Quick! Imagine you have just 60 seconds to convey to a reader the elements of a particular literary genre. During these seconds, you need to relate to your reader elements that convey your understanding of the material, and do so in a manner that grabs the reader's attention. And please be entertaining. Can a literary essay produce all of this in just 60 seconds?
Now, imagine that you have assembled a visual literary project which can convey all of the elements of a literary essay. The total viewing time for this project is 60 seconds. Is this possible? Well, most of us view this type of project several times every time we go to the movies. It is called a movie trailer. More than a means for displaying visual images of a soon-to-be-released feature, a movie trailer attempts to persuade an audience. How many times have you viewed a movie trailer, and then turned to the person next to you and said, "I don't think so!" or "This looks awesome!" Movie trailers are able to distill down to 1 - 4 minutes the essential elements of a story: characters, setting, theme, and conflict. All of these elements work together to create the type of tension that is necessary to hook an audience.
My technology project sketch is for students to produce a 60 second movie trailer that is tailored to a specific literary genre. Each genre contains variations on characters, theme, setting, and conflict. A successful movie trailer will be able to convey these variations and shifts to its audience. By tapping into the creativity of teams of students, a variety of approaches can be shared when addressing the same piece of literature. A movie trailer is a format that encourages creativity while it demands the distilling of essential literary elements into a format which has a built in audience.
While this is longer than the proposed 60 second time limit for my proposed project, it is an AWESOME example of how all movie trailers essentially have a singular template. Be inspired, and pass the popcorn!
