Publicity for Your Movie: a Contract Lesson Plan for Elementary School Children.

Teaching Children about the publicity that goes into movie advertisement lends itself beautifully to developing organizational skills. Movies play a very important part in young people's lives, especially today with Hollywood's heavy focus on the youth market. This lesson uses the team learning modality, so students should be split into small groups. This contract lesson needs to be copied and given to each student, so that they are able to follow their teammates and take it home, if they need to. This lesson should be fun, and flexible enough for use in other subjects as well.

Take a look at the movie section in any news source and look for an article about an upcoming movie, whether it's an interview with anyone involved in the movie (actor, screenplay writer, director, etc), or a basic overview of the film itself. Take a look at the movie ads and notice the designs used on them. Look at the words and images and see what kind of mood they're trying to convey( is it dark and brooding or light and bouncy)? What kind of genre do you think the movie is (mystery, comedy, family drama)? If you have cable, turn on an entertainment cable and look at any show on coming attractions in film.

Decide what kind of movie you'd like to make for your movie campaign. It can be based on a book that was read in class, a sequel to an existing movie, or an original idea altogether. Write out a basic story line for your movie. Decide who you'd like as the star of the movie, director, screenplay writer, co-stars, etc. Have fun with this.

What kind of images would you like to convey for your movie? It is a dark, intense mystery? A fast, furious adventure? A light, bouncy romantic comedy? What catchy phrase or phrases do you want to use with the imagery?

Choose one (1) of the following:

A) Make coming attractions for film and/or television by drawing a series of pictures on a long sheet of paper fastened on two(2) rollers.

B) Making coming attractions for the radio by making an audio tape.

C) Make a movie poster.

D) Instead of a) use a film or video camera to create your coming attraction. Your teammates can act out a script you've all written together, or you can create an animation or video collage for your coming attraction.

Choose one(1) from the following:

A) Interview someone involved in the making of the movie ( teammates role play) for an entertainment magazine of your creation. Write it up, type it up, and use graphics. Take a look at as many entertainment magazines as you can in order to get an idea of the format used. Your interview can be created on computer or more hands-on products like construction paper, pens, markers, etc.

B) Put your interview on a series of pictures pasted on a long piece of paper fastened by two(2) rollers.

C) If you have the means, role play an interview on film or video camera.

D) Role play an interview on audio.

Choose one(1) of the following:

A) As a team, create a novelization of your movie. This can be as long or as short as you wish.

B) As a team, create a graphic novel of your movie.

C) Create a movie program of your film.

D) Design t-shirts, caps, mugs, toys, etc. for your film.

This contract is due on ________________. Please make sure that it is on time. You will be graded on writing ( whether prose, audio, or script spoken on visual medium), presentation, and creativity. The amount of work will also be important, for it will show me the effort, or lack of it, that your team has put into this project.