As a class, we decided to go ahead and re-write a parable for our Spring Project. Inasmuch as I was hoping to have an original story from the students, I believe I have learned the lesson as the teacher to slot more time for this! We did have a working story in December, and I was very pleased with the students input and storylines, but I found the technical sides of it (location, time to film, the need for more actors than we had-even after a casting call to the co-op) to be too much of a challenge by mid-December. If I had the student working on the story earlier in the year, at the same time we had been studying films, then I think I would have been able to hash out these details better. Lesson learned for me, we will start earlier next year.

We chose the parable from Luke 20:9-18-the parable of the bad tenants. The students are doing a great job of pulling this into our century, and we are working out the dialog. More later on the script, story line, and film locations.

Above: Students listening in class

For this semester, when we are primarily studying film, culture, and Lordship (i.e. a Biblical view of film as art, and learning discernment), the basic assignments are to cover a few aspects of film making in class, and then have a movie assigned for the week. The students watch the movie, and answer questions for each one.

Our subject areas have included:

• Good stories/bad stories, and how to tell the difference
• the definition of art/film vocabulary
• comparisons in the area of movies and special effects
• script writing
• history in film
• science fiction
• how is culture reflected in film
• storyboarding
• and, reading a novel, and watching the movie version of it

Our movies we have used, or will use, are:

• All Quiet on the Western Front-1930
• Modern Times-1936
• You Can’t Take It With You-1938
• Citizen Kane-1941
• Bambi, Snow White, or Dumbo-pick one
• Rope-1948
• The Day The Earth Stood Still-1951
• The African Queen-1951
• Singin’ in the Rain-1952
• Rear Window-1954
• On The Waterfront-1954
• The Ten Commandments-1956
• Ben Hur-1959
• 12 Angry Men-1957
• The Magnificent Seven
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird-1962
• Star Wars-1977
• Raiders of the Lost Ark-1981
• Jurassic Park-1993
• Apollo 13-1995
• Sense and Sensibility-1995
• Pride and Prejudice-2005
• The Miracle Maker, the story of Jesus-2000
• Master and Commander-2003
• The Incredibles-2004

I gotta say it-as the teacher, I have had a ball with this class. It is material that has been great to teach, and the students are good. I am looking forward to our film making, which will begin in January or February.

This fall, I have had the opportunity to teach a class on film to a home school co-op. This is an extension of Second Thief Media, and I am looking forward to teaching.

The course will be called “Film Making-the art of film, our culture, and Lordship”. It is described as follows: This course will include discussions about what is God’s view of film, how to discern good and evil in films, examining the opportunities for Christians to make films today, and the role of film in our culture. We will be making film projects during the year. This will include the following subjects:
-Working together on an artistic project, -how to put movie elements together, -story writing -storyboarding, -drafts of a script (using Celtx software), -sets, costumes, and props, -filming, -green screening, -lighting, -video converting, -editing, -using editing software, -music, -burning the DVD, movie rights.

I have six students signed up, including two of my children, and look forward to getting to work on the course.

I will continue to post updates about our class, and our project.