "articulate thoughts" in an effort to "accomplish a common goal" (Partnership, "Communication"). This collaboration was accompanied by evolving storyboards filled with stick-figure Thebans, block lettered words, and scribbled sphinxes and thunderbolts.