Thursday, January 22, 2015

Great program. Step 2: First Grade

Let's continue our program with first grader, some review would be fun, with some still images observations game, cartoon screening and commercial making again.
Then we can now start with some history class, cinema history for sure.
I like to start by the beginning at it makes more sense to explain to the children how we got there, in the images based world.

So I will start with Emile Reynaud, showing them the "praxinoscope"  and early animation made with it.
Then I will show them his optical theater and one of his projection:

This class that introduce history of cinema is constructed around visual experiences. there is no lesson to learn there, only being exposed to what was done and share feeling and thinking with their pair. The brain will do the rest. Debate is higly encouraged.

After the Praxinoscope should come Edison and his Kinetoscope and some of his film should be screened. 

The Lumiere brother should follow with the screening of  "the arrival of a train at La Ciotat" without forgetting to explain to the kids that people were scared when watching that movie for the first time, scared that the train would run on them. 
Children are usually very receptive to the history of cinema, it is also fun for them to hear that adult were scared by a train on a screen.

Children particularly appreciate Georges Melies 's movies. I like to show them a few of those. "A trip to the Moon" is fascinating, even for those who are watching too much TV. It is important to set up the ambiance when showing those old movies, to make them feel how it was at that time.

Melies is a lot of fun, and children will laugh at his movies, it is interesting to learn about some of the special effect he used as he is the precursor. Eventually the children could reproduce and experiment some of his trick, like the disparition of a person or an object. It will be wise to get a video camera and to realize some short videos with the children at that point,

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