You have practised editing images, audio, video and animation, and you know how to find material you are allowed to reuse. Next you will use these skills to make a digital montage, which is a short piece made of pictures, sounds or clips shown one after another. Today you will plan your montage and test whether the order of your plan works. You will build it in later lessons, so you will not need any editing apps today.
Your montage is made of separate moments called beats. In the next step you will decide these four things and write them down:
- Interest: choose a topic you care about.
- Viewer takeaway: decide the main idea your viewer should understand by the end.
- Formats: choose whether image, audio, video or animation works best for each beat.
- Order: decide what comes first, next and last.
Together these make your storyboard, a plan of your beats in order. The order has to lead the viewer to your takeaway. For example, if your takeaway is about running a pitch-and-putt course, do not start with three memes about something else.
Work on paper or on screen, whichever your class uses, and do tasks 1 and 2 before you plan your beats. When you finish, save your plan the class way, which means keeping it where your class stores its work.
Interest and takeaway
- 1. Write your topic in a few words, like the examples in the box.
- 2. Write one sentence that begins with the starter in the box, and make sure it says who your viewer is.
Topic examples: "learning Irish through short clips", "my local GAA club's underage teams", "how skate parks get designed"
Takeaway starter: "By the end, a viewer should understand that…"
Viewer examples: classmates, family, a coach, younger students
Format example: Beat 3 is the coach's whistle and the crowd noise, so it uses audio. I chose audio because sound puts you on the sideline faster than a still photo.
Your beats
- 3. Plan four beats in order. For each one, write what the viewer sees or hears and which format carries it (image, audio, video or animation). If you are not sure how to start, you can use these four beats: open, explain, show and close. Add a fifth or sixth beat if you have time.
Before you save
- 4. On one beat, add a few words saying why you chose its format, like the format example.
- 5. Mark the formats you have written, and check that you have at least two different ones.
- 6. Write down one thing you still need to find, such as an image, a sound or a clip, and one thing you will make yourself.
A plan only works if the order of its beats leads the viewer to its takeaway.
For each of the two plans in the activity below, your teacher will ask the class to agree on one decision: keep the order, swap two beats, or rewrite the takeaway so it matches the order. You will spend about 4 minutes on Plan A and 90 seconds on Plan B.
Then take 60 seconds on your own plan and check whether your order does the job your takeaway says. If it does not, circle one beat you would move, or rewrite your takeaway so it matches your order. When you are done, save your plan the class way.
Does the order do the job?
A montage plan is strong when four things are true. The interest is something you really care about, and the takeaway is one clear sentence that says who it is for. Each beat has a format you chose on purpose, and the order leads the viewer to the takeaway.
If your order and your takeaway do not match, fix one of them now rather than when you are busy building. Save your plan the class way, so the next lessons start from your plan and not from memory.
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