Technical codes

• Colour
• Camera
• Sound

Colour  

Colour can convey a time of day, a mood or an atmosphere. It can be evocative of a warm or cold setting, indoors or outdoors, and can indicate something of a character's nature. Changing shades, tones and colours can signify changes in mood, setting etc.

• Which colours do you see most in the film?
• When do the colours change?
• Which colours do you see inside/outside?
• What do the colours tell you about what time of day it is / where the story is happening / what is happening in the story?
• Why is this film in black and white? What does it make you think of?

Example: Nightshift

Watch the film all the way through. Discuss:

• What colours can you see in the film?
• When do colours change?
• What do the colours tell you about the time of day?
• What happens when the time changes from day to night?
• Ask children to draw/paint a picture of the bat on the tree/flying at night and the bird during the day.
• What would happen if the bat flew in the day and the bird at night? Look at the differences.
• Use art based activities to look at shades of night-time, sunrise and sunset colours.
• Extension: Talk about the use of music to characterise the bright daytime and the dark of night.

Camera                

The film's story is told through the camera and the type and juxtaposition of shots. The choice of close up or long shots, mid shots and shots from different angles tell us who the characters are, how they relate to each other and whose point of view is being represented. The length and juxtaposition of the shots influence the mood, pace and rhythm of the film. What can be seen in each shot also provides useful information about the character(s) and setting. When you are talking about the camera work it is best to focus on small parts of the film. Freeze the action and focus on one frame at a time, or watch short sequences several times over.

• What does the opening shot / sequence show us?
• What might this tell us about the rest of the story?
• When do you see a close up shot? Who or what does it show?
• Why has the film-maker chosen a long shot here? What can you see in it?
• Are we looking through someone's eyes here? Whose point of view are we looking from here?
• Why do we go from a close up here to a long shot of ...?

Example: A Slippery Tale

The use of the camera can be quite difficult to grasp, so concentrating on one aspect of camerawork (eg camera angles, long shots, close up shots or point of view shots) at a time helps to focus children's attention:

• Focusing on point of view shots, watch the film and stop the action when the camera is looking through one of the characters' eyes, eg when the frog looking up as the stork is about to eat him.
• Why does the filmmaker look through the frog's viewpoint then? What is the frog thinking or feeling?
• Why are other shots looking at the frog? Who's point of view are we seeing the frog from?
• Extension: Film a short sequence using a DV camera from one person's viewpoint. Discuss: How does this make you feel when you watch it?

Sound        

There are different types of sound in a film:

• The sounds within the story, which the characters can hear, such as voice, atmospheric sound such as rain or birdsong or music from a radio (diegetic sound);
• The sounds outside the world of the story, such as sound effects, voice-over or music over the story (non-diegetic sound)

Because the visual power of film is so great it is easy to forget the importance of sound. A way of showing how much information sound provides is to play the film's sound without viewing the images, and talking about what children can hear and what they think the film might be about. Sound can be evocative of a particular time or place and can create a particular mood or atmosphere, or help set the pace of the story. It can even affect how an audience feels about the characters and the action.

• What sounds can you hear at the beginning of the story?
• How does the music make you feel?
• When is there silence/no sound in the film? Why?
• Who talks in the film?
• How/when does a character's voice change?

Example: Taps

This film has no dialogue but the sound of the dripping taps gives 'character' to the taps. This is a good film to listen to before watching.

• Can you tell what is going on just by listening to the sound? What do the children think might be happening? It is unlikely they will think it is just taps on screen. Ask them to create a story around the sound before watching it. 
• Watch the film and discuss: How is silence used in the film?
• Play the film again and ask the children to add their own music or voice to the film and see what difference they make. Discuss: Can you change the story by changing the sound?
• Extension: Use other 'household' sounds in creating soundtracks. Take another film from the compilation and add a different soundtrack.