Previous Units Using Film
Scaffolding is when you use things to support what will come. Sometimes students need extra instruction, some bits and chunks of knowledge, to help build up to what is next. In the past I have done units using movies in different ways for my Art 1 classes. Students have always shown a strong interest in projects where movies are included. I have enjoyed using film in different ways to push students to see things a bit differently in art. “World Building” and “Movie Color Palettes” have been two of my most successful art units. My use of film for this current unit is more intentionally cinema-driven, but my prior units are helpful building blocks to this larger understanding of film, and I will draw on them as needed.
World Building
For this unit students were shown and had discussions about multiple Science Fiction films with different styles of worlds such as Blade Runner, Metropolis, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Children of Men. Students read Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, dividing chapters between groups, after which each group stood up in order by chapters of the book and explained what they read in their chapters so that all students would better understand the book as a whole in a short time period. We then had class discussions about the world building in the book, i.e., what this world looked like in our imaginations, how mankind adjusted to live in a world of scavengers, and drew images of what this world might look like. Then, we watched the 2018 movie adaptation of the novel and compared what we thought about the book’s world building versus the movie’s world building and how the director went about interpreting the book. Finally, students wrote a short story/description for their world building project and created their own 2D or 3D visual representation of the world of their own imagination and creation.
Movie Color Palettes
For this unit we started as a class looking at how movies use color to reflect emotion, temperament, feelings, etc. I introduced clips, from various movies, such as Spirited Away (animation), Edward Scissorhands, and The Revenant, to discuss the “movie still-frame as art piece”, focusing on their color palettes. Students then chose their own still-frame image and color palette from a movie of their choice and these were printed for each student to work with. Students then created a self-portrait by free hand drawing or tracing a photo of themselves (depending on skill level). They used the colors from the movie color palette for their self-portrait. The major artistic challenge was that they actually had to match the movie color palette by mixing paint in black, white, and three primary colors. This activity teaches students a tremendous amount about color and mixing paints.
My new unit is definitely distinctive and different from these preceding units. For framing is completed after the world building is set and color palettes have been chosen for a scene. Therefore, lessons learned from these past units will be helpful for setting up and understanding this new unit but are not essential. The staging in films is similar to that of the stage in a theatre and it would be helpful for students to understand the inherent differences between the two in any art or drama class. In an English class students could write about these scenes after discussing them or write about an original scene they create themselves.
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