Step 4: Dress Rehearsal…sort of
On day three, I made a decision to have them sketch out their entire drawing from start to finish before writing their script. This ended up being a good decision. They really needed to see what their final product was going to look like, and the activity added a jolt of excitement into the project that made them pay more attention to their scripts the next day. I came to the conclusion that it is absolutely necessary to devote a full day to practice. After watching the dress rehearsals, I say that there was no way they could have one from little pictures to doing this for film.
Many students sketched their drawings out on small paper before going large…something I would require next year since it really helped to do a quick version first before going big. When they did a full scale practice some used roll paper and some used whiteboards. I like the idea of having them do it on a large sheet of paper, even though they might eventually do it on a whiteboard. On the paper they could see everything they had drawn and could look back to remember where they were going. On the white boards, it was easy to erase and forget, though the same impact could be had on a whiteboard by telling them to not erase anything.
The practice day was seriously orchestrated chaos at the video at the top of the page illustrates. When they were done many groups went back and edited images to make them fit and flow better. The kids that did it on paper simply rolled it up so they could use it the next day; kids who did it on whiteboards took pictures with their phones.
