Why Dramatic-Science?

I have been looking for a copy of this for ages.  This was my final "thesis" for my undergraduate Ed Degree, and goes a long way to explain the history behind my handle "@dramaticscience".  Just thought I'd share for those who are passionate about the Theatre, or about Science Education.

Link to the original document through HERE

Authentic Yearning

Click Here to FF to the Media!

Every year our drama program struggles to create a space for students to use film media to convey their stories, and examine their processes.

Problem 1:  They don't want to film at school.  There's no where good.
Problem 2:  They don't want to story-board.  What's the point?  With digital technology we can just take one long shot and splice them together afterward
Problem 3:  They don't want to tell a story.  It's more fun for us to look at ourselves making silly faces on camera than stick to a script.

Been there?

With the advent of an iPad classroom, and the willingness to open up a project to something beyond getting a mark here is what has happened, and how:

The Story

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Problem 1:  Mandate a project with a note home from parents that no students are allowed to film at home.  That's work to be done in class.

Problem 2:  Create a project where you charge them for the film that they use.  For my students I charge them $0.80 per minute of digital film.  I don't really charge them, but I make them keep track of it in a budget.  At the end of the project their mark is scaled between a ratio of how well they were able to meet the bench-marks (good story telling, coherent story, likeability) and how much it cost.  They are to make 10 minute films.  They can be shorter, but must not be one second longer after editing.


Problem 3:  Examine the mystery genre.  Split them into groups of four or five and then lead them to these two sites:
a) The 5 Deadly Sins of Amateur Film Making
b) The film techniques of Alfred Hitchcock

Having approached each of the problems in this fashion start them off looking at Problem 3 with the understanding that this is a problem of the past that they are certainly more than talented enough to over come.  Give them time and the resources to investigate these sites in their groups and then create some time to share the more interesting details they discovered.

Then announce the project: "We're going to be hosting the School 10 Minute Film Festival, and your films will be featured just like at an industry Gala Event".  The look on their faces when they realized that this project was something that mimicked the film industry was one of excitement.  As soon as I stopped the pitch the creativity started.

The Yearning

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Quick note:  All media appearing below belongs to and was posted online (without encouragement) by my Grade 9 students.

 What happened in our class is that as soon as they understood there was a budget they started to come up with other things they should charge for.  For instance, several students are excellent editors, but other students have no idea where to begin with film editing.  So they wanted to charge for editing time from the experts in the Career Technology and Society class.  They knew of other actors they'd like to include in their project, but they needed to charge a rate to get them in their movie.

Mostly they wanted this project to mirror the things that actually happen for film-makers. Including and not limited to creating their own movie posters and the following "teaser-trailers". Stay tuned, we plan on streaming their videos!

I can't guarantee that this will happen every time this project is pitched, but for these guys it was working.

Finally, tell them that because this is a festival format they must meet certain deadlines and be able to speak to the work they are doing at the end of the project.

For the last two weeks they kicked me out of class so they could work toward their project goals.  They approached me only for permission to film in certain areas of our school (just like film-makers acquire licences they had to get licences).  And there are posters, trailers, and just a whole lot of excitement surrounding these films, because they want to do something valuable and authentic.

The Man in the Shadows (Teaser) from Grant on Vimeo.

I want you to participate in their film festival too, so I'm inviting you now to follow us on Twitter, keep up to date with this blog, and watch for a date (following Feb 7 when we will live-cast our event).

Peace.