Angelo J. Pompano
Grade Level: 7-8
Description:
Using the treatment and storyboard created in the previous lessons, the students will begin shooting their "City Symphony." Students will illustrate on video a typical school day as well as the behind the scenes activities that are required to operate a school, keeping in mind the comparison of a school to a city. The emphasis will be not only on documentation but also on looking at common objects seen at school with the eye of an artist. Through the choice of subject matter and specific video techniques, such as camera angles and lighting, students will establish a mood for each movement of their symphony.
Go back and look at the movies viewed for Lesson One. The students will look at how a movie is edited according to thematic, graphic, or rhythmic similarities and contrasts. View the movies talked about and look for these elements.
The students will then edit the video keeping in mind the movements of a symphony. The will look for the rhythm of video sequences they took. Then they will choose music to fit the pieces, using both recorded music, music they create, and music from every day life, including music boxes, the sound of sewing machines, overhead doors, school buses. They will look for natural music.
Procedure
The emphasis here should be on the "creative" use of the editing and audio equipment. Edit according to thematic, graphic, or rhythmic similarities and contrasts.
1. Use establishing shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups, etc. The emphasis here should be on the "creative" use of the video equipment. Each scene on the storyboard will be taped, although they do not have to be taped in order.
2. The students will decide on music that will illustrate the rhythm of each movement. They can use prerecorded music, music they compose using musical instruments, musical toys such as music boxes, or sounds found in the school environment such as computers, buses, furnace room sounds, sewing machines, lunchroom voices, etc.
3. The students will lay down the soundtrack for their video. It is easier to edit video to fit the soundtrack than the other way around. Using computers with video editing capabilities, the students will edit their video to fit the "Symphony" that they composed.
Materials Needed:
Two Camcorders and tripods, portable lights and reflectors, gel paper, computers with editing software, audio CD or cassette, an audio mixer, written release forms.
Duration:
This portion of the project may take several weeks.
Standards Covered:
Music Standards Grades 5-8
Content Standard 4.0 Composing and Arranging Music:
Students will create and arrange music to accompany reading or dramatizations. They will compose short pieces, demonstrating how the elements of music are used. They will arrange simple pieces for voices or instruments other than those for which the pieces were written. They will use a variety of traditional and nontraditional sound sources and electronic media when composing and arranging.
Performance Standard 4.1
Students will create and arrange music to accompany readings or dramatizations.
Performance Standard 4.2
They will compose short pieces, demonstrating how the elements of music are used.
Performance Standard 4.3
They will arrange simple pieces for voices or instruments other than those for which the pieces were written.
Performance Standard 4.4
They will use a variety of traditional and nontraditional sound sources and electronic media when composing and arranging.
Content Standard 8.0
Understanding Relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
Students will describe ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with those of music. They will explain how elements, artistic processes (such as imagination or craftsmanship), and organizational principles (such as unity and variety or repetition and contrast) are used in similar and distinctive ways in the various arts and cite examples.
Performance Standard 8.1
Students will describe ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with those of music.
a. Students will describe the relationships between music and the other arts.
Performance Standard 8.2
Students will explain how elements, artistic processes (such as imagination or craftsmanship), and organizational principles (such as unity and variety or repetition and contrast) are used in similar and distinctive ways in the various arts and cite examples.
Visual Arts Standards
Grades 5-8
Content Standard 1.0
Communicate in art media, techniques and processes successfully.
Students will understand and apply these with sufficient skill, confidence and sensitivity and be able to select and analyze what makes them effective in creating works of art that successfully communicate their own feelings and ideas.
Performance Standard 1.1
Students will understand and apply media, techniques and processes with sufficient skill, confidence and sensitivity that their intentions are carried out in their art works.
Performance Standard 2.1
Students will use knowledge of visual organization, structures, functions and their characteristics cohesively in each work of art.
