Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Doctor Who Again

Well, it finally arrived and episode 1 did not disappoint, in fact in went way beyond my expectations as a show opener. But the run up to this years new series has been made even more exciting by the trailers, showing first in Cinemas ( and much bootlegged on YouTube) and now on our TVS. It put me in mind that this trailer could be a great'text' to use with students in Upper Key Stage 2.

In year 4 and Unit 4 of Renewed Framework Literacy we read the following:

Phase 1

Read, compare and contrast a range of paper-based and DVD-based persuasive texts. Discuss and record common features of the text-types. Express views about the persuasive nature of different texts.

Phase 2

Identify elements of a DVD text that would persuade a reader to see a film. Plan a trailer to promote a film using key moments from the film.

Phase 3

Write a written voice-over script to persuade a reader to see a film. Demonstrate how to combine words, music and images to convince the reader.

The trailer for Series 4 combines key moments and effective music beautifully, through scenes of terror in the flying marching and head turning monsters, alongside the faces of past and present characters that display confusion, happiness and fear all at key moments in the music score. This trailer more than fulfills the requirements of Phase 2 above and would make a great text to study.

This could easily be recreated with some stills and good old Photostory 3 or some cheeky use of Movie Maker, granted but then last week I read that there may be another more legal and exciting way.


Doctor Who Magazine reports in the coverage of the new look BBC DW official website that:

Among the new features is an innovative video tool which will allow fans to create 'the ultimate Doctor Who Trailer'. The video tool will allow users to manipulate a wealth of clips, sound effects and music tracks to create their trailers.


How exciting is that! I would have loved to have such a toolset at my disposal back in my Year 4 teaching days. As you can imagine I went straight to the site to check out these features, yet due to some technical difficulties they are not live at present, though I am sure they'll be with is soon, thank you Jo Pearce, BBC Doctor Who new media producer. It is also worth pointing out that there are already scores of fan created trailers and cheesy compilation videos already on YouTube, therefore an activity like this would have added cultural relevance, not just because it is the number one Kids (and big Kids) show.

When these features are live I'll certainly be posting here, but in the meantime there is plenty to occupy a class with in the comic maker area.

And here of course is that trailer





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