The intent after this set of readings is to give you enough information to begin critically reading and planning for your final project: the book trailer. In the movie montage shown below we dissect a movie down into its meaningful parts. In effect, we have created a series of scenes from which we could actually create a trailer for the movie. What we are asking you to do for the book trailer is read (not watch) the story and do exactly the same thing. Dissect the book, decide which scenes make up/demonstrate the four-part story creation. When we do this in schools, we ask students to do the same thing. Now, understand that their decisions may not be exactly what you might select…
It really does not matter because sometimes this is all up to speculation.. as long as you read the story and can defend your decisions as to what should show up in the trailer, we have accomplished our goal.. to demonstrate how to get get kids eager to read and to create artifacts that demonstrate their understanding. What makes this activity fun is when you have folks all read the same book, create their version of reality/interpretation of the book and then debate it in class.
Then when they are done, the teacher asks.. so now do you understand why we ask you to read the book and not rely on the movie made from it? In every movie ever made the director makes creative decisions as to what is important and what makes it to the final showing of the movie that he or she creates.
This is why we call this activity UB the Director. Why do you want to rely on the director to interpret the book for you.. why don’t you become your own ‘director’?… end result… students learn to become critical readers.
Click here to go to the actual Book Trailer Project. Hopefully, when you are done you will be able to make a better selection of a book.
We have now gone through the story invention process a couple of times. I am a believer that you sometimes have to touch a topic three times to make sure it sinks in. From a writer’s point of view, it is one thing to identify the fours aspects of a story when creating the storyboard (a la Branigan), it is quite another for a reader/viewer to recognize these in a story being presented to them.
The most common types of story is one which the man character(s) are struggling against the odds/conflict being imposed on them. So, how many plots are there? Some believe that the prototype is the Seven Russian Wonder Tales. Others suggest that there are 20 Master Plots. There is even one proposal that it all boils down to one: The Hero’s Journey.
Regardless of what you believe the gist of all of this is that there is a finite number. What makes for the perception of an innumerable set of plots is the setting, the use of different character types, and the genre. ‘Darth Vader’ in Star Wars is to sci-fi what ‘Black Bart’ was to the classic Western. ‘Mr. Spock’ to the ‘Joe Friday’ in Dragnet (just the facts, ma’am”)… Usually the plot centers around man’s (I use this term generically) against some outside or inner force or demon…
Here is a partial list:
- Man v Self (Revolver: internal struggle)
- Man v Man (Kill Bill: two people in direct struggle)
- Man v Society (1984: some sort of social issue)
- Man v Nature (Alive: Man surviving)
- Man v Supernatural (Insidious: outside of the natural realm)
- Man v Technology (The Ghost in the Shell (Japanese): everyday in the labs)
- Man v Destiny (Oepidus Rex: fate v free will)
To demonstrate the point let’s take apart a fairly average movie that is highly illustrative of this concept… in fact, the whole premise of the storyline is based on the foundations of our four part story creation… At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this movie but as I watched it I began to realize what a fantastic exemplar it would be for my classes.
THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU