Using iMovie to explore Before, Now, and Next

Using iMovie to explore Before, Now, and Next
Photo by Terje Sollie from Pexels

Creating a movie trailer allows students to share many different skills or knowledge in a fun, creative way.  Offering a student a chance to share information in such a way as an iMovie
trailer, allows the student to script their thoughts, plan out the action of the video, and include creative techniques to tell the story.  When listing order in a sequence of events, an iMovie trailer can be a perfect way to use vocabulary such as before, after, next, first, and last.

Here’s an example of how you could go about this:

Step 1 – Make a Plan

Have the students make a plan by brainstorming their ideas on the below template.  You can make paper copies, or if you use Google Classroom, use this as a template to have them enter in their thoughts.  Make your copy here.

Step 2 – Make some Slides

Make a slide for each step in the process.  If the student has multiple ideas for steps, a different slide can be created for each idea.  You can make your slides in Google Slides, or in Keynote or PowerPoint.  Once the slides are made, export each slide as an image so you can easily import them into iMovie.  Make your copy here.

Step 3 – Take some video

Students should be encouraged to use video as an option to explain parts of the story.  iOS devices and Chromebooks both allow you to easily take video and even add simple effects to them.

Step 4 – Get it all together

So, now you have a few things:
  1. a Plan
  2. Some images to help guide your video
  3. Some video to insert into your overall video.
You’ll want to put all of these items in the same place.  You can choose to make a folder in Google Drive and upload/place all these items in the same folder (this is especially good if you are using iMovie on a Mac).  Or, you can choose to move all of these items into an album in your Photos app on your iPad (if you are using iMovie on your iPad).  Once you have all that together, you are ready to start putting together your video.

Step 5 – Make the trailer!

iMovie is a great, user-friendly tool to put together some simple movies.  Check out the below tutorials if you need some help or inspiration.

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