Movie Making!

Over the past few weeks our groups have been making movies based on out topic. Our movie was about cooking a traditional Scottish meal of Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and it all going disastrously wrong.
First was the Filming, our plan was to film outside and inside Tesco's but the camera wasn't working when we got there! This was our first obstacle, but we decided not to let it frustrate us and cut the supermarket scenes from the movie. This worked out better in the end as our movie would have been way too long if we had included them. We then went on to film with Kirsten as camera-woman, Sarah as director and me as the actress. I didn't mind being in the movie but would have maybe liked everybody to be on camera at least for a small part. Although nobody else would join me in front of the camera, filming was fun, there were so many out-takes as we all kept laughing, especially me! I can see how children would find this fun because there are roles for pupils who want to be in front of the camera and pupils who prefer to be behind the scenes. I think that this gives the teacher the important role of grouping carefully. This is not a job for the random group generator which can be used on the Smartboard.
Next came the Editing which involved cutting the scenes, writing titles and adding music all using Windows Movie Maker. Kirsten and I worked together on editing the movie, Kirsten was in charge but we both had input into what our movie would look and sound like. Sharon questioned whether I knew how to edit a movie after seeing Kirsten in the driving seat but I learned through the process as I know the processes for each step of the movie making after first being told by Sharon and then testing it out for myself.
During the first input for editing the video we finished cutting the scenes together and had most of the subtitles but whilst saving on a memory stick all our editing was lost! This was extremely frustrating as my known lack of patience was already being pushed with the specific nature of the movie making process! Kirsten managed to make the movie again quickly and this seemed to be a common problem amongst the groups. This shows how careful we would need to be when teaching this to children. We picked up where we left off in the next input and added French subtitles to the spoken English which were translated by Claire. We then added music using Audacity. Although it is simple to use we had to record our songs from heaphones onto the microphone and the quality was often quite bad or would include the background noise. Also the sound was very low and it was only resolved when we figured out how to turn it up in Windows Movie Maker. Because of this I am not too fond of this program.
During the Strictly Come Movies Carrie commented that our movie was a good introduction into teaching about how food gets from the ground onto our plate and that the comedy aspect was something primary school children would find extremely funny! I was glad to hear this as I was uncomfortable acting on my own and the fact that it came across funny was a relif but it was still embarrassing for me to watch!
Throughout the journey of movie making I have been increasingly frustrated and impatient, every aspect seemed to create obstacles. Despite this I have learned that ICT is about problem-solving and finding different ways of overcoming these obstacles but I am still undecided whether I would use it in a primary classroom.