Thinking about film

In this section we outline and explain a number of key concepts that are useful in thinking about, and working with, film as part of literacy. If you have used our previous resources for Primary teachers (Starting Stories and Story Shorts) you will know about the 'Cs and Ss': a way of categorising and analysing techniques in film that either share features with other modes of storytelling or which are distinctive to film. The original 'family' of Cs and Ss comprised:

• Character Story and Setting

and

•  Camera, Colour and Sound.

Here we describe some approaches to the films in the pack using these categories, as well as some new ones, dividing them into categories that could be applied across media (cultural codes) and categories specific to film (technical codes).