Beth Wilcox's Northern Learning Centre Blog: Videos

Showing posts with label Videos. Show all posts

Wednesday, 23 April 2014

French Revolution Videos

Here are some "Horrible History" videos we will discuss in class.

Historical Wife Swap

The French Revolution Report

The Storming of Bastille

Monday, 6 January 2014

Today we looked at two recent rants from Rick Mercer and discussed the techniques we saw with presentation style and camera work. We also watched our own rants and discussed what we like and what we could work on.

Here are the things we noticed in Rick's Rants

consistent eye contact
good expression in voice with dramatic pauses and emotion
uses hand gestures to emphasize points
the rant is memorized
He walks around as he talks
set in an interesting background
He emphasizes main points and arguments when he stops walking suddenly
He ends with a strong sentence that is thought-provoking or a call for action
the camera follows Rick from a constant distance of about a meter
we see his upper body from a fairly consistent level of zoom
both Rick and the camera walk at the same pace and with confidence
the camera is generally at an angle
the camera sharply goes to a 45' angle at the start of a point or to emphasize and then slowly rights itself
A sharp camera angle often corresponds with Rick stopping walking to emphasize a point.

Some of the things we liked in student rants

we had confident speakers
our speakers knew their information
our speakers stayed focused during distractions
people often made good eye contact
we appreciated speakers who seemed to care about their topic
we like when rants end with a strong sentence or call to action
we like when the speaker's voice was loud and clear
we prefer when the speaker is the centre of focus (there is no background silliness)
The camera used interesting angles
there were interesting settings

Some things we wanted to work on

memorizing more of our speeches
maintaining more eye contact
keeping focus
pausing between points
emphasizing important sentences
using more expression
making sure the development of our argument is clear to all viewers

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Rant: Devices and Techniques

Class Outline

Silent Reading
In groups of 2 or 3, watch a few examples of Rick Mercer's Rants from Youtube.
As you watch and after each film, brainstorm with your group all the things he says and does to argue his point and convince his viewers.
With your group, you will be given a rant and a list of devices. Watch the rant and come up with a hypothesis as to what the definition of each device might be, and what one example of that device is in the rant.