Shorts 6: Family Films

VIEWING GUIDE

SERIES DISCUSSION & SUPPLEMENTAL MEDIA LITERARY DISCUSSION » EXERCISES » RESOURCES » RESOURCES »

Sometimes the key to growing up is staying Emmy-nominated shorts, represented by young at heart. These inventive and touching noted studios like Cartoon Saloon and Google teaching stories imagine unsuspecting friendships and Spotlight Stories. clever innovations, while capturing the joy and sadness universal to all. Travel with the whole This guide is intended to flexibly support the film family to Brazil, the moon, and even your educators in preparing for and following up own backyard in this lively and heartwarming on a class screening of the Family Films collection of stories. Works range from program. new student work to Academy Award- and

Grades 1-5

Content written by Katherine Spear. Designed by Paola Rojas and Hillary Good. All SFFILM Education materials are developed in alignment with California educational standards for media literacy. SFFILM Education welcomes feedback and questions on all printed study materials.

More info at sffilm.org/education SERIES DISCUSSION » DISCUSSION & EXERCISES » SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES » MEDIA LITERACY » series discussion

1. Which film in this series was your 8. What was your least favorite film? favorite? Why? Why? Be specific: was it too sad, too slow? 2. Which film in this series was your least • As a director what would you change? favorite? Why? • As an editor what would you take out of Which character 3. Which film in this series do you think the film? would you want to was the most challenging to make? Why? • As a writer what would you write into the film to make it more likeable in your sit next to in class? 4. The films incorporate a wide range of opinion? storytelling styles, from documentary to animation to narrative fiction. 9. Which character would you want to sit •Which film’s style was the most next to in class? Why? What do you think interesting to you? they would bring in their lunchbox for •What techniques did it use that set it lunch? apart from other films? 10. What words would you use to describe this series as a whole? What 5. Which film made you want to be part common themes can you find? Do you of it? Why? think these films were interesting to • Which character would you want to be? watch together? Did any seem out of Which film touched place? • How would you change the film to end your heart and made with your own ending? 11. Did you enjoy the Family Films series? What more do you want to know you think? 6. Which film touched your heart and about these films? What questions do made you think? you have about how they were made? •What part made you feel connected to it? • Do the characters or situation remind you of anything?

7. Which character would you take out of one short and insert into another short? • What would they see, do, or say? • How would that change the film?

More info at sffilm.org/education SERIES DISCUSSION » DISCUSSION & EXERCISES » SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES » MEDIA LITERACY » discussion questions post-viewing Back to the Moon flower flourish and grow activity: theme • What does the flower represent? Hélène Leroux, USA/UK 2018, 3 min A charming illusionist, an adventurous • Why does the man tend to the flower so Some common themes across queen of hearts and an evil green man carefully? the films: Longing, friendship, journey through early cinema, celebrating • Describe the ending of the film. What do perseverance, bravery, independence, the artistry and magic of George Méliès. you think it means when the man turns grief, and kindness. into flowers and floats away? • What did you notice about the Choose one of the films and write animation in Back to the Moon? How is a paragraph describing one of its it similar/different from other animated Lost & Found themes. Use evidence from the film Andrew Goldsmith and Bradley Slabe, films you’ve seen? (Note: it is the first (dialogue or visual observation) to Australia 2018, 8 min ever VR/360-degree animation) support your statements. In this touching short, two stuffed animal • What are some of the different story pals put it all on the line in the name of events you noticed in Back to the Moon? friendship. Which stood out the most to you? Why? • Who are the two characters? What are • What is the tone of the film? How do they like? the colors in the film contribute to the film’s tone? • What challenges does dinosaur face when attempting to save Fox? Belly Flop • Summarize the film. Describe the problem and solution. How does it end? Jeremy Collins, South Africa 2018, 5 min What do you predict will happen next? Penny, a fearless young girl learning to dive, is unperturbed by a talented diver One Small Step who keeps stealing the spotlight. Bobby Pontillas and Andrew Chesworth, • Describe the setting of Belly Flop. USA/China 2018, 7 min What is happening around Penny as she A dream that takes seed in Luna’s heart attempts to dive? when she was young takes on new • What is Penny’s motivation to dive from meaning with experience and age in this the diving boards? Oscar nominated short. • Describe a time when you persevered in • What is Luna’s dream? How do you order to accomplish a task. know? • How does Luna’s father show his love In Bloom for her? • What challenges does Luna face Ross Stewart, Ireland 2018, 5 min throughout the film? How does she Tending to the last thing his love gave overcome them? him, a man toils to make a delicate

More info at sffilm.org/education SERIES DISCUSSION » DISCUSSION & EXERCISES » SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES » MEDIA LITERACY » post-viewing activity: discussion questions The Pen Licence Pre-School Poets: A Poem About comparison Olivia Peniston-Bird, Australia 2018, 9 min All Different Things Share in this heart-warming journey • Which two (or three) films were as Tiana and her classmates struggle Nancy Kangas and Joshn Kun, similar? How were they similar? to survive a coming-of-age ritual Consider characters, problem/ experienced by every Australian child. USA 2018, 2 min solution, and setting. Written by a four-year old poet, this hand- • What is a Pen License? What do crafted animation opens a portal into the • Compare Rooftop Kiters and The students have to do to earn it? real world of the limitless imagination of Pen License. How are the film styles • Have you ever worked to achieve kids. similar/different? What strategies something at school? What was it? Were • Describe the narrator’s voice. Who do did the filmmakers use to get you you successful? you think they are? Does the narration interested in the topics? • Why do you think the Pen License is so remind you of anyone in your own life? appealing to so many students? Why do • Choose two characters and describe • What “different thing” do you think they work so hard to gain access to a should have been included in the poem? their traits. Use a Venn Diagram pen? or T-chart to compare them. How • What would it feel like to be on a are their character arcs similar or trampoline with “Ten hundred thousand different? The Pig on the Hill frogs?”

Jamy Wheless, USA 2018, 6 min When Duck moves in next door to the Rights on Tracks: Its All Family reclusive Pig, he learns not only how to become friends, but how to build bridges Johnny Kelly, USA 2019, 2 min Exploring timely topics through music, • What is Pig’s life before Duck arrives? this song broaches all the different types How does it change after Duck moves of families, welcoming us all to practice in? kindness and cheer. • How does Pig feel after Duck leaves? • What is your family like? Who is in your Why? family? • What does the bridge symbolize? Why • Everyone grows up different. Why is is it important to the story? it important to be accepting of other . people’s families? • What would you do with a pet otter?

More info at sffilm.org/education SERIES DISCUSSION » DISCUSSION & EXERCISES » SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES » MEDIA LITERACY » discussion questions post-viewing Rooftop Kiters activity: writing

Daniel Ribeiro de Castro Paiva, • Choose one of the silent films, and write a fictional story to go with it. Brazil 2018 5min Make sure to use strong details to Children living in the tough favelas of describe the characters, setting, and Brazil find moments of joy and respite in the problem and solution. flying beautiful kites from their rooftops. • If you could spend the day with any • Where does this film take place? What of the characters, who would it be is it like? and why? What would you do? Where • Have you ever flown a kite before? What would you go? does it feel like to control a kite? • Why do the boys love to fly kites? • Choose one of the films and write an alternate ending. Make sure to use What big dream do vivid words to bring the story to life. Sam’s Dream you hope to achieve • Pick one of the characters and Nölwenn Roberts, France 2018, 7 min recreate them as a superhero. What A small mouse relies on his cleverness some day? is their superhero name? What is their and his friends to make his crazy dream power? Write and illustrate a comic of flying with swallows come true. describing the origin of their power.

• What is mouse’s dream? • If you could make a documentary, • How do his friends help him reach his what would it be about? What dream? techniques would you use to make • What big dream do you hope to achieve your film appealing to your audience? some day?

Slurp

Florent Hill, France 2018, 4min A boy finds a simple solution to help his grandmother slurp her soup. • What is the challenge the boy faces? • How does he solve the problem? • If you were faced with a similar challenge, how would you solve it?

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.9: Compare For more information about media and contrast the themes, settings, and literacy standards in your state, visit: california plots of stories written by the same • MediaLiteracy.com: resources for author about the same or similar advancing media education, United characters (e.g., in books from a series) States Standards for media literacy media CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.2: Summarize education. http://www.medialiteracy. a written text read aloud or information com/standards.htm presented in diverse media and formats, • Frank W Baker’s guide to State literacy including visually, quantitatively, and Standards Which Include Elements of orally. Media Literacy. http://frankwbaker.com/ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.9: Compare state_lit.htm standards and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and patterns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3: Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).

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We live in a world where technology be accomplished by first identifying its mediates a large portion of human principal characteristics: media interaction and the exchange of (1) Medium: the physical means by information. Every projected image, every which it is contained and/or delivered word published on a page or a website, and every sound from a speaker reaches (2) Author: the person(s) responsible for literacy its creation and dissemination its audience through the medium, through the language of the device. The (3) Content: the information, emotions, ability to parse the vast array of media values or ideas it conveys resources: messages is an essential skill for young (4) Audience: the target audience to people, particularly in a mainstream whom it is delivered commercial culture that targets screening youth as a vulnerable, impressionable (5) Purpose: the objectives of its authors segment of the American marketplace. and the effects of its dissemination. Most students already have a keen understanding of the languages different Students who can readily identify these with five core characteristics will be equipped media use and the techniques they employ to inspire particular emotions to understand the incentives at work or reactions, but they often lack the skill behind media messages, as well as meaning or awareness to fully deconstruct the their potential consequences. Media messages they continuously receive. literacy education empowers students to Analysis of a media message—or any become responsible consumers, active piece of mass media content—can best citizens and critical thinkers. common core standards MEDIUM PURPOSE AUDIENCE All Media Is Constructed. All Media Messages Are Constructed for a Reason. All Media Messages Reach an Audience. • What is the message, how is it delivered and in what • Why was the message constructed? • Who receives the message? format? • Who benefits from dissemination of the message? • For whom is the message intended? • What technologies are used to present the message? How? • What is the public reaction to the media content and/ • What visual and auditory elements comprise the • To what extent does the message achieve its purpose? or its message? media content? • What effect does the message have on the audience it • What is your reaction to the media content and/or its • What expectations do you bring to the content, given reaches, if any? message? its medium and format? • How might others perceive this message differently? AUTHOR Why? CONTENT All Media Is Constructed by Someone.

Media Is A Language For Information. • Who is delivering the message? • What is the subject of the media message? • Who originally constructed the message? • What information, values, emotions or ideas are • What expectations do you have of the content, given conveyed by the media content? its author(s)? • What tools does the author employ to engage the viewer and evoke a response? • To what extent did the content meet your expectations, given the format/author?

More info at sffilm.org/education SERIES DISCUSSION » DISCUSSION & EXERCISES » SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES » MEDIA LITERACY » what is types of animation 2D Animation Techniques • Classic animation (e.g. Disney’s The animation? Lion King, most TV cartoons) • Rotoscope (e.g., Star Wars Animation is a process used to create profound dramatic experience. He strove lightsabers) motion pictures through the combination for photographic realism in films such • Flip books of still images (e.g., digital graphics, as Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941) and photographs of drawings, photographs Bambi (1942). 3D Animation Techniques of objects, etc.) which, when played in sequence, create the illusion of The success of television cartoons led • 3D animation (e.g., Pixar’s Toy Story, movement. All television cartoons, for to the virtual disappearance of animated Wall-E, Up) example, are animations, and are made shorts produced for theatrical release. • Stereoscopic 3D (e.g., Avatar) up of thousands of still images (drawn by Animated feature-length films, however, • Cut-out / Silhouette animation (e.g., hand or on a computer) that are played flourished, especially after the release South Park) sequentially, along with a soundtrack, to of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989), tell a story. regarded by many as the studio’s best Stop-Motion Techniques animated feature in decades. Other Disney blockbusters followed, including • Claymation (e.g., Nick Park’s Wallace History of Animation and Gromit) The world’s most famous animator, Walt Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin Disney, began making short animated (1992), The Lion King (1994) and Lilo & • Puppet animation (e.g., Tim Burton’s cartoons based on children’s stories Stitch (2002). The Nightmare Before Christmas, in 1923. In 1928 he introduced Mickey Coraline) Mouse in the first animated sound The development of computer animation cartoon, Steamboat Willie, which became was another great advancement in an immediate sensation. Throughout the form and resulted in feature films the next decade, Disney would add such of astounding visual sumptuousness. elements as carefully synchronized In 1995, Toy Story was the first film to music (The Skeleton Dance, 1929). use only computer- generated imagery (CGI). In 2001 the Academy of Motion Technicolor (Flowers and Trees, 1932), Picture Arts and Sciences added a new and the illusion of depth with his multi- Academy Award for Best Animated plane camera (The Old Mill, 1937), a Feature Film. The first recipient of the device that allowed for animated cels award was Shrek (2001). Other major to be photographed against a three- animated features were Toy Story (1995) dimensional background. Although not and Toy Story 2 (1999), A Bug’s Life the first animated feature, Disney’s Snow (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Nemo (2003). was the first to use up-to-the-minute techniques and the first to receive Retrieved from Britannic Online for Kids: http://kids. widespread release. The film’s success britannica.com/ebi/ article-198341 can be attributed in part to Disney’s willingness to use animation to create a

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