-Tell students that most movies contain many different elements that all work together to help the audience understand the movie’s story.

-Elements include the images, the dialogue and the music and sound effects.

-Write these elements on the board.

- Play a clip from Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

-Ask students to talk about the elements listed on the board.  Ask them for specific examples of each element and how they thought it furthered the story.

- How do gestures and facial expressions help the audience understand what is happening?

- What type of mood does the music seem to set when it starts and stops?

- What types of things do people say and does what they say help further the story?

Facial expressions show the audience what emotions the characters are feeling. 

The music helps create the tone of the movie.

Tell students that now that they have identified “visual clues” used by filmmakers, you’d like to discuss another communicative tool filmmakers use.

- Write the terms “close-up shot” and “wide shot” on the board.

- Tell students that it isn’t just what filmmakers show, but how they show it, that affects a movie’s meaning.

- Explain that a close-up sounds just like what it is, that the filmmaker shows something close up. Tell students that in a wide shot, the filmmaker shows things from further away.

- To help students understand this concept, show them an example of a scene from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that uses both types of shots. As the clip is shown, turn off the sound so students pay attention to the visuals.

- Show students the clip from WILLIE WONKA again. Ask them to raise their left hand every time they see a close-up shot, their right hand every time they see a wide shot.

- Underneath the terms “close-up shot” and “wide shot” that you’ve written on the board, ask students to volunteer examples of each that they saw in the clip.

- What types of things does the director chose to show in close-up shots versus in wide shots?

- Why do you think the director chose to use wide or close-up shots when he did?

- What information do each of these shots best convey?

Close-up shots give the audience a better look at the characters.

The wide shot give the audience a sense of the setting were the story is taking place. 

- Tell students that filmmakers often plan out the pictures as carefully as they plan out what the actors are going to say or who is going to play each role in the film.

- Explain that filmmakers create storyboards to help them plan a visual story.

- Show students examples of storyboards.

- Ask students to storyboard the following scene in five to seven shots: Bill walks into the classroom. He sits down at his desk. On his desk, he sees that someone has left him a valentine. Embarrassed, he looks around the room to see who has given the valentine to him, but no one is looking at him.

- As students create the storyboard, tell them to use both wide and close-up of shots and to include some of the visual cues they listed earlier in the lesson.

- Break students into pairs and have students share their storyboards with one another and give one another feedback on whether there are enough visual clues to understand the scene.

- Display the storyboards on a wall in your classroom.

What is happening in the storyboards?

Can you see examples of the visual cues in the storyboards? What are they?

Can you see examples of close-up and wide shots in the storyboards?

Why did you choose the type of shots you did?  And how was that dictated by the story itself?

- Review with students what they’ve learned so far in this lesson: types of visual cues filmmakers use to tell a story; two different types of shots (close-up and wide) and how they’re used; and how the order of shots can affect a story’s meaning.

- Write these elements on the board.

- Break students into groups of two to four. Ask students to pick a page or two from a book they are currently reading that they would be interested in storyboarding.

- Have students plan and create a storyboard using the “storyboard organizer”

- Have students present their storyboards to the class. 

- Follow the presentation with a question and answer period in which the “filmmakers” field questions and comments from the audience.

- Encourage students to talk about their choices, and what they hoped to achieve with their drawings.

What types of visual cues have we discussed?

How are close-up and wide shots used in filmmaking?

What were some of the choices you made to create a visual storyboard of your book?

Close-up shots can help show characters facial expressions.

Wide shots are used to show the audience an entire scene or landscape. 

Storyboard Organizer

Use the following to help you plan and create your storyboard:

1. Briefly describe the section of the story you are going to tell. If possible, write your description out in numbered steps.

2. Look at your numbered steps and take any out that don’t seem like they help you tell the story. Add any in that you feel are missing.

3. Fill in the chart below. For each numbered step of your story, fill in a new shot.