Unique Visitors

Tuesday 17 January 2017

Animate the inanimate

Today we have been continuing with our exploration of film in our Technotastic topic. We looked at examples of stop frame animation in film and music videos and discussed the process of how they are made. We then had a demonstration of how to do it using iMovie.

The class were then given a challenge of producing a short film where they have animated and inanimate object. There was no focus on content of plot, just the experience of making the objects appear to move. Here are our efforts.

Monday 16 January 2017

Theseus speaks!

Following on from our thee, thy and thou off the other day, we explored writing using these forms of you. We also played around with the use of colons, semi-colons and dashes.

We had to write as Duke Theseus telling the assembled crew of Egeus, Demetrius, Lysander and Hermia exactly what he thought of their predicament.

Here are some of our efforts:

I see ye all below me in my court. Thou have interrupted my wedding plans. I am devastated with thee for this interruption. Hermia, thou art a nose picking, onion licking, metal eating, ugly troll who should listen to thy father. Respect thy father’s orders. Some people think they can marry whatever freaks they want; others actually listen to their father and marry who he picked.

Imagine a place where women could marry who thy want, a place where children didn’t listen to thine father, where thee can run away if thine want to: this is what Athens will be if I don’t stop that! Ye shall respect my rules or ye shall be crushed like a grape.

Demetrius, thou art a noble trustworthy friend but thy heart must be crushed as my spoilt daughter doesn’t want to marry thee.

Hermia- thou art a pesky worm. Hermia- lying, cheating, disobeying - which one will thee do to thy father next? Hermia - thou art a disrespectful little urchin.

Lysander- thou art an evil idiot. If I hear ye haven’t followed my rules ye are all in serious trouble.


Jay 

I see ye all in front of me. Thou have stopped me from planning my wedding. Hermia you are a disgrace for Athens. Thou art a puppy eyes onion licking toad who should listen to her father. Some people would love to get married; others like thee are un-loveable.

Imagine a place where girls do what they want, where people didn’t listen to their fathers, where girls marry who they want; that doesn’t happen in the city of Athens. Hermia thee shall get married to Demetrius or thee will be hanged by the neck and ye shall watch it happening.

Demetrius thou art a cleaver and happy man. I do hope Hermia will get married to thee and I don’t want to kill someone before my wedding - it would be sad.

Hermia thou art as stupid as a big fat pig. I see thee hideous, snail eating, cabbage licking worm. Hatred, stupidity, disobedience – which one will tear thee apart? I hear ye all talking nonsense.

Imagine killing a girl or even a boy, a place where there are no rules, where you decide: that doesn’t happen in this city. Could thing get any worse?  

Ruby

I can see ye all waiting for me. Thou have interrupted my wedding plans. I am devastated with thee , in this disturbation. Now , Hermia , thine are a spoiled brat , who should have some respect for thee father. Do thy fathers orders. Some people would be amazed to get married ; others like thy would disobey their fathers.

Would you ever think of a place where women think they can run off and do what they want , expect that they can marry who they like , be who they want : my world cannot do that – certainly not ! Thou art a dirty rotten scoundrel women. Ye shall all obey me whether you like it or not . If thy do not obey, thee don’t live. Ye will be hammered like a nail through the wall.

People like Demetrius  are right and shall marry the person I choose but if thy are like Hermia then thee shall be put to death. As far as I can see your to be wife is looking at someone else. I feel sorry , but this must hurt thee like a shattered piece of glass going through thee heart.

Hermia – Thou art a spider licking curvy spine.

Now if my rules aren’t followed .... thy will die !

Ellie-May

Thou art a dirty damaged girl. Ye been all wasting my time like slugs on a path. Ye little urchins. Ye should have all been listening to ye fathers. Ye are all bad-tempered rats except thy father. I now see ye all sounding upset except a mouthy little weasel wench over there. Thou art mangy scabs. Thou daughter is a mouthy little brat. Demetrius I feel sorry for thou, thou listen to thou father

Thou art a slapdash little girl. Thou couldn’t care less. Just imagine a place where people could do what they want, imagine a place where girls listened to their fathers, imagine a place where people could marry who they wanted: well my city isn’t like that. Some people listen to thy fathers; others don’t like to.

Thank thee for coming to me today. Lysander you have not been chosen to marry Hermia so thou will not. Disobedience, exhaustion loneliness witch will you do to thy father next.

Daisy

And Eliza's effort:

Wednesday 11 January 2017

Creating genre specific soundtracks

Last week, as part of our Technotastic topic, we listened to 5 soundtracks from movies or TV that demonstrated specific genres: action, comedy, horror, romance and war. We had to identify what genre we thought they were and the specific elements that made them the way they are.

This week we had a go at creating our own! Using Garageband on the iPad, in our working groups we were given specific genres to work on. We then had to create a 20 second snippet of a soundtrack which best represented these genres.

Here are our efforts:

Horror:

War:

Romance:

Action:

Comedy:

Thee, thou, thy off!

After playing about with the language of Shakespeare yesterday and thee, thou and thy, today we learnt how to use them and when. We wrote a range of sentences using the different types today, with the context of being Duke Theseus speaking to Hermia, Egeus, Lysander and Demetrius.

We also looked at using a thesaurus to find more interesting synonyms to give our sentences more impact. Finally we investigated a range of Shakespearean insults that could be used with the various ways of saying 'you',

To conclude the lesson we held a thee. thou, thy off between the class and Mr Roberts.

Here is a video of this vicious battle.

Tuesday 10 January 2017

Lead Creative Schools - To Catch a Dream - Midsummer Night's Dream - Session 1

We had out first session in our Lead Creative Schools project, 'To Catch a Dream', based on A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This session was led by Gareth Warren, an actor who brought with him a bundle of ideas and enthusiasm which our pupils instantly loved. As this was the first session, a lot of name games were played to allow Gareth to try to get to know us as quickly as possible.
We also played games to help build up our confidence and trust in orally playing with words. These games were fun and very competitive. We also explored the use of the words thee, thy and thou, again using our voices as instruments.

Finally we went through the entire play using the 'whoosh' technique with pupils taking the parts of characters as Gareth read through a summary of the play.