Using film in the classroom

1. Introduction

2. Screening the films

3. After the screening

4. Basic teaching techniques

5. Discussion work

6. Practical production work

Introduction

It is now easier than ever before to use films in schools. With interactive whiteboards, DVD players, digital video projectors etc, the medium is relatively quick and straightforward to control. In this section we offer some basic guidelines for using films effectively and getting as much out of them as possible.

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Screening the films

Screening films in school is fairly straightforward but a little preparation can really enhance the learning experience for students. Using a film effectively needs the same type of preparation as using a book, music tape or any other resource. It is important to watch the film first to make sure that it is appropriate for the age of your students and the Citizenship topic you want to focus on. Equally, you need to prepare the equipment and the room beforehand. Ideally you should be able to darken the room to help screen visibility. Check that the video remote control is working, and make sure that the video or DVD is set to the start of the film or the section you want to watch.

Equally you will need to prepare the students before they watch the film. Students should be able to sit comfortably at their tables and understand what is expected of them when watching a film. You may choose to contextualise the film before the screening to ensure that students know to focus on a particular issue. Alternatively, you may wish to give students a 'blank slate' in order to test their initial reactions without leading them in any particular direction. Either way, it is advisable that on a first screening that students are asked to sit quietly and listen carefully without pens or paper to fiddle with. Note making may be appropriate on a second or third screening of selected clips after students have had time for private reflection or small group discussion.

Ideally, a 90- to 120-minute feature film should be screened in a single session but this may not be possible given timetable constraints. One solution might be to screen the film during lunchtime or as part of an after-school film club. However, it is more likely that you will need to treat the film as you would a book. Show the class short episodes over a period of time just as you might read a chapter a lesson. You may choose to split the film into three or four 'episodes': most films follow a 'three-act structure' so there may be natural breaks where you can stop the film. Alternatively, show the opening of the film and encourage students to watch the rest of it in their own time, or select a pertinent clip, that can be used to trigger discussion around one of the Citizenship programmes of study.

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After the screening

Differentiation and active learning may often be simply assumed when using films to teach Citizenship. While screening a film or film extract is likely to trigger some kind of response from every student – bypassing students' different levels of print literacy - a variety of teaching and learning strategies can be employed to explore students' responses in more detail and enhance their understanding of the film. Just as the instruction to 'read this book' would be inappropriate in most mixed-ability classrooms, so too is an unstructured or repetitive screening style when using film. The following strategies include a number of basic techniques for teaching with film, and suggestions for structured discussion. In the notes on each film in Recommended films, teaching suggestions are made under the headings of these techniques.

Basic teaching techniques

By employing some of the basic teaching techniques outlined below, adapted from Moving Images in the Classroom (bfi, 2000), you can enable students to become more actively involved in the different ways of watching and reflecting on a film.

To see more details on the films mentioned below go to Recommended Films.

Freeze frame

For this technique you need a video player with a frame stop button or a DVD and DVD player. Freeze framing helps students discuss single shots, or a sequence of single shots, in film by looking and discussing:

• What they can see in the 'frozen' image;
• How the elements of the image are positioned in the frame
• How lighting and colour affect what is seen
• The distance between camera and subjects
• Camera angle
• Movement of camera during shot

This technique encourages students to interrogate the ways in which point of view and audience identification are constructed through the use of the camera, costume, casting, lighting and set design (see Film language). For example, a scene like the first meeting of the jury in Twelve Angry Men can reveal the significance of costume and casting in relation to our sympathy with Juror 8's liberal political stance.

You can also use freeze frame is to stop the film at a particular moment and ask students to predict what the characters will do next. For example, freeze framing before any fight scene in Boyz N the Hood can lead to discussion about character motivation and the importance of resolving conflict fairly. Students could be asked to step into the characters' shoes and predict what will happen next and why.

Sound and image

For this technique you need a video player or DVD player with an image off button or simply turn the video screen to face the wall, or cover it and ask students to listen carefully to the soundtrack of a film clip and describe exactly what they hear in the sequence. Ask students to:

• Identify the type of film they think it is and describe all the sounds they can hear
• Guess the content and style of the sequence

Then watch the complete sequence and discuss how the sounds and images affect each other. You might then go on to substitute a different musical track alongside the same clip and discuss how the meaning is changed by a different combination of sounds and images.

This can be particularly useful for analysing the opening of films as the key themes are often revealed in the opening sequence's sounds and images. You could also explore the media's role in providing information and in affecting opinion and/or emotional responses. For example, the opening musical track for When We Were Kings links the Black Civil Rights with Egypt and the history of Africa in relation to Black history. At the same time, the sound effects and voiceover raise questions about how documentaries use different kinds of commentary that suggest different levels of authority or objectivity.

Spot the shots

After their first viewing of a short moving image sequence, students could guess the number of shots used. On a second viewing, they mark each change in shot, scene location and sound (use pause button if necessary). On a third viewing they look carefully at how the shot transitions are created (eg cuts, mixes, fades, wipes etc) and whether the sound transitions happen at the same places. This is a way of focusing students on the importance of editing in the construction of a film's message and emotional affect. For example, in the final sequence of My Beautiful Launderette, shots of Omar quietly reconciling with his father are crosscut with shots of the National Front violently attacking his relatives. This editing technique emphasises the anti-racist yet realistic message of the film about the dangers of underestimating the threat of violent racist attacks. After using this technique students could

• Consider to what extent the final sequence resolves or leaves open issues raised in the rest of the film;
• Discuss their own experiences, knowledge and opinions of this issue.

Top and tail

Show the title sequence of any moving image text and use any of the above techniques to help students identify its genre and intended audience, and to predict its content and apparent message. For example, show the beginning of Bend it Like Beckham to consider how the issues of cultural diversity and gender stereotyping have been raised by the casting, camera angles and use of music. Then watch the production credits at the end of the film and make a list of all the ethnic minority names and analyse the make-up of the production team, particularly in relation to key pre-production jobs such as scriptwriting, casting, directing and producing. You might encourage students to do the same with one of the Hollywood films and discuss the issue of positive discrimination and the issue of ethnic minority representation behind the camera in terms of the production team, as well as in front of it in terms of actors and casting decisions.

Alternatively, show the production credits at the beginning and/or end of a moving image text and discuss the information they provide about the source and ownership of the text, how it was produced, and how it was distributed to audiences. For example, show the credits for Ratcatcher or Hush-a-Bye Baby to explore the issue of funding within the British film industry. Who produced the film and how it was funded can raise interesting questions about power within the media industries and how this relates to how the public get information, how opinion is formed and expressed, and how and why changes take place in society.

Attracting audiences

The significance of the media in influencing and affecting public opinion is, of course, very closely linked to directors' intentions and producers' markets. Advertising is by definition intended to attract audiences and so film trailers are an excellent source of short complete moving image texts that demonstrate a range of devices and conventions to 'sell' a film. Analysis of film posters and film trailers can help students to focus on image analysis skills as well as make predictions about target audiences based on font style, colour, star tag-lines, star billing and production credits. Equally, students could research fan websites and the financial and practical issues relevant to the making of current releases through websites and the internet.

• In pairs or groups, students collect information about how a film has been marketed and distributed and groups can then present their findings as live presentations or poster montages.

• Ask students to redesign video covers or film posters which emphasise particular themes relating to the Citizenship issues for which the film is a focus. For example, the environmental and globalisation issues implicit in the post-apocalyptic setting of Planet of the Apes could be explored using magazine images of the Statute of Liberty and September 11th create a montage for a redesign of the video cover for the film for contemporary audiences. Alternatively, after a discussion about the reasons behind the BBFC's 15 certificate for La Haine students could be asked to redesign the film poster or video cover for a younger audience.

Generic translations

Ask students to 'translate' a moving image text into a print genre such as a newspaper item, a magazine feature, an extract from a novel, a short story or a poem. This gives them an opportunity to explore the choices and problems faced by characters in a film in a more personal and/or more political way. For example, the careers of the two young men in Hoop Dreams can be explored in terms of their personal motivations, hopes and fears by asking students to write a poem called 'Hoop Dreams'. Alternatively students could consider the characters' social and economic circumstances by 'translating' the story into a newspaper article.

Cross-media comparisons

Students can compare the treatment of a citizenship issue in two different media and/or for two different audiences. For example, after watching La Haine students could look at how incidents of police towards some young people is dealt with in news reports and commentary and compare what each kind of media tells us about the issue.

Alternatively after watching the scene in Antz where General Mandible reveals his ruthless political ambition as the real reason behind the war with the termites, you could ask students to find a commentary on the war in Iraq that discusses whether the real motivation behind US and UK involvement is to do with oil. Students could compare the caricature with the political commentary and consider how each makes us aware of the possible duplicity of politicians.

Simulations

This technique provides a number of opportunities for students to explore how the media, specifically the film industry, works. Divide students into pairs or groups and allocate them roles such as film researcher, scriptwriter, producer, and/or marketing manager and provide them with a production brief, for example:

• As film researchers working on the pre-production team for a new film, a version of Boyz N the Hood set in the UK, students could research a subject like gang violence in the UK.
• This activity could be expanded to develop a film production simulation, which involves scriptwriting, storyboarding and production work, resulting in a short film.

Creative writing projects, in a simulation context, could also involve scriptwriting new ideas for alternative endings to films, storyboarding scenes from the selected films to create different effects, as well as ask students to brainstorm ideas for completely new films to be pitched to production companies today. Students could be asked to 'pitch' a 21st century version of Twelve Angry Men or a British version of La Haine.

Several of the films recommended in this guide are 'based on' real events or are documentaries depicting real life people and situations. Therefore, you could set students a research project to follow up the social, political, environmental or historical issues raised by these films. Students could use libraries, the internet, video shops, newspapers and television to explore a specific historical event like the Stephen Lawrence murder trial as a follow-up to any discussion about the role of the media and miscarriages of justice after watching In the Name of the Father.

Drama and role-play can also encourage students to use their imaginations to consider other people's experiences and to think about, express and explain views that are not their own, eg by character 'hot-seating', or asking students to take on the role of one of the characters while the rest of the class interview them about their motives and actions. Students role-playing producers and directors in the 'hot seat' can be asked to justify why and how they made a film, which can help explore both the aesthetic, political and financial reasons behind a film's production and exhibition.

Following a screening of Twelve Angry Men, you could set up a courtroom simulation which both provides a role for everyone in the class and teaches students about legal rights and responsibilities and the basic aspects of the criminal justice system. Students' could take on specific roles, such as the lawyer for the defence or the prosecution, a biased jury member or an unbiased jury member, to explore views that are not necessarily their own. In this way they could revisit the 'evidence' against the accused in the film, for a 21st century multi-ethnic jury.

Alternatively, the distinction between self-defence and murder could be debated in the context of a courtroom simulation using 'video evidence' from Thelma and Louise before and after the attempted rape scene. The importance of interpretation and ambiguity in any use of moving image footage as photographic 'proof' can be explored in ways that relate back to understanding the significance and complexity of the media and its uses in society.

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Discussion work

Students' skills of enquiry and communication can be effectively developed through speaking and listening activities, in discussion of films. In films, characters' motives and the consequences of their actions are one-step-removed from students' own personal problems or issues. This can be beneficial in providing students with the opportunity to air thoughts and concerns that might be too sensitive to discuss in terms of their own personal experience. But equally, all of the films selected in this resource can enable students to identify with other people's points of view and experiences in a powerful way, potentially changing fixed mind sets and/or prejudiced opinions.

However, setting up clear structures for discussion is crucial to ensure that a full range of different opinion is represented. Discussion work around the film or film clip after the screening should not be left to just happen naturally. In some cases the subject matter may be controversial or sensitive in a way which generates thoughtless knee-jerk responses or a simply a wave of silence. It is important to provide a clearly structured approach to the discussion - to achieve a quality dialogue with students exchanging views and justifying what they think. You could start by asking questions about the film, or particular scenes in the films (see suggestions with each film). A main aim of these questions would be to clarify what the director is trying to say, what viewpoint(s) the film represents and what evidence there is for what students say about the film. You could also:

• Ask students which characters they identified with and why, and develop a discussion about these characters' experiences of the focus issue
• Find out what students know about the issue and how the film has added to their understanding or knowledge
• Ask students to identify what the film omitted or failed to address, or whether it distorted information and why
• With the students, identify the areas that need deeper investigation and inquiry.

Students ask the questions

You could focus on a particular extract and ask students in groups to reflect on the film and make a list of questions about it. Then ask each group to identify its three most important questions, which you write on the board. Then they select vote on two or three questions from the list on the board for deeper inquiry.

Discussion groups

By employing a variety of different structures from pair work, small group work, to whole class discussion, staff interview or school surveys you can enable students to develop confidence in expressing their own opinions and exploring views that are not their own.

Debates

Formal debates are a way of introducing the basic principles of democracy, the work of parliament, electoral systems and the importance of voting. Set up a panel of speakers to argue the case 'For' and 'Against' a motion. Students can be allocated particular points of view to argue. The formal debate can then be followed by a chaired question and answer session leading to a vote. This is a way of getting students to adopt opinions that are not their own and ensuring a variety of different viewpoints are represented. In addition, the chairperson can ensure that, once the questions go to the floor, everyone is encouraged to participate and voice their opinions. Conversely, allowing for a secret ballot on overall votes after the discussion is a way of protecting students' from undue influence or pressure and demonstrating the advantages and disadvantages of different democratic processes.

Negotiating a code of conduct

It may be useful to highlight responsibilities, as well as rights, in discussions by negotiating a code of conduct that all class members agree upon. This code of conduct would lay the ground rules for protecting others from offensive comments and/or behaviour. To encourage respect for each other's opinions and honesty in discussing real, and potentially 'politically incorrect', opinions, it may also be useful to establish a confidentiality contract to be signed by each student prior to discussions of a personal nature. This activity can highlight issues around human rights and responsibilities underpinning society.

Private reflection

One simple, and often overlooked, strategy for helping students develop thoughtful responses to difficult social or political issues is to provide them with some time for private reflection after the film screening. This gives students time to gather their thoughts on their own before whole class discussion and may be particularly useful if the film deals with an issue which students feel self-conscious about discussing.

Providing opportunities for some kind of personal writing, either a film review or a more creative response, is another way of giving students' space to explore their own opinions. For example, after a screening of Edward Scissorhands you could ask students to brainstorm all the other personal differences that the main character's 'scissorhands' could represent. Equally, after a screening of Hush-a-Bye Baby you could ask students to imagine that they are the main female character and write her diary entry on the day she finds out that she is pregnant.

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Practical production work

As well as being asked to think about the significance of the media as consumers, students can be encouraged to see the medium of film and television as an opportunity to represent themselves as producers of media texts. On one level this is political literacy in its purest sense. After all, political activists were some of the first to recognise how useful the media would be in conveying their opinions to wider audiences – both locally, nationally and internationally. Asking students to record and represent on film what is happening around them is a way of involving them in a closer connection with the community. Moreover, student-made videos provide evidence of what they have learned, and of the skills they have developed.

Filmmaking has been revolutionised by the emergence of affordable, high quality digital cameras and non-linear editing software that can be used on PCs and AppleMacs. The relative accessibility of equipment, materials and software can now make student filmmaking more of a reality – with 'crew'sizes being manageable and lighter equipment making less demands on health and safety issues. In many ways the digital revolution has gone some way to democratising some parts of the film and television industries.

Even so, practical production work should be made as manageable as possible. Students can be asked to plan and make a short film (maximum length – five minutes). This could be carefully storyboarded beforehand and edited in-camera. Alternatively, if students can use editing software, such as iMovie, they can experiment with different ways of putting filmed sequences together for different effects. This requires quite a lot of student commitment, but it is something many students enjoy and will give up a lot of time for. Some general ideas for short films include:

• Advertisements or campaign trailers – a good way of exploring the art of persuasion and/or propaganda using moving image texts
• A film or TV programme trailer – reworking recorded material from TV or film extracts found on many DVDs
• Video diaries or interviews – simple ways into putting across a particular point of view or experience, or bringing to light an issue that students think is important; students could record different approaches to school life and career ambitions
• A short documentary about a particular issue – a good way of getting students to focus on the key points they would make; it could be based on an issue or problem students face in the school or community
• A 'voice-of-god'commentary accompanying and commenting on a series of filmed images
• A short story

Film is the collaborative art form par excellence and the process of developing, scripting, shooting, editing and marketing all involve multiple decisions by multiple decision makers. Each film in this resource could be 'remade', or beginnings or endings changed, scenes cut and scenes added as part of a simulation activity. The scope of any scripting, storyboarding and practical production work will depend on you and your students'interests, as well as timetable constraints and how you cover Citizenship each term.

In making their films students need to be aware of the concepts covered in the section on Film language. A parents' evening or assembly might provide a real audience and purpose for students to make their short films.

Suggestions for student films

1. After a screening of Bend it Like Beckham, 're-write'the final scene to suggest a more pessimistic view of sexism and racism in contemporary Britain.

2. After a screening of Hush-a-Bye Baby, 're-write'and film an extra final scene to create a simpler and more optimistic 'happy-ending'.

3. Make a two-minute ad to raise public awareness about a chosen citizenship issue. The brief should specify what kind of audience the ad is intended to reach and students should then research ways in which they could exhibit the film to this audience. For example, the film could be screened at a parent–teacher or Governors'meeting or in the school foyer.

4. Students could approach their local cinema or community group to organise a public screening of their own films or a film that they think has been particularly effective in dealing with a citizenship issue. They will need to present a case for such a screening and why it is something people might attend.

5. Using existing footage from documentaries, ads or public service announcements, ask students to re-edit the material, by changing the sequence of shots, omitting shots, adding a new voiceover and/or music, to construct an alternative 'message' or viewpoint. In this way students will gain an insight into the role of the media and how it portrays issues, people and communities by going through the process themselves.

6. Students could make a 'trailer' about the school especially designed to introduce Year 6 students from the local primary schools. Once the film has been made it could be screened at Year 6 assemblies in primary feeder schools, or at student induction days in the school.

Live action or animation

Animation

Young people generally enjoy watching animated films, which makes the idea of creating their own very appealing. While animation can be a very time-consuming process, many students find it very rewarding and will give hours of their free time to it. There are a number of straightforward animation techniques you can consider:

• Drawn animation where the animator draws in a series of still images, making a small change in each frame. These frames are then shot in sequence to create a short animated film
• Model or clay animation, which involves moving a clay model very slightly before each new set of frames is shot.
• Cut-out animation where the animator cuts out shapes from paper, including figures from magazines, lays them on a background, photographs them and moves them slightly for the next shot, gradually building up enough frames for a short film.

Following a screening of A is for Autism, students could be asked to think about how sound and image are used to represent the way that the autistic filmmakers see and hear the world. They could then consider any ways in which they think they are misunderstood or misinterpreted, before storyboarding and filming their own short animations to express how they 'see' the world in visual/aural terms.

For more information on how to do animation in schools you may find bfi Education's video compilation and teaching guide Into Animation useful.

Live action

Filming a live-action sequence places the emphasis upon acting and camera work and lends itself to whole-class production work. Students will need to work in teams or 'crews', with each team including:

• A producer
• A director
• camera operator
• Presenters/actors
• A scriptwriter
• A sound technician
• An editor

Some of these jobs can be shared or swapped around.

For more information about film production with young people please visit the First Light website.

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