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NCTE Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

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NCTE Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

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Adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee, November 2008
By: National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), Student Television Network (STN), Media Commission of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME), and Visual Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA)

WHAT THIS IS
This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances - especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. It is a general right that applies even in situations where the law provides no specific authorization for the use in question - as it does for certain narrowly defined classroom activities.

This guide identifies five principles that represent the media literacy education community's current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials, wherever and however it occurs: in K-12 education, in higher education, in nonprofit organizations that offer programs for children and youth, and in adult education.

WHAT THIS ISN'T
This code of best practices does not tell you the limits of fair use rights. Instead, it describes how those rights should apply in certain recurrent situations. Educators' and students' fair use rights may, of course, extend to other situations as well.

It's not a guide to using material that people give the public permission to use, such as works covered by Creative Commons licenses. Anyone can use those works the way their owners authorize - although other uses may also be permitted under the fair use doctrine. Likewise, it is not a guide to the use of material that has been specifically licensed (by a school, for example), which may be subject to contractual limitations.

It's not a guide to material that is already free to use without considering copyright . For instance, all federal government works are in the public domain, as are many older works. For more information on "free use," consult the document " Yes, You Can! "

It's not a guide to using material that someone wants to license but cannot trace back to an owner - the so-called "orphan works" problem. However, orphan works are also eligible for fair use consideration, according to the principles detailed below.

And it does not address the problems created by the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which creates barriers to otherwise lawful fair uses of copyrighted materials that are available only in formats that incorporate technological protections measures (such as encryption).

HOW THIS DOCUMENT WAS CREATED
This code of best practices was created by convening ten meetings with more than 150 members of leading educational associations, including signatories to this document, and other educators across the United States. The process was coordinated by Profs. Renee Hobbs (Media Education Lab, Temple University), Peter Jaszi (Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Washington College of Law, American University) and Patricia Aufderheide (Center for Social Media, American University). The code of best practices was reviewed by a committee of legal scholars and lawyers expert in copyright and fair use. (Consult the end of this document for a complete list of signatories and members of the legal committee.)

MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION
Media literacy is the capacity to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms. This expanded conceptualization of literacy responds to the demands of cultural participation in the 21st century. Like literacy in general, media literacy includes both receptive and productive dimensions, encompassing critical analysis and communication skills, particularly in relationship to mass media, popular culture, and digital media. Like literacy in general, media literacy is applied in a wide variety of contexts - when watching television or reading newspapers, for example, or when posting commentary to a blog. Indeed, media literacy is implicated everywhere one encounters information and entertainment content. And like literacy in general, media literacy can be taught and learned.

Media literacy education may occur as a separate program or course but often it is embedded within other subject areas, including literature, history, anthropology, sociology, public health, journalism, communication, and education. It can occur in formal educational settings in both K-12 education and at the university level, as well as in nonprofit community-based programs. Its content may vary as well - from lessons designed to expose the mechanics of how language, images, sound, music, and graphic design operate as symbolic forms for transmitting meanings to exercises designed to reinforce these understandings through hands-on media making.

Media literacy education distinctively features the analytical attitude that teachers and learners, working together, adopt toward the media objects they study. The foundation of effective media analysis is the recognition that:

All media messages are constructed.

Each medium has different characteristics and strengths and a unique language of construction.

Media messages are produced for particular purposes.

All media messages contain embedded values and points of view.

People use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.

Media and media messages can influence beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, and the democratic process.

Making media and sharing it with listeners, readers, and viewers is essential to the development of critical thinking and communication skills. Feedback deepens reflection on one's own editorial and creative choices and helps students grasp the power of communication.

USE OF MEDIA IN EDUCATION vs. MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION
Teachers have always used texts, now including audiovisual and digital material, to convey facts and information. From time to time, the school is also a venue for entertainment, as when a film is screened to reward the class. These activities, however, are not media literacy education. Rather than transforming the media material in question, they use that content for essentially the same purposes for which it originally was intended - to instruct or to entertain. In many or even most cases, of course, these uses of media will not have significant copyright implications, either because the content in question has been licensed or because it is covered by one of the specific exemptions for teachers in Sections 110(1) and (2) of the Copyright Act (for "face-to-face" in the classroom and equivalent distance practices in distance education). Teachers involved in media literacy education may, of course, sometimes make use of licensed materials or take advantage of the provisions of Section 110. But this guide addresses another set of issues: the transformative uses of copyright materials in media literacy education that can flourish only with a robust understanding of fair use.

COPYRIGHT: A CONTENTIOUS CLIMATE New norms of information sharing - file sharing, downloading, podcasting - are emerging at the very moment when copyright owners are attempting to capture new revenue streams from various sources, including the "educational market." As documented in the report, " The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy," educators involved in media literacy feel uncertain in this new environment of heightened commodification. On the one hand, they sense that copyrighted material should be available for their activities and those of their learners, and that such availability has great social and cultural utility. But on the other, they are aware of the increased vigilance with which copyright owners are enforcing their rights. And their actual understanding of the subject is incomplete or even distorted. As a result, there is a climate of increased fear and confusion about copyright, which detracts from the quality of teaching. Lack of clarity reduces learning and limits the ability to use digital tools. Some educators close their classroom doors and hide what they fear is infringement; others hyper-comply with imagined rules that are far stricter than the law requires, limiting the effectiveness of their teaching and their students' learning.

FAIR USE AND EDUCATION
Educators and learners in media literacy often make uses of copyrighted materials that stand far outside the marketplace, for instance, in the classroom, at a conference, or within a school-wide or district-wide festival. Such uses, especially when they occur within a restricted-access network, do enjoy certain copyright advantages. As a practical matter, they may be less likely to be challenged by rights holders. More important, however, if challenged they would be more likely to receive special consideration under the fair use doctrine - because they occur within an educational setting.

From the beginnings of fair use in the courts, judges have drawn the connection between this special doctrine of copyright law and the central importance of education in the American republic. The word "education" appears prominently in the preamble to Section 107 of the current Copyright Act, where the doctrine is codified. In addition, educators who rely reasonably on fair use are insulated against statutory damages in Sec 504(c)(2). However, there have been no important court decisions - in fact, very few decisions of any kind - that actually interpret and apply the doctrine in an educational context. This means that educators who want to claim the benefits of fair use have a rare opportunity to be open and public about asserting the appropriateness of their practices and the justifications for them. This code is intended to support such assertions. It also means that educators seeking to arrive at a reasonable and balanced understanding of the doctrine, like the authors of this code, need to reason from first principles.

Law provides copyright protection to creative works in order to foster the creation of culture. Its best known feature is protection of owners' rights. But copying, quoting, and generally re-using existing cultural material can be, under some circumstances, a critically important part of generating new culture. In fact, the cultural value of copying is so well established that it is written into the social bargain at the heart of copyright law. The bargain is this: we as a society give limited property rights to creators to encourage them to produce culture; at the same time, we give other creators the chance to use that same copyrighted material, without permission or payment, in some circumstances. Without the second half of the bargain, we could all lose important new cultural work.

Copyright law has several features that permit quotations from copyrighted works without permission or payment, under certain conditions. Fair use is the most important of these features. It has been an important part of copyright law for more than 170 years. Where it applies, fair use is a user's right. In fact, as the Supreme Court has pointed out, fair use keeps copyright from violating the First Amendment. New creation inevitably incorporates existing material. As copyright protects more works for longer periods than ever before, creators face new challenges: licenses to incorporate copyrighted sources become more expensive and more difficulty to obtain - and sometimes are simply unavailable. As a result, fair use is more important today than ever before.

Copyright law does not exactly specify how to apply fair use, and that gives the fair use doctrine a flexibility that works to the advantage of users. Creative needs and practices differ with the field, with technology, and with time. Rather than following a specific formula, lawyers and judges decide whether an unlicensed use of copyrighted material is "fair" according to a "rule of reason." This means taking all the facts and circumstances into account to decide if an unlicensed use of copyrighted material generates social or cultural benefits that are greater than the costs it imposes on the copyright owner.

Fair use is flexible; it is not unreliable. In fact, for any particular field of critical or creative activity, lawyers and judges consider expectations and practice in assessing what is "fair" within that field. In weighing the balance at the heart of fair use analysis, judges refer to four types of considerations mentioned in the law: the nature of the use, the nature of the work used, the extent of the use, and its economic effect (the so-called "four factors"). This still leaves much room for interpretation, especially since the law is clear that these are not the only permissible considerations. So how have judges interpreted fair use? In reviewing the history of fair use litigation, we find that judges return again and again to two key questions:

Did the unlicensed use "transform" the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?

Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use?

If the answers to these two questions are "yes," a court is likely to find a use fair. Because that is true, such a use is unlikely to be challenged in the first place.

Both key questions touch on, among other things, the question of whether the use will cause excessive economic harm to the copyright owner. Courts have told us that copyright owners aren't entitled to an absolute monopoly over transformative uses of their works. By the same token, however, when a use supplants a copyright owner's core market, it is unlikely to be fair. Thus, for example, a textbook author cannot quote large parts of a competitor's book merely to avoid the trouble of writing her own exposition.

Another consideration underlies and influences the way in which these questions are analyzed: whether the user acted reasonably and in good faith, in light of general practice in his or her particular field. Media literacy educators' ability to rely on fair use will be enhanced by this code of best practices, which will serve as documentation of commonly held understandings drawn from the experience of educators themselves and supported by legal analysis. Thus, the code helps to show that the uses of copyrighted materials described here are reasonable and appropriate for the purposes of teaching and learning.

Fair use is in wide and vigorous use today in many professional communities. For example, historians regularly quote both other historians' writings and textual sources; filmmakers and visual artists use, reinterpret and critique copyright material, while scholars illustrate cultural commentary with textual, visual, and musical examples. Equally important is the example of commercial news media. Fair use is healthy and vigorous in daily broadcast television news, where references to popular films, classic TV programs, archival images, and popular songs are constant and routinely unlicensed.

In some cases professional communities have set forth their understandings in consensus documents, which may be useful to educators and learners if they are involved with these creative practices. For instance, documentary filmmakers have established their own code; so have film scholars, who routinely use popular films in their teaching; and now a code of best practices has been established for online video creators as well. Although professional groups create such codes, no one needs to be a member of a professional group to benefit from their interpretations. For instance, anyone who does media literacy education, in any circumstances, can usefully employ this code's principles.

THE TYRANNY OF GUIDELINES AND EXPERTS
Today, some educators mistakenly believe that the issues covered in the fair use principles below are not theirs to decide. They believe they must follow various kinds of "expert" guidance offered by others. In fact, the opposite is true. The various negotiated agreements that have emerged since passage of the Copyright Act of 1976 have never had the force of law, and in fact, the guidelines bear little relationship to the actual doctrine of fair use. Sadly, as legal scholar Kenneth Crews has demonstrated in "The Law of Fair Use Guidelines," The Ohio State Law Journal 62 (2001): 602-700, many publications for educators reproduce the guidelines uncritically, presenting them as standards that must be adhered to in order to act lawfully. Experts (often non-lawyers) give conference workshops for K-12 teachers, technology coordinators, and library or media specialists where these guidelines and similar sets of purported rules are presented with rigid, official-looking tables and charts. At the same time, materials on copyright for the educational community tend to overstate the risk of educators being sued for copyright infringement - and in some cases convey outright misinformation about the subject. In effect, they interfere with genuine understanding of the purpose of copyright - to promote the advancement of knowledge through balancing the rights of owners and users.

In fact, this is an area in which educators themselves should be leaders rather than followers. Often, they can assert their own rights under fair use to make these decisions on their own, without approval. In rare cases where doing so would bring them into conflict with misguided institutional policies, they should assert their rights and seek to have those policies changed. More generally, educators should share their knowledge of fair use rights with library and media specialists, technology specialists, and other school leaders to assure that their fair use rights are put into institutional practice.

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

GENERAL POINTS ABOUT PRINCIPLES
Through its five principles, this code of best practices identifies five sets of current practices in the use of copyrighted materials in media literacy education to which the doctrine of fair use clearly applies. These practices are associated with K-12 education, higher education, and in classes given by nonprofit organizations. When students or educators use copyrighted materials in their own creative work outside of an educational context, they can rely on fair use guidelines created by other creator groups, including documentary filmmakers and online video producers.

These principles apply to all forms of media. Depending on the instructional goal,
educators may use materials designed for entertainment and for persuasive or
advocacy purposes. They may use print, images, Web sites, moving-image media,
and sound media-in both analog and digital forms. In all cases, a digital copy is the
same as a hard copy in terms of fair use. Veteran teachers may keep clippings from
newspapers in manila file folders to use for media literacy education; younger ones
may store their materials as digital files. Functionally, their practices are identical.

The principles apply in institutional settings and to non-school-based programs. Media
literacy education may occur in university classrooms, in elementary schools, in
computer labs in community technology centers, or in after-school and summer camp
programs run by religious groups or nonprofit organizations. In addition to their fair
use rights, teachers in conventional schools enjoy the benefit of limited educational
exemptions under Section 110(1) and (2) of the Copyright Act. Educators in
community-based organizations may not be covered by these exemptions, but they
still can claim the right to use copyrighted materials under the doctrine of fair use.

The principles concern the unlicensed fair use of copyrighted materials for education, not the way those materials were acquired. When a user's copy was obtained illegally or in bad faith, that fact may affect fair use analysis. Otherwise, of course, where a use is fair, it is irrelevant whether the source of the content in question was a recorded over-the-air broadcast, a teacher's personal copy of a newspaper or a DVD, or a rented or borrowed piece of media. Labels on commercial media products proclaiming that they are "licensed for home [or private or educational or noncommercial] use only" do not affect in any way the educator's ability to make fair use of the contents-in fact, such legends have no legal effect whatsoever. (If a teacher is using materials subject to a license agreement negotiated by the school or school system, however, she may be
bound by the terms of that license.)

The principles are all subject to a "rule of proportionality." Educators' and students' fair
use rights extend to the portions of copyrighted works that they need to accomplish
their educational goals-and sometimes even to small or short works in their entirety.
By the same token, the fairness of a use depends, in part, on whether the user took
more than was needed to accomplish his or her legitimate purpose. That said, there are
no numerical rules of thumb that can be relied upon in making this determination.

PRINCIPLES

PRINCIPLE: Under fair use, educators using the concepts and techniques of media
literacy can choose illustrative material from the full range of copyrighted sources
and make them available to learners, in class, in workshops, in informal mentoring
and teaching settings, and on school-related Web sites.

LIMITATIONS: Educators should choose material that is germane to the project or
topic, using only what is necessary for the educational goal or purpose for which it
is being made. In some cases, this will mean using a clip or excerpt; in other cases,
the whole work is needed. Whenever possible, educators should provide proper
attribution and model citation practices that are appropriate to the form and context of use. Where illustrative material is made available in digital formats, educators should provide reasonable protection against third-party access and downloads.

TWO: Employing Copyrighted Materials in Preparing Curriculum Materials
DESCRIPTION: Teachers use copyrighted materials in the creation of lesson plans,
materials, tool kits, and curricula in order to apply the principles of media literacy
education and use digital technologies effectively in an educational context. These
materials often include clips, copies or examples of copyrighted work along with a
description of instructional practices, assignments, and assessment criteria. These
materials may include samples of contemporary mass media and popular culture as
well as older media texts that provide historical or cultural context.

PRINCIPLE: Under fair use, educators using the concepts and techniques of media
literacy can integrate copyrighted material into curriculum materials, including
books, workbooks, podcasts, DVD compilations, videos, Web sites, and other
materials designed for learning.

LIMITATIONS: Wherever possible, educators should provide attribution for quoted
material, and of course they should use only what is necessary for the educational
goal or purpose. The materials should meet professional standards for curriculum
development, with clearly stated educational objectives, a description of instructional
practices, assignments, and assessment criteria.

THREE: Sharing Media Literacy Curriculum Materials
DESCRIPTION: Media literacy curriculum materials always include copyrighted
content from mass media and popular culture. Informal sharing of these materials
occurs at educational conferences and through professional development programs,
as well by electronic means. Media literacy curriculum materials are also developed
commercially in collaboration with publishers or nonprofit organizations.

PRINCIPLE: Educators using concepts and techniques of media literacy should be able
to share effective examples of teaching about media and meaning with one another,
including lessons and resource materials. If curriculum developers are making sound decisions on fair use when they create their materials, then their work should be able to be seen, used, and even purchased by anyone-since fair use applies to commercial materials as well as those produced outside the marketplace model.

LIMITATIONS: In materials they wish to share, curriculum developers should be
especially careful to choose illustrations from copyrighted media that are necessary
to meet the educational objectives of the lesson, using only what furthers the
educational goal or purpose for which it is being made. Often this may mean using
a small portion, clip or excerpt, rather than an entire work, although sometimes it
may be permissible to use more-or even all. Curriculum developers should not
rely on fair use when using copyrighted third-party images or texts to promote their
materials. For promotional purposes, the permissions process is appropriate. In
addition, if a teacher or a school has specifically agreed to a license, then (of course)
its terms are likely to be binding-even if they impinge on what would otherwise be
considered fair use. And, of course, illustrative material should be properly attributed
wherever possible.

FOUR: Student Use of Copyrighted Materials in Their Own Academic and Creative Work
DESCRIPTION: Students strengthen media literacy skills by creating messages and
using such symbolic forms as language, images, sound, music, and digital media to
express and share meaning. In learning to use video editing software and in creating
remix videos, students learn how juxtaposition reshapes meaning. Students include
excerpts from copyrighted material in their own creative work for many purposes,
including for comment and criticism, for illustration, to stimulate public discussion,
or in incidental or accidental ways (for example, when they make a video capturing a
scene from everyday life where copyrighted music is playing).

PRINCIPLE: Because media literacy education cannot thrive unless learners themselves
have the opportunity to learn about how media functions at the most practical
level, educators using concepts and techniques of media literacy should be free to
enable learners to incorporate, modify, and re-present existing media objects in their
own classroom work. Media production can foster and deepen awareness of the
constructed nature of all media, one of the key concepts of media literacy. The basis
for fair use here is embedded in good pedagogy.

LIMITATIONS: Students' use of copyrighted material should not be a substitute for
creative effort. Students should be able to understand and demonstrate, in a manner
appropriate to their developmental level, how their use of a copyrighted work
repurposes or transforms the original. For example, students may use copyrighted
music for a variety of purposes, but cannot rely on fair use when their goal is simply
to establish a mood or convey an emotional tone, or when they employ popular songs
simply to exploit their appeal and popularity. Again, material that is incorporated
under fair use should be properly attributed wherever possible. Students should be
encouraged to make their own careful assessments of fair use and should be reminded
that attribution, in itself, does not convert an infringing use into a fair one.

FIVE: Developing Audiences for Student Work
DESCRIPTION: Students who are expected to behave responsibly as media creators
and who are encouraged to reach other people outside the classroom with their work
learn most deeply. Although some student media productions are simply learning
exercises designed to develop knowledge and skills, media literacy educators often
design assignments so that students have the opportunity to distribute their work.

PRINCIPLE: Educators should work with learners to make a reasoned decision
about distribution that reflects sound pedagogy and ethical values. In some
cases, widespread distribution of students' work (via the Internet, for example) is
appropriate. If student work that incorporates, modifies, and re-presents existing
media content meets the transformativeness standard, it can be distributed to wide
audiences under the doctrine of fair use.

LIMITATIONS: Educators and learners in media literacy often make uses of copyrighted works outside the marketplace, for instance in the classroom, a conference, or within a school-wide or district-wide festival. When sharing is confined to a delimited network, such uses are more likely to receive special consideration under the fair use doctrine.

Especially in situations where students wish to share their work more broadly (by distributing it to the public, for example, or including it as part of a personal portfolio), educators should take the opportunity to model the real-world permissions process, with explicit emphasis not only on how that process works, but also on how it affects media making. In particular, educators should explore with students the distinction between material that should be licensed, material that is in the public domain or otherwise openly available, and copyrighted material that is subject to fair use. The ethical obligation to provide proper attribution also should be examined. And students should be encouraged to understand how their distribution of a work raises other ethical and social issues, including the privacy of the subjects involved in the media production..

CONCLUSION
Most "copyright education" that educators and learners have encountered has been shaped by the concerns of commercial copyright holders, whose understandable concern about large-scale copyright piracy has caused them to equate any unlicensed use of copyrighted material with stealing. The situation has been compounded by the-again understandable-risk-aversion of school system administrators and lawyers. So-called fair use guidelines that institutional stakeholders have negotiated with some copyright holders have had similar results, intensifying fear and creating confusion among educators. These approaches have not responded directly to the actual needs of educators and learners, nor have they fully expressed or recognized the legal rights that educators and learners have.

This code of best practices, by contrast, is shaped by educators for educators and the learners they serve, with the help of legal advisors. As an important first step in reclaiming their fair use rights, educators should employ this document to inform their own practices in the classroom and beyond. The next step is for educators to communicate their own learning about copyright and fair use to others, both through practice and through education. Learners mastering the concepts and techniques of media literacy need to learn about the important rights that all new creators, including themselves, have under copyright to use existing materials. Educators also need to share their knowledge and practice with critically important institutional allies and colleagues, such as librarians and school administrators.

COMMON MYTHS ABOUT FAIR USE

MYTH: Fair Use Is Too Unclear and Complicated for Me; It's Better Left to Lawyers and Administrators.
Truth: The fair use provision of the Copyright Act is written broadly - not narrowly - because it is designed to apply to a wide range of creative works and the people who use them. Fair use is a part of the law that belongs to everyone - especially to working educators. Educators know best what they need to use of existing copyrighted culture to construct their own lessons and materials. Only members of the actual community can decide what's really needed. Once they know, they can tell their lawyers and administrators.

MYTH: School System Rules Are the Last Word of Fair Use by Educators.
Truth : If your school system's rules let you do everything you need to do, you certainly don't need this code. But if you need to exercise your fair use rights to get your work done well, in ways that your system's rules don't foresee, that's a different story. In that case, the code may help you change the rules! Many school policies are based on so-called negotiated fair use guidelines, as discussed above. In their implementation of those guidelines, systems tend to confuse a limited "safe harbor" zone of absolute security for the entire range of possibility fair use makes available.

MYTH: If I'm Not Making Any Money Off It, It's Fair Use. (And If I Am Making Money Off It, It's Not.)
Truth: "Noncommercial use" can be a plus in fair use analysis, but its scope is hard to define. If educators or learners want to share their work only with a class (or another defined, closed group) they are in a favorable position. However, some more public uses may be unfair even if no money is exchanged. So if work is going to be shared widely, it is good to be able to rely on transformativeness. As the cases show, a transformative
new work can be highly commercial in intent and effect and qualify under the fair use doctrine.

Coordinators:
The Media Education Lab, founded by Professor Renee Hobbs, improves media literacy education through scholarship and community service. The lab is a project of the School of Communications and Theater at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, led by Dean Concetta Stewart.

The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, led by Professor Peter Jaszi, promotes social justice in law governing information dissemination and intellectual property through research, scholarship, public events, advocacy, and provision of legal and consulting services. The program is a project of the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C., led by Dean Claudio Grossman.

The Center for Social Media, led by Professor Patricia Aufderheide, showcases and analyzes media for social justice, civil society, and democracy, and the public environment that nurtures them. The center is a project of the School of Communication, led by Dean Larry Kirkman, at American University in Washington, D.C.

Signatories:
Action Coalition for Media Education: A member-supported, independent, nonprofit educational coalition of educators, students, health professionals, journalists, media makers, parents, activists, and other citizens.

Media Education Foundation: Produces and distributes films, study guides, and other teaching materials that examine the impact of media on society.

National Association for Media Literacy Education: Formerly Alliance for a Media Literate America, a national membership organization dedicated to advancing the practice of media literacy education in the United States.

National Council of Teachers of English: A 60,000-member international organization devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education.

Visual Communication Studies Division of the International Communication Association: A division examining visual representation in all its forms, within an academic association for scholars interested in the study of communication with more
than 3,500 members in 65 countries.

Legal Advisory Board:
Jamie B. Bischoff
Ballard Spahr Andrews and Ingersoll LLP
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Robert W. Clarida
Cowan, Liebowitz, and Latman, P.C.
New York, New York

Kenneth D. Crews
Copyright Advisory Office
Columbia University
New York, New York

Michael J. Madison
University of Pittsburgh
School of Law
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Jennifer Urban
Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with Feel free to reproduce this work in its entirety. For excerpts and quotations, depend upon fair use. additional support from the Ford Foundation through the Future of Public Media Project.

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Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education - NCTE

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Adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee, November 2008 By: National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), Student Television Network (STN), Media Commission of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME), and Visual Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA) WHAT THIS IS This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use.

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The first Academy Awards ceremony was held during this week in 1929. To celebrate this milestone, here are some resources for using movies to support the literacy learning in the classroom.

The Language Arts article " Let's Go to the Movies: Rethinking the Role of Film in the Elementary Classroom " argues that elementary language arts teachers should expand their definition of "text" to include film, a valuable instructional resource. The article notes that today's elementary students come to class with a great deal of knowledge about films - prior experiences which teachers can tap into - and discusses the application of reader-response theories to film.

Based on the above Language Arts article, the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies asks students to compare and contrast books with their movie counterparts and then work in groups to design a readers theater response to the film version.

Ask students to play the role of moviemakers with techniques from the Voices from the Middle article " Meeting Readers: Using Visual Literacy Narratives in the Classroom ". The article describes a literacy narrative project - a concise digital video in which students meld still images, motion, print text, and soundtrack in communicating ideas/insights/discoveries about who they are as readers and writers.

Students take on the role of film director in the ReadWriteThink.org lesson
You Know the Movie Is Coming - Now What?. After exploring cinematic terms, students read a literary work with a director's eyes, considering such issues as which scenes require a close-up of the main character and when the camera should zoom out to see the entire set.

The English Journal article " How Movies Work for Secondary School Students with Special Needs " demonstrates how to use scenes from films to help special education students improve their visual and auditory skills, build confidence in their abilities to talk about and analyze the components of a narrative, and feel comfortable engaging in writing and class discussion.

In the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film, students view and analyze clips from The Matrix and other dystopian films to gain an understanding of the characteristics found in dystopian works, such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.

Research has shown that contemporary popular films are a valuable resource in the ESL classroom, but what about older films? The Teaching English in the Two-Year College article " Unspoken Content: Silent Film in the ESL Classroom " explores how overlooked silent films can facilitate the development of ESL students' critical thinking and writing skills.

Teacher educators can challenge students to explore how educators are represented in movies and television shows. Share the English Journal article " Teaching English in the World: All I Need to Know about Teaching I Learned from TV and Movies " with preservice teachers and ask them to film their own revised versions of the real life of teachers in the classroom. Encourage discussion of ways to counter flawed visions of the profession locally and at state and national levels.

How do you use film in your classroom?

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Using Film as a Tool in the Classroom - NCTE

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The first Academy Awards ceremony was held during this week in 1929. To celebrate this milestone, here are some resources for using movies to support the literacy learning in the classroom.

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#1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys

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#1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys

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So you want to make your own movie for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival! But maybe you've never made a movie before. Where to start?

The first step is easy: watch lots of 90-Second Newbery movies! By examining good submissions from previous years, you can get a better idea what is possible and what works best . . . and you'll get ideas for your own work.

I've chosen eighteen 90-Second Newbery movies for you to watch. I'll point out how each one illustrates certain filmmaking tricks and techniques. There are hundreds of little things to know when making a movie. The best way to learn them is just to wade right in. Don't worry, I'll guide you through it and make it easy and fun. (And it's not like you have to watch all of them, just choose the ones that look interesting to you.)

Here's an idea: for each movie, try writing down something that made you laugh, or impressed you, or gave you an idea of what you could do in your own movie. Or even something you think you could do better! What was the "Holy Cow!" moment in each movie-the thing in the movie that you will remember and talk about after you see it?

Most importantly: what will be the "Holy Cow!" moment be in your movie?

Okay, let's start:

What Can We Learn From This?

Take advantage of the cut. In film, a "cut" is a transition from one shot to another. This movie is only 90 seconds long, but there are 25 cuts! So don't just turn on the camera and do the whole movie in one long continuous take (unless you're doing that for a specific artistic reason). Every time the camera cuts between one shot and the next, it gives the viewer a jolt of energy. Take advantage of that! (Plus, if you're cutting back and forth between two characters talking to each other, you can use those cuts to make the conversation snappier, eliminating silence between spoken lines and selecting the best version of each spoken line.)

Use a variety of shots. There are so many different kinds of shots in this movie: close-up, medium shot, long shot, over-the-shoulder, handheld, etc. By mixing up the types of shots, you can grab and sustain viewer interest. Here is a useful primer on different kinds of shots.

Move the camera around! The camera is often on the move here: following Meg and Charles as they run outside, panning to reveal Meg's father, "pushing in" from Meg and Calvin in the foreground to the witches in the background, etc. Don't be afraid to move the camera, it can bring a lot of energy to a shot!

Compose your shots. In this movie, it's clear they didn't just turn on the camera and point it any which way. The shots are carefully thought out and composed. In a future post, I'll do a more detailed breakdown of the cinematography of this adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, including explanations of the Rule of Thirds, camera placement, movement within the frame, and more.

What Can We Learn From This?

Give your movie a strong twist that will transform the story. You can make your movie much more interesting by retelling the story in the style of a different genre-like a musical, or a silent movie, or a horror movie, or even another movie or musical (like Star Wars or Hamilton). Here, Charlotte's Web is done in the style of the opening credits of a 1970s superhero TV show, with the "Spider-Man" theme song rewritten such that the lyrics tell the story of Wilbur, Charlotte, and all their friends.

Keep your actors on the move. There is a lot of action in this movie: jumping, fighting, and running around. That's much more fun to watch than people standing around talking.

Speed it up! Slow it down! Go backwards! This movie uses fun tricks to make the movement even more compelling. For instance, trampolines were used to get "super jumps." In other places, the footage was reversed, sped up, and slowed down to make feats look superhuman. Such editing trickery is easy to do in standard editing software like iMovie.

Make cool costumes. If you're just wearing your everyday clothes, or worse yet, if everyone in the cast is just wearing identical school uniforms, it doesn't feel like a movie anymore, but just a boring school assignment. Wear something flashy and eye-catching that people will like to look at.

Find a good location. Charlotte's Web takes place on a farm, so this group shot their movie at a barnyard. You might not have access to a barnyard, but you probably can go outside, right? It sure beats shooting in the corner of the library, or in a classroom. (In general, outdoors locations are often more compelling than indoors locations.)

Start with a bang! This movie began with a door getting kicked open, and two masked faces popping out of a treehouse! A kinetic, active beginning like that really draws in the audience. Give your movie a "wow!" beginning-a compelling image or extreme action in the first few seconds to grab the viewers' attention.

What Can We Learn From This?

Consider doing an offbeat book. The Story of Mankind is the very first Newbery Medal winner, and few people read it anymore. That makes it a unique choice for a movie! I encourage you to adapt an older or lesser-known book. You'll stand out from the crowd, and anyway it's interesting to read weird older books.

Consider using a different medium. You don't have to do your movies live-action. This group used stop-motion Claymation for their movie! It's time-consuming to create, yes, but very satisfying to watch. Think about what unique medium you can use for your movie: a puppet show, an animated short, a Minecraft movie, a one-person show, a movie in the style of a side-scrolling video game...

Make use of rhythm. This movie sets up a consistent rhythm, with the same musical riff punctuating comical bits that each last only a few seconds. With this rhythm, the audience is "trained" to expect a new historical period, a new visual, and a new "joke" every 4-5 seconds. The sequences of "Crusades" jokes works precisely because of the established rhythm (notice how the rhythm speeds up as the "Crusades" joke nears its conclusion). Great use of pacing!

Sound is important. Don't neglect sound. In particular, a well-placed sound effect can really make a scene work. For instance, the Super Mario Brothers sound effect during the "evolution" bit makes the joke.

What Can We Learn From This?

With a silent movie, sound becomes easier. Sound is one of the most difficult things to get right. What if there's bad sound on the set? What if you're shooting outside and wind muffles all the lines? What if everyone's speech turns out to be inaudible? This group gets around such problems by telling the story in the style of a silent movie. With a silent movie, you don't have to worry about flubbed lines, or bad sound on the set, or fussing with sound in post-production.

You can use the conventions of silent movies to tell the story. If you're making an old-fashioned black-and-white movie, you can speed up the footage to achieve that "olde-tymey" effect, which of course makes the movie shorter. And silent movies also often have title cards that break up the action and can explain the plot in an efficient way.

Tell your story in images more than words. This point goes for normal movies and silent movies both. Make sure you tell your story visually, with striking images and action. People standing around and talking does not make for a good movie! Think about Star Wars-even with the sound off, you can understand what's happening in the story. Make sure you feature in your movie big physical actions (fights! chases! arguments!), with interesting costumes, lots of props, outsized emotions, and fun-to-look-at locations (outdoors is usually better than indoors). Movies are different than books-they're not about the words, they're about images moving on the screen. Making your 90-Second Newbery in the style of a silent movie can help you develop your visual storytelling skills.

What Can We Learn From This?

Use green screen. Outdoor locations are preferable to indoor locations. But what if you're stuck indoors, and you still want your movie to look great? No problem: do your scenes in front of a green screen! Green screens are pretty cheap to buy online-just some green fabric in the background-and in a pinch, you can even use green butcher paper. Then use Apple's iMovie, Microsoft's Moviemaker, or almost every other movie editing program to substitute an image or a video in for the background of your scene.

Supplement your green screen. Notice how the filmmakers added props on the set to supplement the green screen's background image: for instance, in the graveyard scene, there is the green screen background of a graveyard, but there are also gravestone props in front of the green screen. That helps the scene feel three-dimensional, and less obviously a green screen.

Don't forget to vary those shots! When you use green screen, there's a temptation to make every shot more or less the same: a full-body shot of two or three characters standing and talking in front of the green screen backdrop. Make sure you still vary the shots, putting in closeups, over-the-shoulder shots, etc. In this movie, check out the very effective "insert" shots: of a hand on a doorknob, feet walking up stairs, a knife raised in the air, etc. You can very build a evocative scene through a lot of little details like that!

Pay special attention to sound. Note the creepy music throughout (taken from the soundtrack to the horror movie Under the Skin), the sound effects, and slowed-down voices (for the ghouls) and the sped-up voice (for the Sleer). All of this was done in iMovie using the built-in audio tools, nothing fancy or expensive! But even more important, notice how all the dialogue is super clear. We can understand every word that is being said. If you need to dub in dialogue later to make muffled dialogue clearer, do it!

Special effects don't have to be expensive to be effective. This movie was very resourceful in its special effects. All they needed was an off-the-shelf vampire costume, some scary masks, and some face makeup to get a great result. The tentacles of the stuffed animal "Sleer" were operated by strings pulled by kids just off-camera. And the lights flashing on and off were pretty scary . . . but the effect was accomplished by just flipping an everyday light switch on and off rapidly!

What Can We Learn From This?

Consider doing a musical. Musicals are always popular, if they're done well! But a bad musical is painful to watch. A good musical is going to mean a lot of hard work. Make sure your lyrics are super tight: every line should either push the story forward, express an emotion, or be funny (ideally, all three at once!). You can write your own music, but it's also OK to just change the words to existing songs, like this Ramona and Her Father (find a "karaoke" version of the song online and record the performer singing along with that). Extra points if your rewritten song ironically undermines the spirit of the original song: in this movie, Pharrell Williams's "Happy" is rewritten such that every character sings about what's making them miserable!

If you're doing a musical, pre-record your songs. Don't try to actually sing the song for real on set. Record your song beforehand and get it perfect. Then, play that recording while you're shooting the video part, and have the actors lip-synch along with it. Then, in post-production, just lay that audio track you'd recorded earlier over the video you shot. The audio quality will be much better, and you won't have to do as many takes.

If you're doing a musical, add subtitles for the lyrics. It can be a little tedious to do, but it's worth it, because sometimes it's hard to understand sung lyrics. Any standard movie-editing software has the capability.

What Can We Learn From This?

Shoot a lot of footage and take advantage of it in the editing room. When you're on set, shoot a lot of reaction shots and multiple takes from different angles. It will come in handy in the editing room! For instance, while editing this movie, the filmmakers realized they needed shots of Beezus's and Mrs. Quimby's exasperated reactions to James Bond's "It seems I've carved out a place for myself in this family" pun, but nothing was shot! So they used footage that was randomly caught on camera in another scene, and spliced that in for the reaction shots. Same when "Blofeld" is laughing in reaction to James Bond's despair-that was actually just the actor cracking up when he thought the camera wasn't rolling.

What Can We Learn From This?

Make your genre twist share something in common with the story. Here's another example of a great genre twist on the original material. What could be more opposite to the mild domestic animal caper of Mr. Popper's Penguins than a brutal zombie apocalypse? And yet the two stories share something in common: whether the story is about penguins or zombies, either way it's about a faceless, all-consuming horde. Sometimes the choice of genre can bring out aspects of the original story you never noticed before!

Explore aspects of the story the original book leaves unexplored. The original book doesn't have much to say about the Poppers' marriage. But surely Mrs. Popper would be exasperated by Mr. Popper's unrepentant penguin-mongering. This movie gets some good comedy out of that tension by showing Mrs. Popper's increasing impatience and disgust with Mr. Popper. Find the unsaid or unexplored thing from the original book and say it, explore it!

Sometimes it's okay for your movie to go completely crazy, if it's still in the spirit of the book. Obviously, in the original book the penguins never rampage through New York, blow up the Statue of Liberty, or feast on human flesh. That said, the penguins do get in enough trouble to land in jail, just as they do here. Find a way to tell your story that honors what's in the book, while still fulfilling your genre twist and making the story your own.

Make each scene have a cause-and-effect relationship with the next scene. The movie has some very effective transitions that keep the story moving. Mr. Popper says "The way we can feed them is by putting on a penguin show"-and then we cut straight to the penguin show! Try to sequence your scenes like this as much as you can: each scene logically leading to the next scene by easy-to-understand cause and effect.

You don't have to spend a lot of money on costumes, just be clever! The penguin costumes in this movie were created with nothing more than white and orange paper, black shirts, and some white T-shirts that were cut out into a bib. Simple, and yet they look great (and kind of creepy)!

What Can We Learn From This?

Um, think twice before making a movie of The Giver? This video happens to be a brilliant adaptation of The Giver. But let me be frank. If you're thinking of making a 90-Second Newbery of The Giver, please reconsider. Every year the 90-Second Newbery receives dozens of adaptations of The Giver, more than any other book by far. After a while, they all run together in my mind. And it's not fun if an entire 90-Second Newbery screening is just different movies of the same book! You're more likely to be featured in a live screening if you don't do The Giver. (That said, this particular movie is amazing.)

What Can We Learn From This?

A clever enough idea can carry a whole movie. Although eye-catching costumes, skillful sound design, and even green screen visuals are all great, there's no substitute for a truly clever idea. For this movie, the clever idea is that almost every line of Bridge to Terabithia functions as a melodramatic "ominous foreshadowing" of the death of its beloved manic pixie dream girl character Leslie at the end. Notice this idea only really works because of the horror-movie musical riff than keeps getting played every time ominous foreshadowing happens, which clues the audience in on the nature of the joke. This is another one of those jokes that gets funnier the more frequently and quickly it happens.

When it comes to acting, go big! You only have 90 seconds, so there's not much time for subtlety. Go big for your acting choices! Notice that in this movie everyone really commits to their acting. Nobody is doing it halfway. Nobody is mumbling or acting embarrassed of their movie. They're all committing to it 100% and that's why it works.

Use rhythms in your scenes! I referred to the rhythm of scenes in the Story of Mankind notes above. Same thing here: the "ominous foreshadowing" musical riff that keeps getting played sets up a joke that gets funnier the more you repeat it.

What Can We Learn From This?

Try making your movie with puppets. Making the movie with puppets means everything is shot on a smaller scale, which gives you an excellent opportunity to totally control what you're shooting. Sets are easier to make and puppet movement is easier to control.

Film the puppets first, dub in the dialog later. When you're working with puppets, you don't have to worry about sound on set because you can always dub in all the dialog later. That makes it much easier, since it's hard to get sound right on set.

Take advantage of the physical comedy and crazy movements puppets can do. This movie makes the puppets do all kinds of ridiculous things: climbing a mountain, running top speed through a forest, squeezing through a door, and more. It's fascinating to watch! So if you're making a movie with puppets, then for the love of Pete, don't just have the puppets stand there and talk. Take the opportunity to make the puppets leap, run, dance, and do all kinds of exaggerated movements.

What Can We Learn From This?

Don't be afraid to switch the genders, or even the species, of characters! The original Frog and Toad are two male amphibian bachelors. But this adaptation makes them into young human lovers, one male, one female. And the movie is much more interesting for it.

Tell your story with actions and images. Not a single word is spoken in this movie, and the song is all in French, and yet we know exactly what is going on. Learn how to tell your story visually, and your movie will be much more watchable than if it were just a bunch of people standing around talking about the plot.

Be bold and make extreme aesthetic choices. This movie reimagines a cozy tale of two amphibian bachelors into a frisky French music video about young lovers. That's creative, and it totally transforms the story! Stretch yourself to find unique angles on the material like this one, even if (or especially when) it strongly contrasts with the book you are adapting.

What Can We Learn From This?

Take advantage of cheap and easy special effects. There are a lot of special effects in this movie-lasers, explosions, even swinging light sabers! Seems hard to do, right? Must've cost some serious money? Absolutely not! It was all accomplished with a piece of software called SaberFX that's only $24.99!! You can do special effects, too!

If you're going to do something in the style of another movie or franchise, make sure you fulfill the "promise of the premise." Just as with the Ramona and Her Father done in the style of James Bond movie above, if you're going to do it in Star Wars style, you must fulfill the "promise of the premise" and include as many Star Wars tropes as possible: the opening crawl, the John Williams music, a lightsaber battle, aliens, spaceships, and Star Wars quotes and references. The more you tell the story in terms of the genre choice, the more satisfying it will be.

Make bold acting choices. You only have a few minutes to make an impression. Go broad with your acting. Notice how excitable and frantic the prince character is, and how monotone and phlegmatic the droid is. Use vivid contrasts to make different characters distinguishable!

Your movie's too long? It better be good. Yes, this movie is a little too long for a 90-Second Newbery, but the judges will cut slack for longer pieces if they're truly ambitious and inventive.

What Can We Learn From This?

Get artistic. This movie is done entirely in elaborate shadow puppets. Shadow puppets are hard to make and manipulate, but they are quite beautiful, and you can get lots of cool effects!

Take advantage of what puppets can do. If you're using puppets, you have freedoms that you don't have with live-action. You can totally control the image we see, since you're making all the characters and sets yourself. So make sure your puppets are always doing something interesting. Again, a puppet show doesn't mean you can just have long shots of pieces of paper twitch around while you mumble off-camera. Make it visually interesting!

Cut, cut, cut the story. Lots of the original story got thrown out the window in order to keep this movie down to just 90 seconds. That's OK! This movie still tells the main story very well! You have to be merciless in editing down the material.

What Can We Learn From This?

Consider adapting a book of poetry. Some Newbery-winning books aren't stories, but rather books of poetry like this one. Poetry makes for good 90-Second Newberys because they're short and open to interpretation.

You can do a lot with puppets! Again, these kids took advantage of the fact that, with puppets, you have total control over your set. They built a "forest" and created all the animals themselves, and moved the camera around that set. Notice also how the camera and "animals" are always MOVING. Nobody wants to watch some motionless paper, no matter how beautifully drawn and crafted.

What Can We Learn From This?

Try writing your own songs! In the musical of Ramona and Her Father above, all of the songs were takeoffs of existing songs. With this musical, however, all the songs are original! This might be your chance to try your hand at your own songwriting.

Costumes matter. The more extreme and eye-catching the costumes, the better! It proves that you spent time on the movie, and reassures the viewer that this movie will be worth watching.

What Can We Learn From This?

You can switch your medium in the middle of the movie. In this movie, some scenes are done live-action with green screen, and some scenes are done with handmade model boats, oceans, whales and horses. But it all works together. Don't be afraid to switch from one medium to another in the middle of the movie.

Fight! Fight! Fight! If there's a physical fight in the book, definitely feature it in the movie! People love to watch fights!

What Can We Learn From This?

Make your movie in Minecraft! Making your movie in Minecraft allows so many great possibilities. For zero budget, you can make amazing things in Minecraft that it would be almost impossibly expensive and time-consuming to construct in real life. So if you're going to use Minecraft, the judges will expect you to take full advantage of the freedom it gives you. Exploit the vast scale of the world, and make use of the various interesting objects you can craft, and the creatures you can generate. Your movie should never be just a bunch of characters standing around talking! In Minecraft, you can make anything, and you can put the camera anywhere you want, and you can control that world utterly . . . so take advantage of that, and wow the audience!

That's all for Step 1 of "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery." In the next post, we'll talk about choosing a Newbery-winning book, reading it, figuring out your own unique twist on the material, and marshaling the resources you need to make a great movie.

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How To Make A 90-Second Newbery, Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys

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So you want to make your own movie for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival! But maybe you've never made a movie before. Where to start? The first step is easy: watch lots of 90-Second Newbery...

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How To Make A 90-Second Newbery, Step 2: Read The Book And Start Planning

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This is Step Two in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. Click here to read "Step One: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys." So you want to make your own movie ...

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#3: Breaking Your Story and Writing Your Script

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#3: Breaking Your Story and Writing Your Script

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This is the third step in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. If you haven't already, check out Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys and Step 2: Read The Book And Start Planning.

You're ready to start the process of making your 90-Second Newbery video. You've watched previous successful 90-Second Newberys ( Step 1). You've read the book, figured out a good "twist," and pulled together some resources to make the movie happen ( Step 2). What next?

You've got to write that script! With a solid script in hand, you have a much better chance of making a great movie.

In this post, I'll start with some particular nuts-and-bolts advice on how to write a 90-Second Newbery script. Then I'll expand the focus to give general advice on story structure that might prove useful.

So, let's dive into advice on writing that script!

Wait, what's a script? Maybe you've never written a script before. What does a script even look like? The good news is that it doesn't matter if you do it "right" or "wrong." This script is just for you and your group. The movie is the final product. That's the only thing that really matters. A script is just a shared document that everyone can use to plan the movie.

Here is the shooting script that was used for the Wrinkle in Time 90-Second Newbery. Read it. It should be self-explanatory. (The only thing that might be mysterious are those scene headings. For those, INT means that the scene is shot indoors, and EXT means the scene is shot outdoors.)

Notice that the script is only 2 pages long. If your script is longer than 2 pages, your movie will probably be over 90 seconds. To be honest, that's okay. We have some great "90-Second" Newberys that are actually 3 or 4 minutes long. But as a goal, you should at least try for 90 seconds. The movie will always end up running longer than you think it will.

Write a terrible first draft. I advise you jump right in. Take your first whack at writing the script, with the format of that Wrinkle in Time script as your guide. Don't worry if your first draft is terrible or too long or unfunny or unoriginal. JUST GET A FIRST DRAFT DONE. You can worry about making it good later. You might even end up throwing away that first draft and starting over. That's fine! Every time you write, you're learning.

The "twist" you decided on in Step 2 will be crucial. It will give you the inspiration and direction to write this script. Maybe you will find, in writing the script, that the original "twist" you came up with doesn't work. That's fine! Throw out that twist and think up another! We're early in the process, nothing is set in stone yet.

Make sure your script has a strong start. Kick off your movie with a visual situation that is fun or compelling or scary or weird! You've only got a few seconds to grab the viewer, so make those first few seconds count!

If writing a script beginning-to-end intimidates you, give yourself permission to write fragments out of order. Think of some "holy cow!" moments, some jokes, some scene ideas based on your twist. Once you have a lot of them, THEN think of ways to string them together.

Remember that movies are a visual medium. They're about images, not words. Your script shouldn't be of a bunch of people standing around talking, explaining the plot. As much as your story allows, your script should be chock-full of physical action, high-drama moments with lots of emotion, lots of scene changes to different interesting locations and costumes. You may be helped by what we learned from the movies we watched in Step 1-cinematic techniques like voiceover, green screen, special effects, shot composition, camera movement, etc.

Don't be afraid to change the original story from the book. You only have 90 seconds to work with, so it's unavoidable you'll have to cut out a lot. It's OK to merge two characters into one, drop subplots, change the order of events, etc. And if your changes are in service of the genre twist (think of the James Bond version of Ramona and Her Father, or the zombie version of Mr. Popper's Penguins), then all the better!

Once you've knocked together a terrible first draft, have everyone in your group look at it and offer suggestions on how to make it less terrible. After you've taken those suggestions, give your edited-but-still-terrible first draft to someone who isn't even in the group, someone who hasn't even read the book. What do they think? Does the script make sense to them? Or is it truly terrible?

Oh no! My terrible first draft really is terrible! That's okay, it's supposed to be terrible. What, did you think you'd write something perfect off the top of your head? That's not how creativity works. You must embrace the possibility of writing garbage in order to free yourself to find the good stuff. A bad first draft is better than no draft at all.

Let's put that terrible first draft aside for a moment. Forget about it for now. Let's look at the original story again.

The number one problem I see in bad 90-Second Newbery movies is that the movies make no sense. I mean literally no sense, like it's impossible to tell what's going on. This happens because the filmmakers try to cram too much plot into a short movie. They don't know which scenes to keep and which to discard. And the scenes aren't linked to each other in a storylike way. They just all feel like disconnected bits that have nothing to do with each other.

How do you avoid that fate? After all, it's easy for these movies to get confusing and incoherent, because so much story info is being smooshed into such a short timeframe.

Luckily, there's a great method.

Discover the "beats" of the story, and determine how each is linked with the magic words therefore or but. I didn't invent this next piece of advice. I learned it from the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They explain it better than I can in this video.

In case you can't watch that video, I'll explain it here and point out how it relates to the 90-Second Newbery.

In order to keep our story feeling like a story, we must always make sure our audience understands what is happening in the story, and why it is happening. Otherwise, the audience will be bored or confused.

The good news is that you already have a good story. After all, the book you're adapting won a Newbery Medal or Honor. So the fundamentals of its structure are probably sound. Your story has good "bones." So let's take a closer look at that story.

To get a grip on what you need to write, try writing out the "beats" of the original story-the important actions that cause big changes.

For instance, in A Wrinkle in Time . . .

1. Teenager Meg is dissatisfied with her life, especially that her Dad is missing
2. Meg hangs out with her little brother Charles Wallace and they meet friendly witches
3. Meg and Charles Wallace discover their Dad is being held on another planet
4. The friendly witches take them to the other planet

. . . and so on.

Once you've written out the "beats" of the story, try to find a way in your script to link each beat to the next beat by cause-and-effect. That means, many of the beats of the story should somehow cause the next beat to happen. Beat 1 happens, therefore Beat 2 happens. "Bob heard a noise outside, therefore he went to investigate." "Susan saw the monster coming, therefore she hid behind the tree."

You won't be able to do it in every beat. That's because sometimes the beats aren't linked by cause-and-effect, but rather an unexpected resistance or complication. That is: Beat 1 happens, but Beat 2 happens. "Caroline wanted to buy an apple, but the grocery store was closed." "Sam wanted to ask Lisa to the dance, but Lisa told Sam she was already going with Zack."

Alert! Here's what doesn't work in a story: Beat 1 happens, and then Beat 2 happens. A story fails when too many beats lack a "therefore" or "but" connection, but are simply one thing after another. "I went into the basement and then my dog died and then my dad made pasta for dinner and then aliens blew up the world." All these incidents in isolation might be interesting, but they're not related to each other in any story-like way, and so the audience will get confused and unhappy and bored.

To sum up: write your script such that as many story beats as possible can be connected to the next by the word therefore or but, and not merely and then. It will make the story easier to understand-and don't be afraid to change the story a little in order to make these links clearer!

By the way, you will definitely have to discard some of the original beats of the story in order to make a short movie. Our version of A Wrinkle in Time completely drops the Happy Medium, Aunt Beast, Sandy and Dennys, the Man with Red Eyes, the trip to Uriel, and more. And then it stitches the remaining beats together, connecting them with therefore (Charles Wallace hears a noise outside, therefore he and Meg go outside) or but (Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin tesser to Camazotz, but their way is blocked by a basketball-playing robot) with a minimum of and then.

Again, you can see Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park explain this insight in this video.

Another way of organizing your story: Dan Harmon's "Story Circle." Here's writing advice from another successful TV writer, Dan Harmon (the showrunner of the NBC sitcom Community and the co-creator of the Cartoon Network's Rick and Morty). I'm offering it not because your script necessarily has to follow this scheme, but because it's another helpful way to think about story structure, and it might help your script.

Dan Harmon adapted his "Story Circle" from the anthropologist Joseph Campbell's idea of "The Hero's Journey." I, in turn, am going to adapt my explanation from Dan Harmon's own essay, which you can read here (warning, there is some salty language): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

In the "Story Circle," many stories can be broken down into seven simple steps:

1. A character is in a zone of comfort

2. But they want something.

3. They enter an unfamiliar situation,

4. Adapt to it,

5. Get what they wanted,

6. Pay a heavy price for it,

7. Then return to their familiar situation,

8. Having changed.

You can arrange these steps around a circle, like so:

Let's look at these steps one-by-one in the context of some Newbery-winning books and well-known movies, and see how that knowledge can be used in making your video. Then we'll observe how these steps are fulfilled in a classic 90-Second Newbery video.

1. "You" - ESTABLISH A PROTAGONIST

In your movie, you need to make it clear as quickly as possible who the protagonist of the story is. If not, the audience will get frustrated watching a bunch of different characters of confusingly equal importance. If the audience can get inside a specific character, then they can get inside the story.

In Star Wars, we don't meet Luke Skywalker until 20 minutes into the movie. But you only have around 90 seconds! So your hero must be the first person the audience sees, or one of the first. Have that hero say a line or do something interesting in character right away. Make the hero's name clear as quickly as possible.

In A Wrinkle In Time, we start with Meg worrying in bed during a storm. In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, we immediately meet Mrs. Frisby and learn she is the head of a family of field mice living in a farmer's garden. In From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, we learn in the first sentence that Claudia is a kid who wants to run away, but wants to do it in a certain way.

If you give the audience a clear protagonist with a personality right away, the audience will be on board, grateful that they have a hero to root for.

2. "Need" - SOMETHING AIN'T QUITE RIGHT

This is where we show that something is not quite right in the universe, no matter how large or small that universe is. And that problem shows us what the hero wants.

In A Wrinkle in Time, the big problem is that Meg's father is missing. In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, the problem is that Mrs. Frisby's baby mouse Timothy is sick and can't be moved, and the farmer is planning to plow up Mrs. Frisby's home. In From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the problem is that Claudia feels bored and unappreciated in her family.

In all these cases, that problem-the thing that's not right in the world-leads to a specific want for the hero. Meg wants to find her father. Mrs. Frisby wants to move the house and heal Timothy. Claudia wants to run away from home and have an adventure.

3. "Go" - CROSSING THE THRESHOLD

This is where your hero takes action and enters the world of adventure. Meg meets the witches and agrees to travel into space to rescue her father. Mrs. Frisby risks her life by going to visit the owl and the rats to enlist their help. Claudia teams up with her brother Jamie and they run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This step is what your story is "about." It's the thing you would put on the movie poster. Everything below this part of the circle is the "special world," the "adventure world." Luke has blasted off of Tatooine with Han Solo and everyone else on the Millennium Falcon. Indiana Jones gets on a plane in search of the Ark of the Covenant. If possible, show the contrast between these two worlds-the ordinary world we've inhabited until now, and the world of adventure we must now grapple with.

4. "Search" - THE ROAD OF TRIALS

This is where your hero meets the challenges that crop up when they pursue their goal. Our hero gets thrown into the deep end of the adventure, and now it's sink or swim!

Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin travel through space and time and try to come to grips with the evil alien planet of Camazotz. Mrs. Frisby uses her wits and bravery to find her way into the rat's nest, and discovers the rats are secretly technological geniuses. Claudia and Jamie figure out how to survive living at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: scrounging money, hiding in the bathrooms to avoid guards, learning about the museum's collections.

This is the part of the story where our hero is making allies and fighting enemies. Luke Skywalker and his friends are running around inside the Death Star, fighting storm troopers. Indiana Jones is traveling to exotic places, joining with old friends Marion and Sallah, and digging in the desert. Our hero is adapting to the world of adventure, they are meeting the challenges that are thrown at them, which leads us to . . .

5. "Find" - MEETING WITH THE GODDESS

The test and difficulties of the previous "Road of Trials" have all prepared your hero for this moment. At this moment, your hero finds what they were looking for . . . although it's never exactly what they had expected.

This is a special pivot point. It's at the very bottom of the circle, in the center. Imagine your hero began at the top and has tumbled all the way down here. The story's natural tendency to pull your hero downward has done its job, and for a moment, we are in a special state. This is a time for major revelations, and total vulnerability.

After this point, everything will take a different direction. It will a new kind of effort for the hero, and the hero will have to make more difficult choices, after this point.

This is where Meg finally finds her father on the evil planet Camazotz-but he's not going to solve their problems, as she'd hoped. Mrs. Frisby gets the rats to agree to help her-but she also learns that her dead husband was best friends with the rats, that he shared a history with them, though he never shared that secret with her. Claudia and Jamie manage to solve the mystery of who carved the "Angel" statue in the museum. In Frozen, Anna finally finds Elsa in her ice castle.

This is an important moment. The hero wins a brief victory here, and seems to get what they want. Luke Skywalker finally rescues Princess Leia in the depths of the Death Star. Indiana Jones finds the Ark of the Covenant. But this leads to the next step . . .

6. "Take" - MEET YOUR MAKER

Everything falls apart here. The goal your hero sought-and for a moment, thought he had achieved-is actually further away than ever. Or the dream your hero tried to achieve turned out to be a nightmare. Or the hero got his goal, but it led to all kinds of catastrophic side-effects. In short: there is a price for meeting the goddess. This is the part of the story where things get real.

This is where your hero must suffer.

If this is an action movie, this is the part where our hero gets his butt kicked. In a love story, this is the part where they break up. The friend the hero trusted turns out to be a traitor. The mentor who trained the hero dies. The dark night of the soul happens here.

Meg gets her father away from the evil of Camazotz, but she ends up leaving her now-hypnotized brother Charles Wallace behind. The plan goes wrong and Mrs. Frisby is captured by the farmer's family. The museum dismisses Claudia's and Jamie's discovery about the statue, and Claudia cries, and they consider going home in a kind of defeat.

Up until now, everything in the adventure has been preparing the hero for that meeting with the goddess. Now the hero is paying the price.

Luke Skywalker may have rescued Princess Leia, but he still has to fight his way out of that nightmarish space station, and watch his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi get murdered by Darth Vader, before he can totally escape. Indiana Jones may have found the Ark of the Covenant, but the Nazis steal it from him almost immediately, and they leave him in the pit to die. Anna may have found Elsa, but Elsa blasts Anna in the heart with her ice-power.

Here the hero has to suffer the unendurable, learn the worst truths, come face to face with their weaknesses, and lose their allies.

7. "Return" - BRINGING IT HOME

This is the opposite of "crossing the threshold" in step 3. We are now leaving the world of adventure, and that's not easy. It was difficult to get in, and it'll be difficult to get out. This is the point where the hero must reach deep down, be inventive, and risk everything they've got.

Meg goes back to Camazotz, alone, to save Charles Wallace. Mrs. Frisby escapes the farmer and warns the rats that their home is about to be destroyed, and the rats abandon their nest just in time. Claudia and Jamie, instead of buying a train ticket home, instead audaciously buy a ticket to visit Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler herself.

If this is an action movie, here's where you have your big car chase or bonkers fight scene. Or, in a love story, having realized what's important, the hero must run all the way across town before his girlfriend gets on the plane and leaves his life forever. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo blast through a whole squadron of TIE fighters, they make it to the rebel base, but then Luke decides to join the Rebellion to return to the Death Star and blow it up. Indiana Jones takes one wild risk after another to chase the Nazis who have stolen the ark from him.

But for the hero get the ultimate prize, and finish the story, the story must demonstrate how the hero has changed. Which leads us to the final step . . .

8. "Change" - MASTER OF BOTH WORLDS

The hero faces a final challenge or situation, and the way he deals with the challenge shows us how the story has changed him.

Meg stops worrying about herself and takes a bold risk, using just her love to rescue Charles Wallace from the giant disembodied brain. She's a much braver Meg than the girl we met at the beginning. Claudia and Jamie are able to navigate Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's mixed-up files, using the knowledge and moxie they've gained over the adventure to find the true solution to their mystery. It shows how Claudia and Jamie have both grown, both individually and as a team.

In an action film, this is where you put the ultimate showdown between the hero and the villain. In a love story, this is where the hero runs across the tarmac, stops the airplane, gets on board and makes a big speech to his girlfriend that causes her to love him again and take him back.

This is where the hero proves how the story has changed them.

In Star Wars, Luke uses what he's learned about the Force to do the impossible and blow up the Death Star. This proves he's no longer a naive farm boy, he's on his way to being a Jedi knight. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana shuts his eyes when the ark is opened, because this once-skeptical archeologist now believes in and respects its supernatural power.

The hero is has changed. They have been to the strange place, they have adapted to it, they have discovered some true things, and now they are back where they started (though not necessarily literally). But our hero is now forever changed, and perhaps able to create change too.

They've earned it. You've watched them earn it. And that's why it's a good story.

Uh, cool story bro, what does this have to do with the 90-Second Newberys? Good point. That's a lot of story structure to learn, but what does that have to do with making a movie?

Well, remember how I said that the number one problem with bad 90-Second Newbery movies is that they don't make any sense? That they just seem to be like a random collection of scenes? You can use this Story Circle to organize your script, so that it truly feels like a story.

To make your movie feel like a satisfying re-telling of the original Newbery book, find what elements of that original story correspond to the points on the Story Circle, and write your script with that in mind. Those eight story beats on the Story Circle are probably already in that Newbery book in one form or another, you just have to read it carefully to find them. And use that to structure your script.

Let me give you an example based on a simple story. Here's a 90-Second Newbery of the vignette "Monsters and Giants," from Frog and Toad Together:

Pretty good movie, right? Definitely one of the best that I've received. And one of the reasons for that is-aside from the adorable puppets, the entertaining voiceover work, the ingenious cinematography-it fulfills all eight points of the Story Circle:

Pretty nifty how that works, huh? So if you're wondering what scenes are important to include from the book in your 90-Second Newbery movie, the Story Circle can be an invaluable tool.

And you just learned some important truths about how stories work in the bargain!

That's it from Step 3 of "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery." In the next post, we'll analyze an existing 90-Second Newbery movie to give you tips on cinematography, camera movement, sound, and editing!

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How To Make A 90-Second Newbery, Step 3: Breaking Your Story And Writing The Script

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This is the third step in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. If you haven't already, check out Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys and Step 2: Read The Book...

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Young filmmakers create movies that tell the stories of Newbery-winning books in about 90 seconds.

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This is the third step in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. If you haven't already, check out Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys and Step 2: Read The Book And Start Planning.

You're ready to start the process of making your 90-Second Newbery video. You've watched previous successful 90-Second Newberys ( Step 1). You've read the book, figured out a good "twist," and pulled together some resources to make the movie happen ( Step 2). What next?

You've got to write that script! With a solid script in hand, you have a much better chance of making a great movie.

In this post, I'll start with some particular nuts-and-bolts advice on how to write a 90-Second Newbery script. Then I'll expand the focus to give general advice on story structure that might prove useful.

So, let's dive into advice on writing that script!

Wait, what's a script? Maybe you've never written a script before. What does a script even look like? The good news is that it doesn't matter if you do it "right" or "wrong." This script is just for you and your group. The movie is the final product. That's the only thing that really matters. A script is just a shared document that everyone can use to plan the movie.

Here is the shooting script that was used for the Wrinkle in Time 90-Second Newbery. Read it. It should be self-explanatory. (The only thing that might be mysterious are those scene headings. For those, INT means that the scene is shot indoors, and EXT means the scene is shot outdoors.)

Notice that the script is only 2 pages long. If your script is longer than 2 pages, your movie will probably be over 90 seconds. To be honest, that's okay. We have some great "90-Second" Newberys that are actually 3 or 4 minutes long. But as a goal, you should at least try for 90 seconds. The movie will always end up running longer than you think it will.

Write a terrible first draft. I advise you jump right in. Take your first whack at writing the script, with the format of that Wrinkle in Time script as your guide. Don't worry if your first draft is terrible or too long or unfunny or unoriginal. JUST GET A FIRST DRAFT DONE. You can worry about making it good later. You might even end up throwing away that first draft and starting over. That's fine! Every time you write, you're learning.

The "twist" you decided on in Step 2 will be crucial. It will give you the inspiration and direction to write this script. Maybe you will find, in writing the script, that the original "twist" you came up with doesn't work. That's fine! Throw out that twist and think up another! We're early in the process, nothing is set in stone yet.

Make sure your script has a strong start. Kick off your movie with a visual situation that is fun or compelling or scary or weird! You've only got a few seconds to grab the viewer, so make those first few seconds count!

If writing a script beginning-to-end intimidates you, give yourself permission to write fragments out of order. Think of some "holy cow!" moments, some jokes, some scene ideas based on your twist. Once you have a lot of them, THEN think of ways to string them together.

Remember that movies are a visual medium. They're about images, not words. Your script shouldn't be of a bunch of people standing around talking, explaining the plot. As much as your story allows, your script should be chock-full of physical action, high-drama moments with lots of emotion, lots of scene changes to different interesting locations and costumes. You may be helped by what we learned from the movies we watched in Step 1-cinematic techniques like voiceover, green screen, special effects, shot composition, camera movement, etc.

Don't be afraid to change the original story from the book. You only have 90 seconds to work with, so it's unavoidable you'll have to cut out a lot. It's OK to merge two characters into one, drop subplots, change the order of events, etc. And if your changes are in service of the genre twist (think of the James Bond version of Ramona and Her Father, or the zombie version of Mr. Popper's Penguins), then all the better!

Once you've knocked together a terrible first draft, have everyone in your group look at it and offer suggestions on how to make it less terrible. After you've taken those suggestions, give your edited-but-still-terrible first draft to someone who isn't even in the group, someone who hasn't even read the book. What do they think? Does the script make sense to them? Or is it truly terrible?

Oh no! My terrible first draft really is terrible! That's okay, it's supposed to be terrible. What, did you think you'd write something perfect off the top of your head? That's not how creativity works. You must embrace the possibility of writing garbage in order to free yourself to find the good stuff. A bad first draft is better than no draft at all.

Let's put that terrible first draft aside for a moment. Forget about it for now. Let's look at the original story again.

The number one problem I see in bad 90-Second Newbery movies is that the movies make no sense. I mean literally no sense, like it's impossible to tell what's going on. This happens because the filmmakers try to cram too much plot into a short movie. They don't know which scenes to keep and which to discard. And the scenes aren't linked to each other in a storylike way. They just all feel like disconnected bits that have nothing to do with each other.

How do you avoid that fate? After all, it's easy for these movies to get confusing and incoherent, because so much story info is being smooshed into such a short timeframe.

Luckily, there's a great method.

Discover the "beats" of the story, and determine how each is linked with the magic words therefore or but. I didn't invent this next piece of advice. I learned it from the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They explain it better than I can in this video.

In case you can't watch that video, I'll explain it here and point out how it relates to the 90-Second Newbery.

In order to keep our story feeling like a story, we must always make sure our audience understands what is happening in the story, and why it is happening. Otherwise, the audience will be bored or confused.

The good news is that you already have a good story. After all, the book you're adapting won a Newbery Medal or Honor. So the fundamentals of its structure are probably sound. Your story has good "bones." So let's take a closer look at that story.

To get a grip on what you need to write, try writing out the "beats" of the original story-the important actions that cause big changes.

For instance, in A Wrinkle in Time . . .

1. Teenager Meg is dissatisfied with her life, especially that her Dad is missing
2. Meg hangs out with her little brother Charles Wallace and they meet friendly witches
3. Meg and Charles Wallace discover their Dad is being held on another planet
4. The friendly witches take them to the other planet

. . . and so on.

Once you've written out the "beats" of the story, try to find a way in your script to link each beat to the next beat by cause-and-effect. That means, many of the beats of the story should somehow cause the next beat to happen. Beat 1 happens, therefore Beat 2 happens. "Bob heard a noise outside, therefore he went to investigate." "Susan saw the monster coming, therefore she hid behind the tree."

You won't be able to do it in every beat. That's because sometimes the beats aren't linked by cause-and-effect, but rather an unexpected resistance or complication. That is: Beat 1 happens, but Beat 2 happens. "Caroline wanted to buy an apple, but the grocery store was closed." "Sam wanted to ask Lisa to the dance, but Lisa told Sam she was already going with Zack."

Alert! Here's what doesn't work in a story: Beat 1 happens, and then Beat 2 happens. A story fails when too many beats lack a "therefore" or "but" connection, but are simply one thing after another. "I went into the basement and then my dog died and then my dad made pasta for dinner and then aliens blew up the world." All these incidents in isolation might be interesting, but they're not related to each other in any story-like way, and so the audience will get confused and unhappy and bored.

To sum up: write your script such that as many story beats as possible can be connected to the next by the word therefore or but, and not merely and then. It will make the story easier to understand-and don't be afraid to change the story a little in order to make these links clearer!

By the way, you will definitely have to discard some of the original beats of the story in order to make a short movie. Our version of A Wrinkle in Time completely drops the Happy Medium, Aunt Beast, Sandy and Dennys, the Man with Red Eyes, the trip to Uriel, and more. And then it stitches the remaining beats together, connecting them with therefore (Charles Wallace hears a noise outside, therefore he and Meg go outside) or but (Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin tesser to Camazotz, but their way is blocked by a basketball-playing robot) with a minimum of and then.

Again, you can see Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park explain this insight in this video.

Another way of organizing your story: Dan Harmon's "Story Circle." Here's writing advice from another successful TV writer, Dan Harmon (the showrunner of the NBC sitcom Community and the co-creator of the Cartoon Network's Rick and Morty). I'm offering it not because your script necessarily has to follow this scheme, but because it's another helpful way to think about story structure, and it might help your script.

Dan Harmon adapted his "Story Circle" from the anthropologist Joseph Campbell's idea of "The Hero's Journey." I, in turn, am going to adapt my explanation from Dan Harmon's own essay, which you can read here (warning, there is some salty language): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

In the "Story Circle," many stories can be broken down into seven simple steps:

1. A character is in a zone of comfort

2. But they want something.

3. They enter an unfamiliar situation,

4. Adapt to it,

5. Get what they wanted,

6. Pay a heavy price for it,

7. Then return to their familiar situation,

8. Having changed.

You can arrange these steps around a circle, like so:

Let's look at these steps one-by-one in the context of some Newbery-winning books and well-known movies, and see how that knowledge can be used in making your video. Then we'll observe how these steps are fulfilled in a classic 90-Second Newbery video.

1. "You" - ESTABLISH A PROTAGONIST

In your movie, you need to make it clear as quickly as possible who the protagonist of the story is. If not, the audience will get frustrated watching a bunch of different characters of confusingly equal importance. If the audience can get inside a specific character, then they can get inside the story.

In Star Wars, we don't meet Luke Skywalker until 20 minutes into the movie. But you only have around 90 seconds! So your hero must be the first person the audience sees, or one of the first. Have that hero say a line or do something interesting in character right away. Make the hero's name clear as quickly as possible.

In A Wrinkle In Time, we start with Meg worrying in bed during a storm. In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, we immediately meet Mrs. Frisby and learn she is the head of a family of field mice living in a farmer's garden. In From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, we learn in the first sentence that Claudia is a kid who wants to run away, but wants to do it in a certain way.

If you give the audience a clear protagonist with a personality right away, the audience will be on board, grateful that they have a hero to root for.

2. "Need" - SOMETHING AIN'T QUITE RIGHT

This is where we show that something is not quite right in the universe, no matter how large or small that universe is. And that problem shows us what the hero wants.

In A Wrinkle in Time, the big problem is that Meg's father is missing. In Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, the problem is that Mrs. Frisby's baby mouse Timothy is sick and can't be moved, and the farmer is planning to plow up Mrs. Frisby's home. In From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the problem is that Claudia feels bored and unappreciated in her family.

In all these cases, that problem-the thing that's not right in the world-leads to a specific want for the hero. Meg wants to find her father. Mrs. Frisby wants to move the house and heal Timothy. Claudia wants to run away from home and have an adventure.

3. "Go" - CROSSING THE THRESHOLD

This is where your hero takes action and enters the world of adventure. Meg meets the witches and agrees to travel into space to rescue her father. Mrs. Frisby risks her life by going to visit the owl and the rats to enlist their help. Claudia teams up with her brother Jamie and they run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This step is what your story is "about." It's the thing you would put on the movie poster. Everything below this part of the circle is the "special world," the "adventure world." Luke has blasted off of Tatooine with Han Solo and everyone else on the Millennium Falcon. Indiana Jones gets on a plane in search of the Ark of the Covenant. If possible, show the contrast between these two worlds-the ordinary world we've inhabited until now, and the world of adventure we must now grapple with.

4. "Search" - THE ROAD OF TRIALS

This is where your hero meets the challenges that crop up when they pursue their goal. Our hero gets thrown into the deep end of the adventure, and now it's sink or swim!

Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin travel through space and time and try to come to grips with the evil alien planet of Camazotz. Mrs. Frisby uses her wits and bravery to find her way into the rat's nest, and discovers the rats are secretly technological geniuses. Claudia and Jamie figure out how to survive living at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: scrounging money, hiding in the bathrooms to avoid guards, learning about the museum's collections.

This is the part of the story where our hero is making allies and fighting enemies. Luke Skywalker and his friends are running around inside the Death Star, fighting storm troopers. Indiana Jones is traveling to exotic places, joining with old friends Marion and Sallah, and digging in the desert. Our hero is adapting to the world of adventure, they are meeting the challenges that are thrown at them, which leads us to . . .

5. "Find" - MEETING WITH THE GODDESS

The test and difficulties of the previous "Road of Trials" have all prepared your hero for this moment. At this moment, your hero finds what they were looking for . . . although it's never exactly what they had expected.

This is a special pivot point. It's at the very bottom of the circle, in the center. Imagine your hero began at the top and has tumbled all the way down here. The story's natural tendency to pull your hero downward has done its job, and for a moment, we are in a special state. This is a time for major revelations, and total vulnerability.

After this point, everything will take a different direction. It will a new kind of effort for the hero, and the hero will have to make more difficult choices, after this point.

This is where Meg finally finds her father on the evil planet Camazotz-but he's not going to solve their problems, as she'd hoped. Mrs. Frisby gets the rats to agree to help her-but she also learns that her dead husband was best friends with the rats, that he shared a history with them, though he never shared that secret with her. Claudia and Jamie manage to solve the mystery of who carved the "Angel" statue in the museum. In Frozen, Anna finally finds Elsa in her ice castle.

This is an important moment. The hero wins a brief victory here, and seems to get what they want. Luke Skywalker finally rescues Princess Leia in the depths of the Death Star. Indiana Jones finds the Ark of the Covenant. But this leads to the next step . . .

6. "Take" - MEET YOUR MAKER

Everything falls apart here. The goal your hero sought-and for a moment, thought he had achieved-is actually further away than ever. Or the dream your hero tried to achieve turned out to be a nightmare. Or the hero got his goal, but it led to all kinds of catastrophic side-effects. In short: there is a price for meeting the goddess. This is the part of the story where things get real.

This is where your hero must suffer.

If this is an action movie, this is the part where our hero gets his butt kicked. In a love story, this is the part where they break up. The friend the hero trusted turns out to be a traitor. The mentor who trained the hero dies. The dark night of the soul happens here.

Meg gets her father away from the evil of Camazotz, but she ends up leaving her now-hypnotized brother Charles Wallace behind. The plan goes wrong and Mrs. Frisby is captured by the farmer's family. The museum dismisses Claudia's and Jamie's discovery about the statue, and Claudia cries, and they consider going home in a kind of defeat.

Up until now, everything in the adventure has been preparing the hero for that meeting with the goddess. Now the hero is paying the price.

Luke Skywalker may have rescued Princess Leia, but he still has to fight his way out of that nightmarish space station, and watch his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi get murdered by Darth Vader, before he can totally escape. Indiana Jones may have found the Ark of the Covenant, but the Nazis steal it from him almost immediately, and they leave him in the pit to die. Anna may have found Elsa, but Elsa blasts Anna in the heart with her ice-power.

Here the hero has to suffer the unendurable, learn the worst truths, come face to face with their weaknesses, and lose their allies.

7. "Return" - BRINGING IT HOME

This is the opposite of "crossing the threshold" in step 3. We are now leaving the world of adventure, and that's not easy. It was difficult to get in, and it'll be difficult to get out. This is the point where the hero must reach deep down, be inventive, and risk everything they've got.

Meg goes back to Camazotz, alone, to save Charles Wallace. Mrs. Frisby escapes the farmer and warns the rats that their home is about to be destroyed, and the rats abandon their nest just in time. Claudia and Jamie, instead of buying a train ticket home, instead audaciously buy a ticket to visit Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler herself.

If this is an action movie, here's where you have your big car chase or bonkers fight scene. Or, in a love story, having realized what's important, the hero must run all the way across town before his girlfriend gets on the plane and leaves his life forever. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo blast through a whole squadron of TIE fighters, they make it to the rebel base, but then Luke decides to join the Rebellion to return to the Death Star and blow it up. Indiana Jones takes one wild risk after another to chase the Nazis who have stolen the ark from him.

But for the hero get the ultimate prize, and finish the story, the story must demonstrate how the hero has changed. Which leads us to the final step . . .

8. "Change" - MASTER OF BOTH WORLDS

The hero faces a final challenge or situation, and the way he deals with the challenge shows us how the story has changed him.

Meg stops worrying about herself and takes a bold risk, using just her love to rescue Charles Wallace from the giant disembodied brain. She's a much braver Meg than the girl we met at the beginning. Claudia and Jamie are able to navigate Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's mixed-up files, using the knowledge and moxie they've gained over the adventure to find the true solution to their mystery. It shows how Claudia and Jamie have both grown, both individually and as a team.

In an action film, this is where you put the ultimate showdown between the hero and the villain. In a love story, this is where the hero runs across the tarmac, stops the airplane, gets on board and makes a big speech to his girlfriend that causes her to love him again and take him back.

This is where the hero proves how the story has changed them.

In Star Wars, Luke uses what he's learned about the Force to do the impossible and blow up the Death Star. This proves he's no longer a naive farm boy, he's on his way to being a Jedi knight. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana shuts his eyes when the ark is opened, because this once-skeptical archeologist now believes in and respects its supernatural power.

The hero is has changed. They have been to the strange place, they have adapted to it, they have discovered some true things, and now they are back where they started (though not necessarily literally). But our hero is now forever changed, and perhaps able to create change too.

They've earned it. You've watched them earn it. And that's why it's a good story.

Uh, cool story bro, what does this have to do with the 90-Second Newberys? Good point. That's a lot of story structure to learn, but what does that have to do with making a movie?

Well, remember how I said that the number one problem with bad 90-Second Newbery movies is that they don't make any sense? That they just seem to be like a random collection of scenes? You can use this Story Circle to organize your script, so that it truly feels like a story.

To make your movie feel like a satisfying re-telling of the original Newbery book, find what elements of that original story correspond to the points on the Story Circle, and write your script with that in mind. Those eight story beats on the Story Circle are probably already in that Newbery book in one form or another, you just have to read it carefully to find them. And use that to structure your script.

Let me give you an example based on a simple story. Here's a 90-Second Newbery of the vignette "Monsters and Giants," from Frog and Toad Together:

Pretty good movie, right? Definitely one of the best that I've received. And one of the reasons for that is-aside from the adorable puppets, the entertaining voiceover work, the ingenious cinematography-it fulfills all eight points of the Story Circle:

Pretty nifty how that works, huh? So if you're wondering what scenes are important to include from the book in your 90-Second Newbery movie, the Story Circle can be an invaluable tool.

And you just learned some important truths about how stories work in the bargain!

That's it from Step 3 of "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery." In the next post, we'll analyze an existing 90-Second Newbery movie to give you tips on cinematography, camera movement, sound, and editing!

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This is the third step in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. If you haven't already, check out Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys and Step 2: Read The Book And Start Planning. You're ready to start the process of making your 90-Second Newbery video.

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Access Google Drive with a Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).

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What is Bookie Woogie? Over the course of seven years, the Z-Kids embarked on a variety of family reading adventures. I posted their responses to both newly released books and old favorites -- picture books, chapter books, board books, and graphic novels. Together we talked about the craft of writing and the techniques of illustration. They created hundreds of pieces of fan art with crayon, pencil, pastel, clay, cut paper, scratch board, sewing, and video. They interviewed great authors and illustrators, including Newbery and Caldecott winners. And we recorded it all for you! I hope this site serves as a timeless, valuable resource. As you dig into the vast Archive, I hope you'll sense a love for books, a love for art, and a family's love for each other. So what is Bookie Woogie? Bookie Woogie is made up of:

7 years

140 book reviews

20 author interviews

178 books highlighted

177 authors & illustrators highlighted

520 pieces of fan art created (wow!)

Check it all out! Here are links to every Bookie Woogie review:

Bookie Woogie's posts have prompted 120 unsolicited responses from the authors and illustrators whose books the Z-Kids reviewed. Sometimes these creators sent an email, sometimes they left comments on a post, sometimes they posted thoughts on their own blogs or social media. Here's a small, small sampling of what the creators of great children's books have said about Bookie Woogie:

"Check out my favorite review of Rapuzel's Revenge on Bookie Woogie. An utter delight. The icing is the kids do a piece of art, which you can see at the end. Isaac blows me away, Gracie is hysterical, and Lily is so observant. I'd adopt them all if they didn't obviously already have a great dad.

This is such a great way to combine reading, art, and action with kids in the home."

"Please drop everything that you are doing right now and go to Bookie Woogie and read it. It might possibly put a smile on your face. But it won't be as big as the smile on mine. Trust me.
What I love about their review is that I FEEL like I was perched there on the couch with them, this creative, funny family all cozied up reading my book. It's what makes being an author so awesome -- the idea that people, somewhere, are enjoying something I created.
And not just reading it either. They discuss the book. They examine the book. They talk about how it might have been created, how it affects them, what the book is trying to say. Gracie, Lily, and Isaac are going to grow up to be book-lovers. And one of them just might become an author too. Or an artist!! They include ART in their review! Fantastic."

"Thank you, thank you, for your brilliant, delightful and astute discussion/review of my book. It's the best one I've ever gotten. Yay for Bookie Woogie!"

"How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird" review

"Probably one of the best book review sites I've seen! Great comments and awesome drawings. You guys know how to read a book in the full sense of the word."

- Astrid Lindgren winning author/illustrator Shaun Tan

"My favourite review that I have ever received! It made me laugh all the way through, and the drawings are so much fun.

It's such a brilliant way of getting the essence of a book across, really brings it to life. Well done all of you - what a great team - what fun!"

"Several different people have mentioned to me that they'd read your family blog about my book and liked it. So I just wanted to say again how much I appreciate how involved in my donutbook you and your family became and how delightfully you expressed it in your blog."

"I was honored and thrilled by your words. Wow... thank you. I see that you all take this very seriously without losing any of the joy that books bring. It's wonderful that you guys sit down and look really closely. We authors and illustrators live for audiences like you.

One spends all his time in a room trying to make a book that others will want to see, but you never really know what will happen once it goes out into the world. I'm moved and humbled that my book drew you in and had a positive influence. Thank you. Stories like yours make what I do even better than I could ever imagine.

I look forward to reading all your discussions and know I will learn much about books by my friends (authors and illustrators) and many other books that I've loved for years. But I most look forward to being delighted by your smart and thoughtful take on children's books you have loved. I can't wait."

"What an honor it is to have been Bookie Woogied. My most cherished review! Thanks so much."

"It was such a lovely post, it made me want to cry (in a good way)."

"I just read the post and I swear, I laughed out loud! It is truly, TRUUUUUUULY my FAVORITE interview by leaps and bounds that anyone has EVER done! WOW WOW WOW!!! This is just the coolest blog."

"I believe all of you are the most wonderful readers of my books. I've never met readers like you who could read my ideas perfectly and find every detail I made. Moreover, you can read in your own creative way. Your family encourages me a lot, and even your comments give me inspiration. And most of all your drawings are wonderful. I am so moved."

"I think my heart's about to burst!"

"Bookie Woogie remains my favorite book reviewer. A wonderful model for parents about how to talk to their kids about books and extend the learning"

"You know I am a huge and long-time fan of your work, and nearly fainted with joy to see my own book reviewed here. Thank you thank you thank you great readers, great children, great bloggers, and great artists."

"Honestly, when I saw this I was speechless. I am completely wowed by the Bookie Woogie Bloggers' creation! Not only are the shadow puppets so beautifully done, the pacing, script, and music is great, too. This is the perfect movie to show students before and after they read the book."

"I can't tell you how much your review meant to me. Your kids' drawings and conversation has been my favorite part of being a children's illustrator to date."

"Getting kid art by the Bookie Woogie kids is the fan art equivalent of making the cover of Rolling Stone."

"I was having a rough week... lots of little things going wrong. My rule is: mope for 5 minutes, then sketch something. First, for some mysterious reason, I googled "This is the Stable > reviews." And there you all were!

This is without a doubt, the most exciting, endearing, and astonishingly cheerful thing that's twirled my way in many moons. The more I read their comments, the more I smiled. Thank you for reading my little book with your fine crew.

"Best. Review. Ever. There is nothing quite like the feeling of clicking to one of your favorite book blogs and discovering your own book is the day's entry. I'm thrilled. And that art! ASTOUNDING."

"A lot of people depend on your blog for comfort every day."

"Oh me, oh my, this is without a doubt the BEST review I have received. And I include those professional doofuses when I say that. Everything after this point will be downhill."

"I am not exaggerating when I type a tear is in my eye. I have been Zenzed.

'Louise' is on Bookie Woogie, a blog from a family I have never met in person but have known online for over seven years. Aaron Zenz you inspire and now your kids do as well. Thanks for this gift. I am so touched that your amazingly creative family likes my book."

"Your blog has been instrumental for me. For a lot of the accolades I've received, I owe a huge thanks to you guys."

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What is Bookie Woogie? Over the course of seven years, the Z-Kids embarked on a variety of family reading adventures. I posted their responses to both newly released books and old favorites -- picture books, chapter books, board books, and graphic novels. Together we talked about the craft of writing and the techniques of illustration.

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Here's a gallery of pictures from the Odd-Fish art show part of the evening. And Time Out Chicago has a great gallery of pictures from the battle-dancing part of the evening.

The Dome of Doom party on Saturday was a delirious success! THANK YOU, all you artists, guests, dancers, performers, and the fine folks at Collaboraction.

The evening began as a gallery show of fan art forThe Order of Odd-Fish. (You can see all the fan art online here.) My brother-in-law Max used to hang art for a living, and it's thanks to him (and Matt and Kevin at Monobrow Studios) the gallery turned out so smashing:

Many of the artists who contributed made it to the show! Max Pitchkites (who did cut-paper mixed-media illustrations of all 28 of Odd-Fish's chapters), Amanda Baylie (who made an Apology Gun), Karen Alexander, Hailey McLaughlin, Teddy Bihun, Carol Mollica, Britnee Berman, Dawn Heath, Kathleen Spale, Mike Bricis, Zach Dodson, Heather Ring (who made Dame Myra's garden of improbable botany), Jac Jemc, Freya Trefonides, Georgia Greenberg (who made the fish that hung as a centerpiece in the gallery), and Heather Norborg (my wife!) were all there. Here's Max Pitchkites, Georgia Greenberg, Teddy Bihun, Hailey McLaughlin, and Kathleen Spale:

Biggest surprise? John Karp, who flew in from California to show up in character as Sefino, complete with immaculate suit and ascot. Every time I spoke to him, he was impeccably Sefino-esque. I had never met John before; now I will never forget him.

At around 9 o'clock we headed downstairs to the Dome of Doom (constructed out of PVC pipes!) and had an under-21 Dome of Doom dance-off, which was tremendous fun. Favorite moment: Theo, dressed as the God of Apologies and toting a gun that shot marshmallows with apologies hidden inside, demolishing the United States Marine Corps. Then, unfortunately due to Chicago liquor laws, I had to bid the under-21 artists goodbye.

Soon the gallery filled up with all manner of odd costumed creatures. The air crackled with expectation for the fights to come. My co-judges Cynthia Castiglione and Seth Dodson showed up, we introduced the costumed battlers to the crowd, Collaboraction impresario Anthony Moseley gave a speech, and costumed marching band Environmental Encroachment led a parade of battlers and spectators downstairs to the DOME OF DOOM. Here's Cynthia, Anthony, me, and Seth - all very tall people, I might add. I look like a angry little chicken in comparison:

Aswirl in smoke and flashing lights, the Collaboraction dancers struck poses and galloped around the Dome, rhythmically banging its sides with sticks as the god-judges cavorted about inside, until the crowd was well and truly hyped up. Yes, Seth's costume did twinkle with a hundred little Christmas lights:

Then: the FIGHTS! Battlers eneterd the Dome and danced fiercely at each other for glory. The god-judges decided who moved to the next round, based on costume, concept, and dance moves. We made some controversial calls.

Undersea grudge match: Octopus vs. Jellyfish. GO!

Earlier this week I posted a video of the battle between Indestructa and Tex-Mex Party Mix. Here's another battle - when the eventual champion, Notorious S.A.D. (aka "Sparkle Motion") wowed us with her moves:

(This is clipped from a longer video by Matt Mayes, which has much more Dome of Doom mayhem.)

The battles continued, broken only by the screams of the wounded, the pitiless roar of the victor, and the raucous music of the marching band:

At last the time for the final battle came. It was between Notorious S.A.D. and Rowlphie, a young man who quickly did away with his trousers and bounded about like a randy puppy in all his bulging glory. But although Rowlphie had annihilated the competition in previous rounds, he just didn't bring the same energy to the final battle, and the judges named Notorious S.A.D. the winner - and proceeded to tear out her heart, and feed her to the All-Devouring Mother:

Once digested and excreted on the other side, Notorious S.A.D. was glorified forever in the annals of the Dome of Doom! Verily, the tournament brackets ran with blood, and were slashed with her name:

Thank you, everyone, who helped make this surreal, incredible night happen. Thanks to the artists who did such fantastic Odd-Fish fan art. It was an honor to feature you in the show. Thanks to everyone at Collaboraction, and in particular Anthony Moseley, for making this bizarre party possible. Thanks to Seth Dodson and Cynthia Castiglione for judging with me, thanks to Hannah for emceeing, thanks to Harrison Adams for controlling the fighting music, and thanks to all the battlers who fought so bravely and hilariously. Thanks to Max for helping me put up the art, to Heather Ring for making Dame Myra's garden on the third floor, to Kevin and Matt at Monobrow Studios, to Environmental Encroachment . . . the list is too long. And finally thanks to my wife Heather. Now I can spend some time at home again, at last!

Time Out Chicago put up a great gallery of Dome of Doom pictures. And here's my own collection of pictures of the art show part of the evening.

I'll leave you with the fight between INDESTRUCTA and TEX-MEX PARTY MIX:

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Here's a gallery of pictures from the Odd-Fish art show part of the evening. And Time Out Chicago has a great gallery of pictures from the battle-dancing part of the evening. The Dome of Doom party on Saturday was a delirious success! THANK YOU, all you artists, guests, dancers, performers, and the fine folks at Collaboraction.

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Need inspiration for your own 90-Second Newbery videos? Curious about standout entries from years past? You're in the right place.

The video that kicked off the film festival was this relatively straightforward adaptation that I made of Madeleine L'Engle's 1963 Medal winner, A Wrinkle in Time:

Fun! But a really amazing 90-Second Newbery should be more than a mere summary. Think of a strong cinematic spin that will transform the story. For instance, children's book author Aaron Zenz and his family adapted E.B. White's Charlotte's Web in the style of the opening credits of a 1970s superhero TV show, sung to the tune of "Spider-Man":

Make it weird! Retell the story with an unexpected genre twist! Adapt it in an intriguing format!

For instance, here's Jennings Mergenthal and Max Lau's very funny stop-motion Claymation adaptation of the very first Newbery medal winner, Hendrik Willem van Loon's The Story of Mankind (1922):

(Jennings specializes in adapting nonfiction historical Newbery winners. Check out his other stop-motion masterpieces: a Claymation version of Jim Murphy's 2004 Honor Book An American Plague and most recently a Claymation version of Steve Sheinkin's 2013 Honor Book Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World's Most Dangerous Weapon.)

How about adapting your book into the style of a black-and-white silent movie? Advantages: you don't have to worry about audio on the set or flubbed lines, you can speed up the film to get that old-fashioned look (making it easier to squeak in under 90 seconds) and use intertitles to move the plot forward. The Aurora Public Library in Illinois ingeniously filmed Avi's 2003 Medal winning Crispin: The Cross of Lead in the style of a black and white silent movie:

Let's say you don't have time to build sets. Or you're stuck doing all your filming inside a school. What do you do? Use green screen! Facets Cinematheque's Chicago International Children's Film Festival adapted Neil Gaiman's 2009 Newbery Medal winner The Graveyard Book (in the style of a horror movie, appropriately) using green screens, a homemade puppet monster operated with hidden strings, voiceover, sped-up footage, sound effects, creepy soundtrack music and even turning the lights on and off rapidly to get the horror movie feel:

Different "spins" on the same book can yield fascinatingly different results. For instance, in Beverly Cleary's 1978 Honor Book Ramona and Her Father, Ramona's father Mr. Quimby loses his job and gets depressed. Ramona tries to make her father stop smoking. The family's nerves are strained. The Quimbys do have one nice night carving a pumpkin, but then their cat Picky-Picky devours and ruins the pumpkin in the middle of the night. Mr. Quimby eventually gets a new job.

Straightforward, right? But what if you do all of that ... in the style of a musical?

Pro tips if you're going to do your movie as a musical: get the song lyrics super tight, making every line either push the story forward, express an emotion, or be funny (preferably all three!). If you're doing a takeoff of a known song, you can find the karaoke version online. It's funniest when the rewritten lyrics totally contradict the original song, like the way this group used "Happy." Spend A LOT of time recording the song in Audacity or iMovie or wherever, and then when it's time to film, lip-synch the songs that you play on-set, but when you're editing, replace the on-set audio with the pre-recorded audio. Don't attempt to use the song audio that you recorded on set, it won't sound good! And always definitely put the lyrics in the subtitles, so the audience can understand everything.

Now, if you were adapting Ramona and Her Father, how do you try to top a musical? Well, how about going all the way into the hyperspace of weirdness: by adapting Ramona and Her Father in the style of a James Bond movie!

Wait what?! Think about it: What if Ramona's father was James Bond? And instead of losing his normal job, he was sacked from MI6? And their cat Picky-Picky was actually a secret agent working for the villainous Blofeld ... ?

Notice if we're going to do an adaptation that pivots off a particular well-known movie genre, it works best when we fulfill all the "promises" of the genre. For instance, a James Bond movie will always have gunplay, ridiculous English accents, double entendres, a scene with the gadget guy "Q," a scene with some bloviating ostentatious villain, fights, explosions, James Bond music, a martini "shaken not stirred," etc. The juxtaposition of that with ordinary suburban life is exactly what makes it funny. The lesson: find a genre twist that is as far as possible from the source material!

I also loved how this movie completely dispensed with the plot of the original book at the end. In certain cases, that's OK! As long as you follow most of the plot faithfully at first, and your changes are funny enough, you can veer off into craziness at the end of your movie.

For instance, how about doing Richard and Florence Atwater's 1939 Honor Book Mr. Popper's Penguins as a zombie apocalypse?

A lot of these Newbery movies have big casts, but you can also do a 90-Second Newbery all by yourself, as a one-person show. Like this fantastic one-man version of Lois Lowry's 1994 Medal winner The Giver, by Brooklyn up-and-comer Leo Lion:

Another option if you don't want to deal with live actors, or if you want more control over your sets: use puppets, like the Bookie Woogie blog did for their adaptation of the "Dragons and Giants" vignette from Arnold Lobel's 1973 Honor Book Frog and Toad Together:

Again, it's fun to see how different filmmakers handle the same material. Here's another take on Frog and Toad Together, of the vignette called "The List," by Sara Truscott of Tacoma, WA. This one brilliantly transforms Frog and Toad into a love story like a Wes Anderson movie or French ye-ye pop music video:

If you've read Sid Fleischman's 1987 Newbery Medal winner The Whipping Boy, you know that it's a funny adventure about a poor boy who is hired by the royal family to be whipped in the prince's place when the bratty prince misbehaves (it's against the law to hit a prince). The Schaumburg District Township Library retold the story in the style of Star Wars, complete with lightsabers, spaceship chase scenes, and lasers! (If you're interested in adding lightsabers and lasers to your video, check out the easy-to-use SaberFX software.)

But you don't necessarily need elaborate filmmaking to create a great 90-Second Newbery! For instance, Jacob von Borg of Portland wanted to make a 90-Second Newbery of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's 1992 Medal winner Shiloh, which is about a boy and his dog. The catch: Jacob didn't have a dog available! But Jacob was resourceful, and his solution made the movie much funnier than if it'd actually featured a dog:

Speaking of animals, this paper-puppet version adaptation of Joyce Sidman's 2011 Honor book of poetry, Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, covers all 12 poems in the book, each about a different night animal. Many Newbery winners are books of poetry, which actually makes for a natural fit for a 90-Second Newbery, since those books are short and invite interpretation. This one is by kids from the Lozano Branch Library in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago:

Speaking of puppets, here's another creative way to adapt your book: as a shadow-puppet show! The first movie I ever got from 90-Second Newbery superstars Aaron Zenz and family was this incredible adaptation of Grace Lin's 2010 Honor book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, done entirely with shadow puppets (which went on to win a "Trailee Award" in 2011 from the School Library Journal):

Here are two more Claymation 90-Second Newbery movies, both of them by Anya Schooler of Portland, OR. They're amazing movies, pretty much professional level! First, Ruth Gannet's 1949 Honor Book My Father's Dragon:

That movie does so much without any dialogue at all, just pure visual storytelling! A triumph! Here's another movie by Anya, this time of Mary and Conrad Buff's 1952 Honor Book, The Apple and the Arrow. These clay figures are better actors than most people! And the Claymation is so fluid and beautiful!

These movies are amazing, but don't be intimidated! Special effects and arty styles can be a lot of hard work, but it takes nothing but ingenuity, resourcefulness, and careful editing for your movie to be hilarious. Check out this very funny adaptation of Megan Whalen Turner's 1997 Honor Book The Thief, by kids from St. Andrews Episcopal School in Saratoga, California. Best use of a riding mower in a movie ever:

Have you read Margi Preus' terrific 2011 Honor Book Heart of a Samurai? The kids of Chicago's Burley Elementary School filmed it in the style of an Akira Kurosawa-style samurai movie-and all in Japanese! (Don't worry, there are subtitles.) How about teaming up with the language teacher at your school to do The Giver in Spanish? Or Flora and Ulysses in Mandarin? Go for it!

Even making a movie that's only 90 seconds long still involves an insane amount of work. The solution? You can break the book into four parts, and assign four different groups to adapt the four different parts, each in a different style! Such a fragmented style is particularly well-suited for William Bowen's 1922 Newbery Medal winner The Olde Tobacco Shoppe: A True Account of What Befell A Little Boy in Search of Adventure, one of the more bonkers entries in the Newbery canon, adapted here by Portland Youth Media's Thursday Thing media club:

Speaking of Portland, Laurelhurst Elementary School of Portland, Oregon filmed this hard-to-beat Witch of Blackbird Pond as a class project, and it's fantastic (I love how all the romantic subplots are resolved in 10 seconds):

Do you have some talent that can be used in your movie, like singing or songwriting or playing an musical instrument? Elephant and Worm Theater Company of Chicago did this FULL-SCALE MUSICAL of William Pene du Bois' 1948 Medal winner, The 21 Balloons. Are you a school librarian who wants to do the 90-Second Newbery, but you're unsure how to proceed? Consider teaming up with your school's music department (to make music) or art department (for set design) or drama department (for acting) for a truly cross-disciplinary project!

(Completists should also check out Elephant and Worm's similarly awesome adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's 1972 Medal winner Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, complete with rat-rap, giant cat, fourth-wall-breaking, and cute costumes.)

Lately Minecraft has become super popular. But did you know that you can make movies in this game? What an opportunity for a 90-Second Newbery movie! After all, you can construct any elaborate or exotic set you want, because you're just dealing in pixels. You can put the camera in all kinds of impossible places. It's like Minecraft was made for the 90-Second Newbery! Here is the Tacoma Public Library's take on Wanda Gag's 1929 Honor Book Millions of Cats:

The most successful 90-Second Newberys retell the book in an unexpected filmmaking genre. For instance, the next movie is of Charlotte's Web, but completely different, because it's done as a horror movie! It makes sense, actually. The very first line of the book is "Where's Papa going with that ax?", the plot hinges around a spider using unnatural powers, at any moment our hero might get butchered and eaten, and it ends with thousands of spiders spawning all over the countryside. Warning: this movie is actually kind of scary!

CHILLS YET? Also, notice that this one was a bit longer than 90 seconds. That's okay, as long as the quality is high. We're unlikely to accept anything that pushes four minutes, but if your entry is super inventive and engaging, we'll let it slide. Just remember, every second you go over the 90-second limit, the more critical the judges will be. That said, if it really and truly takes a full 3 minutes to culminate your genius vision, go for it!

Here's another genre twist: taking the medieval soliloquies of Laura Amy Schlitz's 2008 Newbery Medal winner Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village and putting them in the context of a medieval reality show-yes, "The Real Housewives of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!"

The best genre twists are the ones that seem counterintuitive at first, but on reflection make total sense. For instance, Karen Cushman's 1996 Medal winner The Midwife's Apprentice is set in medieval England in the book, but it has the structure of a "stranger-comes-to-town" Western. So why not adapt it using all the stylistic choices and tropes of an old Sergio Leone spaghetti western, complete with old-west slang, cowboy hats, and gunplay?

Rap is well-suited for making a 90-Second Newbery, because if you're a good enough rapper, your rapid-fire flow can get across a lot of info in a very short time. Jamie Molitor's Media Arts class from the Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource (FAIR) School in Crystal, MN adapted Louis Sachar's 1999 Newbery Medal winner Holes in rap style! If you've ever wondered what Minnesota-style rap is like, we've got you covered. These students created the beat from scratch, too:

Here's one more by the Zenz family. It's Lloyd Alexander's 1966 Honor book The Black Cauldron, but in a different style-animating their daughter's drawings of the book while her voiceover hilariously explains the plot:

Okay, okay! That's quite enough! Hopefully these exemplary videos are enough to spark your imagination for your own 90-Second Newbery videos. Thank you everyone who made these movies!

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Need inspiration for your own 90-Second Newbery videos? Curious about standout entries from years past? You're in the right place. The video that kicked off the film festival was this relatively straightforward adaptation that I made of Madeleine L'Engle's 1963 Medal winner, A Wrinkle in Time: Fun!

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The 90 Second Newbery Film Festival: Kids Make Great Movies Out Of Great Books - Lessons - Tes Teach

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NerdCampMI2017-90-SecondNewbery - Google Slides.90-Second Newbery - Video Resources.Curriculum for Creating a 90-Second Newbery Film.pdf.Best of the 90-Second Newbery.2017 90-Second Newbery Film Festival Opening in Minneapolis, with KELLY BARNHILL, JAMES KENNEDY, and KEIR GRAFF on Vimeo.90-Second Newbery: Brookline Screening Opener with M.T.

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Want to make a 90-Second Newbery movie but don't know where to start? Are you a kid (or a teacher, drama coach, home school coordinator, or librarian) who wants to get a group together to make a 90-Second Newbery, but don't know where to start? We are ready to help! Here is a series of posts that outline a step-by-step method on "How To Make A Great 90-Second Newbery," with more posts to be added soon:
Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys Step 2: Read The Book And Start Planning Step 3: Breaking Your Story And Writing The Script Step 4: Shot-By-Shot Analysis Of A Wrinkle In Time
You should also check out Deb Ross' detailed curriculum that will help folks create their own awesome 90-Second Newbery video. It also includes meeting instructions, tips on video creation, and worksheets to keep you organized. You can download the free PDF from this page.

The Highland Park Public Library put together a good page of resources for kid filmmakers. Edutopia also put up a page of links of filmmaking resources. If you're new to editing with iMovie, KidLit.TV has a good tutorial.
Free Sound Effects and Music
You video will be a lot snappier if you add sound effects and music! Of course, you can use the audio effects that come bundled with iMovie or MovieMaker. But what if those programs don't have the sound effects or music you're looking for? Or what if you don't want to use the same sounds every other movie uses?

Two recommended websites for free-to-download, free-to-use sound effects are FreeSound and SoundBible.

You can find some great free-to-download, free-to-use music at Incompetech and BenSound.
Special Effects
Ever wanted to put a lightsaber battle in your movie? How about a laser shootout? You can do it all with this super-cheap app called SaberFX. It's only $25! (Want to see a 90-Second Newbery movie that uses it? Here's the 1987 Newbery Medal Winner The Whipping Boy done in the style of complete with lightsabers and space battles!)

Want to put crazy explosions, crashing helicopters, or murderous robots in your movie? Use green screen! You can find a million green screen resources to use for free on YouTube. Here's a collection of tons of crazy green screen effects to get your started.
Case Studies: Behind-The-Scenes on These Great 90-Second Newbery Movies!
A step-by-step description of the Wilmette Public Library's creation of a stop-motion puppet version of Grace Lin's 2010 Honor Book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

A blog post detailing the creation of the Zenz family's award-winning 90-Second Newbery for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

Behind the scenes of the Zenz family's 90-Second Newbery of E.B. White's 1953 Honor Book Charlotte's Web.

Behind the scenes of the Zenz family's 90-Second Newbery of Arnold Lobel's 1973 Honor Book Frog and Toad Together.

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Want to make a 90-Second Newbery movie but don't know where to start? Are you a kid (or a teacher, drama coach, home school coordinator, or librarian) who wants to get a group together to make a 90-Second Newbery, but don't know where to start? We are ready to help!

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Introducing the 90-Second Newbery (Fuse #8)

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Introducing the 90-Second Newbery (Fuse #8)

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How it all began is anybody's guess, but it probably started with YA author James Kennedy. On a day like any other I received an email from him with a proposal: Why not have a contest where kids created videos of their favorite Newbery books. The catch? All the videos must be 90 seconds or less.

What would that look like? Well, James made a sample video of his own. I bring you . . . The 90-second version of A Wrinkle In Time:

And before you say it, yes Meg isn't wearing glasses in this video. Aside from that, you have to admit it's a lot of fun.

Well, obviously I was gonna be on board with James and his plan. So we put our heads together and came up with a plan. Why not have an honest-to-goodness film festival of the kids' films here at the main branch of New York Public Library as well? Obviously kids from around the country wouldn't be able to necessarily attend, but maybe some of them would. And certainly the kids here in New York would like to see other kids doing their thing. Heck, James and I could even put up a website with the various submissions! He's always been good at displaying the art of his book's fans, after all.

And so it shall be! This fall (date to be determined very soon) we will present the 90-second Film Festival. Know some kids (or a class) interested in participating? In that case, pilfered from James, here are the rules in brief:
1. Your video should be 90 seconds or less. (Okay, okay: if it's three minutes long but absolute genius, we'll bend the rules for you. But let's try to keep them short.) 2. Your video has to be about a Newbery award-winning (or Newbery honor-winning) book. Here's a list of all the winners. 3. Your video must condense the plot of the book in 90 seconds or less. Again, exceptions will be made for something really ingeniously bonkers, but it has to be related to a Newbery winning book. 4. Upload your videos to YouTube or Vimeo or whatever and send me the link at kennedyjames [at] gmail [dot] com. Make the subject line be "90 SECOND NEWBERY" and please tell me your name, age, where you're from, and whatever other comments you'd like to include, including whether you'd like me to link to your personal site. You can give an alias if you want; I understand privacy concerns. 5. Sending the link to me grants me (James Kennedy) the right to post it on my blog and to other websites where I sometimes post content (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and to share at public readings, school visits-and hopefully the 90-Second Film Festival at the New York Public Library in the Fall of 2011. 6. Deadline is September 15, 2011.
I'll add in some details of my own. Participants must be between the ages of 0-18. Yes, we will take teenage versions of these books, if they want to participate. Everyone is welcome.

New York Caveat: The film festival will consist of Newbery videos, yes. BUT, New York kids are not restricted to just the Newbery. If your kids want to do one of the books listed on the Children's Books 2010: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing list, that is a-okay. Equally, if New York teens would like to do any videos you can chose from the Stuff for the Teen Age list. We will present these videos as a secondary party of the film festival. Such submissions, however, should be sent to me rather than James. You can do so by clicking on my name at the beginning of this (or any other) post on this blog and that will take you to my email.

For a series of highly amusing suggestions of how to approach the Newbery part of the contest, head on over to the 90-Second Newbery page and read through Mr. Kennedy's suggestions. And for those of you working in places where YouTube is blocked, you can see the video at Vimeo too.

Have fun!

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Introducing the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival

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How it all began is anybody's guess, but it probably started with YA author James Kennedy. On a day like any other I received an email from him with a proposal: Why not have a contest where kids created videos of their favorite Newbery books. The catch?

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Behind the Scenes of Charlotte's Web/Spider-Man mashup

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Behind the Scenes of Charlotte's Web/Spider-Man mashup

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Behind the Scenes of our Charlotte's Web / Spider-Man mashup video

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See the completed video project here: http://youtu.be/ixunHOnscuE Made for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival

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90-Second Newbery Film Festival in NYC! 

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90-Second Newbery Film Festival in NYC! 

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www.kidlit.tv 90-Sec Newbery Film Festival at the NY Public Library! Hosted by James Kennedy and Ame Dyckman. The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, founded by James Kennedy, is a video contest held annually for kid filmmakers who create 90-second films to portray and tell the story of a Newbery award-winning book.

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Making our "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" video

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Making our "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" video

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First, the kids' current ages:
Isaac = 12
Gracie = 10
Lily = 8
Elijah = 5

In the beginning of February, I ( Dad) told the kids about the 90-Second Newbery video challenge that had just been issued. They were extremely excited to make our first video review for our blog Bookie Woogie. An important element of our book review blog is the accompanying art the kids create. So I told the kids that maybe we could create our video with a series of pictures. It might even be easy enough to work in some moving parts or puppets.

At this point Isaac said, "Noooooooo... We have to do Shadow Puppets!!!" And our lives were changed forever. He had been playing around with some shadow puppets of his own, and it seemed like a good enough excuse to work some up with a purpose. Little did we know this endeavor would span a solid 3 months!

I drew up a shortlist of Newbery books that I thought had good visual potential. From the first time I had heard about it, I'd wanted to read "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin. Once we had the book in hand, we knew it would be the perfect choice for shadow puppets. Even many of the interior illustrations are done in a silhouette-style. We read the book together as a family. LOVED it. And we set about to make our video...

STEP ONE:
First we made a list of our favorite parts in the story.

Then the kids came up with a single statement that they thought captured the MAIN point of the book: "Minli's journey to find the Old Man in the Moon in order to change their fortune."

Because we only had 90 seconds to work with, anything on our list that directly supported that statement got circled, and anything that didn't advance that single idea got set aside.

STEP TWO:
We combined all our favorite parts into a series of scenes. Seven scenes in all.

STEP THREE:
Since video is a visual medium, our next step actually was not writing a script, but rather creating thumbnails to depict each of the seven scenes. We wanted the eventual script to support what we could portray visually. So the kids went scene by scene working up thumbnail suggestions.

Through trial and error, the kids learned some things along the way. We talked about how in visual storytelling, the action moves from left to right. We talked about making the best use of space to support the main action. We talked about clear shapes. We talked about not letting secondary elements distract from the main action. We talked about how composition can lead the eye and focus attention. We talked about alternating perspectives for visual interest.

Here's a peek at some of the thumbnail sketches they worked through:

Isaac:

Gracie:

STEP FOUR:
Looking at our final thumbnail choices, we then composed the script around them. The kids worked out the text while I transcribed their ideas.

STEP FIVE:
Around this time I started thinking about music. After poking around online to see what was available for purchase, I decided to contact my college friend Victor Lams. The kids already love his crazy wacky music:

I asked Victor if he had ever composed anything with an Asian feel. He said he hadn't, but that he would be happy to write some new music for our video. What he came up with was PERFECT! I never could have dreamed the music would fit so well. Thanks Victor!

STEP SIX:
While Victor was writing music, the kids and I recorded the dialog - and had a lot of fun doing it!

STEP SEVEN:
Next the kids set about to do some visual development. Isaac would be making all the puppets, but we wanted everyone to feed him ideas for inspiration. We have pages and pages of sketches, but here are a few:

Minli by Lily:

Minli by Gracie:

Minli by Isaac:

Twins by Lily:

Tiger by Elijah:

Talking Fish by Isaac:

STEP EIGHT:
Using the sketches for inspiration, Isaac worked diligently making all the puppets and backgrounds single-handedly. They are awesome! Many of them have great moving parts. And he came up with lots of clever mechanics to create the visual tricks we'd need.

Here are some of his wonderful puppets:

Dragon and Minli:

A second dragon puppet with lots of fun moving parts:

And look closely... Isaac even added some fun elements into the details on the dragon! If you can make it out, there's a little scene depicting two dragons setting fire to some houses:

The Old Man in the Moon:

The Buffalo Boy:

The Green Tiger:

Adorable Twins:

STEP NINE:
We practiced the puppet show... assigning parts and working on timing.

STEP TEN:
Finally the day came to film our efforts. We rigged up our screen horizontally/flat with the light source above and the camera shooting from below. That way we could lay the puppets on the screen like a tabletop. We matched our performance to the previously recorded audio we had playing in the background. It took us seven takes before we made it through the whole thing without a mistake. We then made it all the way through 3 more times so that we could pick the best performance. Isaac and I then combined all the elements together in iMovie, and we had ourselves a show!

We had a blast making this video. We hope you all enjoy it! We are especially thankful to Grace Lin for writing such a marvelous book, and we hope our little video brings her a bit of the happiness which her book certainly has brought to us!

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Making our "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" video

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First, the kids' current ages: Isaac = 12 Gracie = 10 Lily = 8 Elijah = 5 In the beginning of February, I ( Dad) told the kids about the 90-Second Newbery video challenge that had just been issued. They were extremely excited to make our first video review for our blog Bookie Woogie.

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The Power of the Picture Book: Aaron Zenz

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The Power of the Picture Book: Aaron Zenz

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Picture books and their creators have had a powerful impact on me in many ways over many years. In the midst of this 30-day-long November celebration of picture books, I thought I would celebrate 30 specific picture books and creators that have influenced my life. As lovers of the format, our family has around 5,000 children's books in our home collection, so I could easily highlight hundreds. The giant challenge for me was to limit myself to only 30. And as an illustrator, I thought I would celebrate these books and their creators in a unique way: through a giant piece of Fan Art... Here goes!

How many characters did you recognize in this Picture Book Tribute? And what feeling hit you when you picked out a familiar face? Giddy? Did it feel like spotting an old friend? Did you smile? Did you make an audible noise or even say something out loud?

That feeling you got? That's the power of picture books.

Here's a guide to the characters I picked and their creators:

Me:

Aaron Zenz /
The Hiccupotamus
I love picture books. I read picture books. I collect picture books. I make picture books. I've illustrated and/or authored 33 picture books, but "The Hiccupotamus" was my first and will always be a significant part of my life.

5 Formative Creators:

Eric Rohman /
The Cinder-Eyed Cats
This is the picture book that had the most profound impact on my life and calling to create. I was in my college library, most likely studying for an exam. I happened to look up, and I saw these cats staring at me from the other side of the room. I looked down. Back up. Down. Up. They were still there. Still staring. Intently. Calling to me. I was physically moved to stand up, cross the room, and dive into the story. The power of that moment - for a single image to move me to action - was striking. And I knew I wanted to do that too. I knew I wanted to make art that would compel people to move ...or laugh ...or think ...or change ...or inspire them to create too.
John Sandford /
The Terrible Hodag
John is the person who had the most profound impact on my calling to create. He was the first real live illustrator I ever met. I was in awe of his art. He befriended and encouraged me. "You're going to do this someday," he'd say sounding as if he really meant it. Years later when he started his own publishing company, he took those words and acted on them, hiring me as the first employee. He got the ball rolling on The Hiccupotamus, and the course of my life was set in motion.

I discovered Glen Keane's behind-the-scenes rough animation my freshman year of highschool, and he has been my favorite artist ever since. He's the artist behind Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin, and Tangled, but he also created fantastic books about Adam Raccoon - the greatest faith-based picture book series out there by leaps and bounds.

Scott Gustafson /
Alphabet Soup
I started collecting samples of Scott's art from catalogs in college (long before the days of Pinterest). I actually crossed paths with him years later, and had a memorable star-struck encounter.
David Macaulay /
Black and White
This has long been my absolute favorite picture book, and most likely always will be.

2 Local Pals:
The writing and illustrating life is, more often than not, a solitary and sometimes lonely endeavor. I'm lucky to live near some other top-notch creators. Laurie and Amy are two local friends, are kindred spirits, and have created many amazing characters.

5 Classics:
A few favorite books from my childhood:

Ezra Jack Keats / The Snowy Day

Jon Stone and Mike Smollin /
The Monster at the End of this Book

William Steig / Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

17 Contemporary Creators:
I'm closing out with 17 creators that regularly dazzle and amaze me. Again, this list could contain hundreds! But here are a few favorites:

Jon Klassen / I Want My Hat Back

David Wiesner / Tuesday

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith / The Stinky Cheese Man

Tony DiTerlizzi / Ted

Mo Willems / Elephant and Piggie

Jarrett J Krosoczka / Baghead

Viviane Schwarz / There Are Cats in this Book

John Hendrix / John Brown

Julia Denos / Swatch

Ben Hatke / Nobody Likes A Goblin
I suspect some of these are your favorite picture books too. And as for any books or creators that are unfamiliar to you - why not hunt them down? You may find some powerful, new, life-long friends!

Aaron Zenz lives in Spring Lake, MI with his lovely wife and six creative kids. He has participated in the creation of 33 children's books, 9 of which he authored. He loves Author Visits and travels around the country all year long, getting kids excited about reading, writing, and creating. Just last month, his newest book "Little Iffy Learns to Fly" swooped into the world. You can find Aaron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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The Power of the Picture Book: Aaron Zenz

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Picture books and their creators have had a powerful impact on me in many ways over many years. In the midst of this 30-day-long November celebration of picture books, I thought I would celebrate 30 specific picture books and creators that have influenced my life.

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The Hiccupotamus. 444 likes. "There was a hippopotamus Who hiccuped quite a-lot-amus..."

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James Kennedy on All the Wonders Podcast

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James Kennedy on All the Wonders Podcast

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James Kennedy (@iamjameskennedy), author of The Order of Odd-Fish and founder of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival (@90secondnewbery), stops by the podcast to talk about the stink of worthiness, blood-thirsty monsters, and the most frequently adapted Newbery winner.

About the Author

Matthew Winner

Matthew Winner is an elementary library media specialist in Elkridge, Maryland. He is is the co-founder and content director of All The Wonders, a children's literature website and more, and host of the Let's Get Busy podcast, a weekly podcast where Matthew talks to authors, illustrators, award winners, up-and-comers, and everyone in between. In 2013 Matthew was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker and was invited to the White House as part of the Champions of Change program. For more information, connect with Matthew on Twitter at @MatthewWinner .

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James Kennedy: Let's Get Busy, Episode 234

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James Kennedy (@iamjameskennedy), author of The Order of Odd-Fish and founder of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival (@90secondnewbery), stops by the podcast to talk about the stink of worthiness, blood-thirsty monsters, and the most frequently adapted Newbery winner. About the Author Matthew Winner Matthew Winner is an elementary library media specialist in Elkridge, Maryland.

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A family of artists painted 1,000 rocks for ArtPrize 2016 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 500 rocks will be on display at the Grand Rapids Children's Museum. 500 matching rocks will be spread around Grand Rapids for a giant game of "I Spy." Keep your eyes open during ArtPrize!

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Teen Film Fest 2018 | Arlington Heights Memorial Library

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On Friday, August 10th, we celebrated teen filmmakers at the 12th annual Teen Film Fest. We had a record number of entries this year, all thanks to the amazing teens making amazing movies! Check out the photos from the Red Carpet, Teen Film Fest, and amazing After Party!

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Teen Film Fest | Arlington Heights Memorial Library

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In the case of a high number of submissions, we may not be able to show all of the films submitted to the fest. We will notify you if your film will be screened at the film fest.

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Created by kids at Lincolnwood Public Library

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Last Stop on Market Street in 90 Seconds

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Created by Max, Christopher, and Patrick from Lincoln Hall

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Created by Ashton, Adrien, Celina, Dylan, Keene, and Owais from Lincoln Hall

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90 Second Newbery "The Crossover" by Kwame Alexander

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Made of articles, videos especially Christina's below, eulogies, her own words, her Modern Love piece, tweets and other words not my own because I can't find the words I wish you more days of yellow umbrellas beckoning at the bean for the sole purpose of making something Positive pranking random acts of kindness more stories than stars On March 13, Amy Krouse Rosenthal died No wonder the word cancer and cancel look so similar.

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Secrets of Story Podcast by Matt Bird and James Kennedy on Apple Podcasts

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Download past episodes or subscribe to future episodes of Secrets of Story Podcast by Matt Bird and James Kennedy for free.

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Created by students at Blitstein Institute

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The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (90-Second Newbery)

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Created by the Evanston Public Library Homeschool Group

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Created by the Evanston Public Library Homeschool Group

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DOLL BONES 90-Second Newbery by the Evanston Homeschool Group

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Highlights of the 2018 90-Second Newbery… and inspiration for 2019!

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Highlights of the 2018 90-Second Newbery… and inspiration for 2019!

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The 7th annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival this year was a blast-the most screenings in our history (fourteen cities!), the highest attendance yet, the most movie submissions, and the best overall quality of movies thus far.

If I do say so myself, our opening skit was pretty snappy, too-check out me and co-host Keir Graff above as we caper through the opening of the Chicago screening. Our screenings always open with a song-and-dance number, and this year we confronted weird video games based on Newbery winners, which turned into a celebration of the strangest 90-Second Newbery movies we've received over the years, sung to the the tune of "Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan. Thanks to Keir and all the other fearless co-hosts who shared the stage with me in 2018: M.T. Anderson, Pete Hautman, Michael Northrop, Dale Basye, Aaron Zenz, Katherine Catmull, Marcus Ewert, Matt Krueger, and Doug Mackey!

Let's look back at the 2018 season and highlight some of the best movies we received. I hope you'll be inspired to make your own movie for the 2019 90-Second Newbery in time for the deadline of January 11, 2019.

Are you a young filmmaker who'd like to enter the 2019 90-Second Newbery Film Festival-or a teacher/parent/librarian who wants to help their class, club, or group make a movie to submit? On the Resources page of the 90-Second Newbery website you can find tips, tricks, and guidance on how to do it, even if you've never made a movie before. It features links to great resources like royalty-free music, green screen tutorials, screenwriting advice, editing and cinematography tips, and even a step-by-step "How To Make a 90-Second Newbery" series of posts. Check it out here!

Now, let's look at some of those movies!

I've found that the best 90-Second Newberys aren't just basic retellings of the story. The most loved movies are always the ones that put a crazy, unique twist on the material-whether it's switching up the genre (like remaking E.B. White's 1953 Honor Book Charlotte's Web in the style of a horror movie) or adapting the movie in a cool medium (like Mary and Conrad Buff's 1952 Newbery Honor Book The Apple and the Arrow recreated in elaborate Claymation). This year, we got a lot of fascinating genre-crossing and weird-medium movies. One of the best was Ava Levine's adaptation of Charlotte's Web-in the style of a Michael Bay action movie:

You can read our judges' full rave review here, but suffice it to say that reimagining Charlotte's Web as a thrillingly cheesy exercise in Bayhem was a stroke of genius that jolted the gentle talking-animal story with new life. I showed this one all over the country and folks loved it at every screening.

The Leland Street Players (I happen to be acquainted with one or two of the actors) did this ambitious adaptation of Ruth S. Gannett's 1949 Newbery Honor Book My Father's Dragon:

Great performances! You can find complete info about it on the 90-Second Newbery website here. This one pushes the time limit by being five minutes long, which would usually be disqualifying, but I wanted to spotlight it here to demonstrate how using compelling outdoors locations (no boring classroom interiors or school hallways here), elaborate costumes and facepaint, and fun soundtrack music can really pull a movie together and make it entertaining. Do the extra work and make something special. Props, costumes, locations, soundtrack, and editing all matter!

I always love movies that tell the story through music. Rap is particularly suited for a 90-Second Newbery because it's perfect for condensing a lot of information into a small amount of time. Here, Ashton T., Adrien H., Celina S., Dylan T., Keene H., and Owais A. of Lincoln Hall Middle School in Lincolnwood, IL adapt Kwame Alexander's 2015 Newbery Medal Winner The Crossover:

You can find the judges' glowing praise of this movie here. Notice how every line he raps moves the story forward, makes us feel a specific emotion, or fills in information we need to know. And it's all done stylishly, with crisp delivery and confident visuals.

Here's another fun idea: make a 90-Second Newbery that tells the story of the Newbery-winning book in the style of a well-known movie or TV show. We've seen this technique in submissions from the past (Sid Fleischmann's 1987 Medal winner The Whipping Boy remade in the style of Star Wars, or Beverly Cleary's 1978 Honor Book Ramona and Her Father done as a James Bond movie).

This move works best if both stories have certain similarities. For instance, Natalie Babbitt's 1971 Newbery Honor Book Knee-Knock Rise is about seemingly supernatural happenings in a small rural town, investigated by a newcomer to that town . . . which is broadly the plot of David Lynch's early-nineties TV show Twin Peaks! So here, Domingo and Amalia of Chicago adapt Knee-Knock Rise in the style of Twin Peaks:

The full review on the 90-Second Newbery website is here. The most important takeaway: If you're going to make your movie in the style of some other movie or TV show, make sure you fulfill the promise of the premise in every scene. That is, if you intend to adapt your book in the Star Wars style, then your movie had better include light saber fights, spaceship battles, an opening crawl, and John Williams music throughout. If you're going to adapt your book in the style of James Bond, then your movie needs a suave Bond with an English accent, a cool suit, gunfights, the silly double entendres, franchise characters like Blofeld and Q showing up, and of course the familiar theme music.

Same thing here! When making this movie in the style of Twin Peaks, Domingo and Amalia referenced its recognizable signifiers: the weirdly-talking dancing dwarf in the Red Room, the Log Lady, and the iconic Angelo Badalamenti music. They even recreated certain scenes (like when Cooper is introduced talking to his recorder, or when he bashes his face into the bathroom mirror) but changed them to portray scenes from the book. The lesson: Pick a specific style, commit to it one hundred percent in every scene, and you can't go wrong!

Here's another example of making your movie in the style of a popular TV show-here, Mr. Johnson's 5th Grade at Grant Center for the Expressive Arts in Tacoma adapted Marion Dane Bauer's 1987 Newbery Honor Book On My Honor in the style of Netflix's creepy-fun 1980s pastiche Stranger Things:

You can read the judges' full rapturous review here. Notice how the movie cleverly uses the show's distinctive title style to split the movie into distinct chapters, how "Eleven" is dressed just as she is in the show (and with a similar tough glare), and how the book's hero has the "Dustin" hair from the show. The ending of this movie also cleverly reverses the ending of the book. That's exactly the kind of thing I love to see . . . a movie adaptation that doesn't just retell the story of the book, but transforms it in a witty way.

Mr. Johnson's class also adapted Patricia Lauber's 1987 Newbery Honor Book Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens:

You can read the judges' delighted review here. I think this is a masterpiece of adaptation because it chooses very carefully what to omit from the book . . . and also what to add in order to make a fun, watchable movie. By giving the volcano a personality, and by making the eruption "motivated" by a squirrel messing with its Rubik's cube, the movie comes alive in wonderful and unexpected ways. And this movie includes only the most necessary informational points of the book, never getting bogged down. It's quick, it's funny, it puts its own unique spin on the material-and it manages to be accurate to the broad outlines of the book! (Resourceful use of green-screen, too. Green screen is your friend!)

Sometimes it's instructive to see two different adaptations of the same book. Here's another take on Patricia Lauber's Volcano book, this time by Ezra R. of Master Shot Film Club at the American Library in Paris, France. Here, instead of adapting the story into a different genre, Ezra adapts the book into a distinctive medium-stop-motion Legos:

You can read the judges' rave review here. Again, I love how this movie not only abbreviates the book, but also adds stuff: the volcano's eruption is here blamed on careless fire demons, and the wildlife "party" at the end is the perfect way to wrap this one up. Don't be afraid to goof around with the book . . . as long as it's still broadly congruent with the book's story, you should be fine.

Here's another example of doing your movie in a distinctive way: the students of Robert L. Vale Middle School in San Antonio adapted Neil Gaiman's 2009 Newbery Medal winner The Graveyard Book with shadow puppets, and the plot is sung along to the "Scooby-Doo" theme song:

You can read the judges' appreciative review here. Again, we see that using a song in your 90-Second Newbery immediately makes it much more compelling and fun to watch. And the visual storytelling with the shadow puppets is adroit and effective, with every shot conveying story information. This one's a gem.

There are many other videos from this year's 90-Second Newbery I'd like to highlight, but I have to stop this post somewhere. But if you're inclined, you should do yourself a favor and watch this adaptation of Gary Paulsen's 1988 Newbery Honor Book Hatchet in the style of a YouTuber celebrity's video (with added animations and model work!), and Richard and Florence Atwater's 1939 Honor Book Mr. Popper's Penguins in the style of a hard-edged action movie trailer, and Mary Hays Weik's 1967 Newbery Honor Book The Jazz Man sung in the style of the opening number from La La Land, and E.L. Konigsburg's 1968 Newbery Medal Winner From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler done in a combination of rap, singing, and spoken-word poetry, and Wanda Gag's 1929 Honor Book Millions of Cats reimagined in a stop-motion snowscape with cute polar bears . . . I could go on and on . . .

And I suppose I already have! But that's not even scratching the surface of all the worthy and wonderful movies we received this year. I can't wait to see what everyone cooks up for 2019!

Remember, the deadline is January 11, 2019. You can find complete details (rules, instructions for submitting, etc.) at the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival website. We even have a page that highlights some of the best 90-Second Newberys we've received, so you can get a better idea of what kind of videos do well in the film festival.

Don't forget, we have a wealth of moviemaking resources available on the 90-Second Newbery website-even including a step-by-step guide on how to make your own movie! Don't be afraid if this is the first movie you've ever made. The point is to have fun, not to be perfect. Some of my favorite movies have been made by first-timers. Go for it!

Do you want the 90-Second Newbery to continue next year? Please make a tax-deductible donation here to keep us going. Every little bit helps! We're under the nonprofit fiscal sponsorship of Fractured Atlas.

To wrap up, here are some fun pictures from the various screenings:

Getting choked by National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson after the Boston show.

A happy audience at the Tacoma screening.

Author Dale Basye and I hang out with honored filmmakers after the Portland show.

Bestselling author Michael Northrop and I singing the opening number in New York City.

Hanging out with young filmmakers after the New York City show.

Some movie stills and an after-show picture at the San Francisco show.

Hanging out with some young filmmakers on the rise in Chicago-my daughters and their friends!

Thanks to the generosity Bibliotech and H.E.B. Grocery, our San Antonio screening chooses winners and gives prizes to schools. Here are this year's grand prize winners (for the Graveyard Book movie mentioned above).

A great video made of the San Antonio screening.

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Highlights of the 2018 90-Second Newbery... and inspiration for 2019!

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The 7th annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival this year was a blast-the most screenings in our history (fourteen cities!), the highest attendance yet, the most movie submissions, and the best over...

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The Inquisitor’s Tale (90-Second Newbery)

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The Light at Tern Rock (90-Second Newbery)

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Filmmaking brings deeper learning into focus at Grant Center for the Expressive Arts 

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Filmmaking brings deeper learning into focus at Grant Center for the Expressive Arts 

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Filmmaking brings deeper learning into focus at Grant Center for the Expressive Arts

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#4: Shot-By-Shot Analysis Of A Wrinkle in Time

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#4: Shot-By-Shot Analysis Of A Wrinkle in Time

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This is the fourth step in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. If you haven't already, check out Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys and Step 2: Read The Book And Start Planning and Step 3: Breaking The Story And Writing The Script.

All right, you're ready to rock! You've watched lots of great 90-Second Newbery videos to get inspired ( Step 1). You've read your Newbery-winning book, figured out your unique take on the material, and marshaled your resources ( Step 2). You've broken the story and written an amazing script that fulfills your twist and tells a complete (if condensed) version of the story in a way that makes sense ( Step 3).

You're ready to shoot that movie!

But maybe you've never made a movie before. You may have a great script, but what if everything falls apart when you're actually shooting the movie? Or what if you bungle editing it? Maybe you don't know how to frame a shot, you don't know how to move the camera, and you've never used video editing software. There's too much to know! It can feel overwhelming!

Relax. You've been watching TV and movies all your life. You already have all the knowledge you need inside you. All I need to do is remind you of that knowledge.

To do that, let's analyze the very first 90-Second Newbery movie, of Madeleine L'Engle's 1963 Medal winner A Wrinkle in Time (A timely choice: after all, the Disney movie of A Wrinkle in Time directed by Ava Duvernay will be coming out in March 2018!)

As you watch the movie below, pay attention to where the camera is placed. I'm going to be talking a lot about how to compose your shots. It doesn't cost any extra money to put your camera in the right place. And the difference between a movie that is well-shot, and a movie where the camera is just carelessly plopped around anywhere, is crucial. There's a whole cinematic vocabulary that can help you tell your story.

Also, pay attention to the sound. Sound is one of the most powerful tools a filmmaker has. But this powerful tool is often ignored by beginners because they assume a movie is all about the moving image. On the contrary, the difference between a good or bad movies often comes down to sound design.

After we watch the movie, I'll examine it shot by shot and and point out techniques that you can use to make your own movie-telling the story not only through spoken dialogue, but also with camera angle, shot choice, transitions, sound effects, and special effects.

Let's jump in and watch the movie first:

Not bad, huh? Some great acting. Told the complete (abbreviated) story. Only 90 seconds long, if you don't count the credits. Even a few fun special effects and sound effects. And the whole thing was shot on an old 2010-era flip camera no bigger than an iPhone. (You don't need fancy equipment.)

Now let's analyze that movie shot-by-shot, and understand the decisions that made it effective.

The Rule of Thirds. I added those blue grid lines over the shot to illustrate the famous "Rule of Thirds." That is: When you're holding the camera, imagine invisible grid lines that divide the frame into nine equal sections like you see here. Our eyes are naturally drawn to those invisible lines-and our eyes are very much drawn to where those invisible lines intersect. So if something important is happening in your shot, make sure it's happening on one of those lines, or where the lines cross. Here two lines intersect on Charles Wallace's head, which makes sense because he's the most important thing in this shot.

Make sure you have props. Charles Wallace's line "I made hot milk and a sandwich" works much better because he is literally holding milk and a sandwich. Use props whenever you can. Give your characters objects to hold and manipulate, to give and take. This adds visual interest.

Angling the camera "down" on someone makes them look younger, more powerless, more submissive. The boy who plays Charles Wallace here is ten years old. But the actual character of Charles Wallace is only four years old! How do you make a ten-year-old look younger? It turns out that if you hold the camera such that it is "looking down" on someone, this has the effect of diminishing the subject, making them appear less powerful, less significant, even younger. Also, if you want to shoot someone looking scared or submissive, do a "high angle" shot like this.

Consistent background sound can "connect" scenes. Even though the scene has changed, the rain-and-thunder sound effect from the previous shot has continued uninterrupted, which subtly indicates to us that we're around the same location at the same time. It's not the next day or hours later.

Angling the camera "up" at someone makes them look older, more powerful, more dominant. To emphasize that Meg is older than Charles Wallace, we shoot her from (ever-so-slightly) below. If the camera is "looking up" at someone, it has the effect of making them look more powerful, more intimidating, and older. If you want to shoot someone looking scary or threatening, do this kind of "low angle" shot (but more extreme than this).

In a scene of two people talking to each other, have each of them stay on "their" side. Throughout this conversation, as we cut back and forth, Charles Wallace stays on the left and Meg stays on the right. It would be spatially confusing if Charles Wallace said something while looking to the left, and then we cut to Meg responding while also looking to the left. In general, if two characters are interacting in a scene, imagine an invisible line between them and keep the camera on one side of that line throughout the scene. This is called "The 180 Rule." Note: if you want to get a "jarring" effect (let's say there was an explosion and both characters suddenly react), go ahead and break this rule.

Get out of your classroom and into a real location. I get a lot of 90-Second Newberys in which the whole thing is shot in a classroom or school hallway or a corner of the library. Those are fine, but it's much more effective to try to shoot at the right location. This scene in the book is set in an ordinary kitchen at the Murrys' house, and so the group took the trouble to shoot it in a real family's kitchen. Take the time to find and use the right location.

The Rule of Thirds. Meg's face is positioned right where there are two intersections of the lines on our invisible grid. Remember that Rule of Thirds! Framing the shots using it almost always leads to a more pleasing result.

Unbalanced Symmetry. Seeing Meg on the left side, and emptiness of the right side, makes us unconsciously want the right side to be filled with something. We call this "unbalanced symmetry." It creates an expectation that something will soon happen on the right side. And lo and behold, a second later . . .

Balanced Symmetry . . . Mrs. Murry pops her head in the right side, completing the symmetry! Use unbalanced symmetry to create unconscious expectation in viewer's mind, and then fulfill (or don't fulfill, depending on your aim) that expectation.

Depth of Field. Note that Mrs. Murry is further away from the camera than Meg; the window is even further away; and the house beyond the window even FURTHER away. Depth like this makes visually interesting shots. Get your actors away from walls, away from corners, and put them at various distances from the camera. Here's a classic use of "depth of field" from Citizen Kane.

Left-to-right vs. Right-to-left movement. Charles Wallace moves across the frame from left to right. Here's a weird fact: movement from left-to-right on a screen feels "correct" and "easy" to our eyes, while moving right-to-left feels "wrong" and "difficult." Often the hero in a movie (or whoever has the initiative/momentum in the scene) moves left-to-right, and villains (or whoever is resisting what is happening, or doing something difficult or "wrong") move from right-to-left. And that's not just in movies! Think about video games: in "Super Mario Bros." and indeed almost all side-scrolling video games, your movement goes from left-to-right and almost never right-to-left. (A similar bias in our minds exists for vertical movement: upward movement onscreen feels "hard," while downward movement onscreen feels "easy"). So if you want to show a character doing something that you want the audience to feel is impossible, have them moving "uphill" from right-to-left in your shot. If you want to make a movement feel easy or inevitable, have them moving "downhill" from left to right. Using these psychological tricks can add a lot of hidden power to your shots. Here's a short video that explains this trick further.

Complicated shots are fun to watch. There were three parts to this shot: Meg asking "Mom, where's Dad?", and Mrs. Murry popping in to say "He's on another planet," and Charles Wallace crossing left-to-right in front of them saying "I hear something outside." What could've been a humdrum bunch of lines becomes interesting to watch because we took time and care to set up an interesting shot with fulfilled symmetry, depth of field, and character movement that takes advantage of our minds' inherent biases. Plan your shots creatively!

Use background sound to link shots together. The rain-and-thunder background sound linked the beginning shots together. Now we'll use the new droning background noise to link this shot with the previous shot and with subsequent shots. By laying in this background sound over a series of shots, it will cause the audio in all the shots to flow together, without a distracting difference in background noise every time the shot changes.

Get your camera outside! As much as possible, shoot outside. There is more natural depth to your field. Outside is more interesting to watch than a bunch of boring rooms, especially if they are classrooms or school hallways.

Costumes are important! All three witches who show up in this shot have elaborate, goofy costumes. We immediately understand that they are weirdo characters and it's much more fun to watch than if these actors were wearing their ordinary clothes and just acting like witches. Don't skimp on costumes, they will make your movie.

Switch up the camera movement. In the last shot the camera was moving forward; now it's slowly moving backward! Keep switching up the camera movement to add visual interest.

Give characters fun entrances. We have a big job in this shot: we must introduce three characters, the witches Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. We'll do it all in this one shot (which will subtly emphasize that they are all part of the same group). Each witch will pop in from a different direction, with a different characteristic line. First Mrs. Whatsit comes in from below . . .

Constantly surprise the audience. . . . Then Mrs. Who comes in! Did you expect a witch to show up in the treehouse, the first time you saw this? Probably not. Put your characters in unusual places, surprise the audience! (Also: just as how, in the original book, Mrs. Who constantly quotes famous thinkers, she quotes Shakespeare here. Have your characters acting in character from the moment we see them.) And as the camera continues to pull out, we see . . .

The unbalanced becomes balanced! . . . And that empty space is filled by Mrs. Whatsit on the right, when Meg swings around and this becomes an over-the-shoulder shot.

Props are better than no props. Using props like a string and a bug here keeps up the visual interest and makes it easier to understand what Mrs. Whatsit it talking about. Always introduce props into a scene if you can!

Rule of Thirds. Check it out: the bug and the string are right on the grid lines, so our eyes are irresistibly drawn to them.

This single shot is constantly changing. This shot (1) started as a medium shot of Meg, then (2) turned into a shot that was over Meg's shoulder focused on Mrs. Whatsit, and then (3) Meg interrupts the witch's explanation, so the shot changes again . . .

Don't let characters just fade away. In a scene with many characters in it, we should check in on each of them periodically so remind the viewer that they still exist. We haven't seen Charles Wallace in a while, so it's good for the camera to focus on him now to remind us that he's still in the scene, even if it's only to remark on the entrance of Calvin.

What happens if you have an "and then"? In Step 3, I advised that events in a story should be linked by "therefore" (Mrs. Which said "it's time to tesser," therefore Meg asked "What is tessering?") or "but" (Mrs. Whatsit tried to explain tessering, but Meg interrupted her and walked away). But sometimes events happen that aren't directly related to what happened before, like when Calvin shows up in this movie. So we set it up by having Charles Wallace loudly say "Who's this guy?" which tips us off that something is about to happen that wasn't directly caused by anything that came before.

Balanced Symmetry. The unbalanced symmetry is now balanced by the arrival of Calvin. It feels to the audience like Calvin automatically "belongs" in the group of friends because he has stepped into an empty place that looks like it had been reserved for him. This is visual storytelling! It's all done without words!

Keep It Moving! Notice that this movie doesn't lag even once. Every single line pushes the story forward. Even at this emotional high point of Calvin and Meg falling for each other, there's a crazy sci-fi zapping sound effect and without cutting we swing the camera over to Meg . . .

Let's see their faces. The previous shot was an establishing shot where we were "following" our heroes into the new world, so it was okay to see only the backs of their heads. But in general we want our heroes to be facing the camera most of the time, so we can see their faces and register their emotions. That's what we do here.

Sound design matters. The alien-ethereal background noise continues, linking this shot to the previous shot.

Rule of Thirds. Calvin is exactly at the intersection of two lines, which makes sense because he's doing the talking here.

Initiating a visual rhythm. In the previous shot, we saw this group from the back. In this shot, we see them from the front. In the next shot, we'll see them from the back again. We're establishing a rhythm that will pay off a few shots from now.

Intensifying the pattern. The pattern we established continues and escalates! We alternate back to seeing our group of heroes from the front again, but closer. The viewer develops an unconscious expectation: how will this pattern of shots be broken?

Pattern intensifies even more. We've set up a pattern where we go back and forth between looking at the kids and looking at the basketball boy, with each subsequent shot closer to its subject. We've moved so close to the basketball boy that we've gone over the shoulders of our heroes.

Background sound and adjusting the color are powerful tools! A new throbbing background noise begins and and a new reddish color tints the scene (both available through free tools in iMovie). This signals to the audience that we're in a totally new environment from the last scene. (In actuality, we're just in the basement of the same house where we've shot the rest of the movie.)

Vary the direction of movement. In the last shot our heroes were walking towards the camera; now they're walking away from it. Alternate motions like this to keep it visually interesting.

Special effects don't have to be difficult or expensive. That "brain in a jar" is just some wadded-up foam tubing stuffed in a glass jar full of water. Nothing fancy, just stuff you can find sitting around the house.

Arouse the audience's curiosity. The audience's curiosity is aroused by watching the children approach the weird distant thing in the center of the frame. We also feel drawn to it because we've put the jar in the corner, and we're walking towards that corner, so it feels like the whole universe is slanting towards this thing. What could that thing be . . . ?

Through camera movement, the audience can "discover" things at the same time as the heroes. As Meg whirls around to notice something hitherto unseen behind her, the camera pans to the right to show us too. By having the camera pan in this way, we "discover" who is behind Meg at the same time she does . . .

Push in closer in subsequent shots to increase tension. Every time the movie cuts back to the brain-in-a-jar, the camera has drawn closer to it. This increases tension in a subtle way, perhaps without the audience even consciously noticing! But they will feel it.

You can communicate plot information with sound design. As the brain in the jar "IT" falters, the background throbs and zaps also falter . . . and a bizarre new noise bloops up, signaling that something truly has changed. Use sound effects to convey plot information or convey emotions nonverbally!

And so concludes Part 4 of "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery." (Here are Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.) In the next post, we'll look at easy-to-use editing tricks that can make your movie look great.

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How To Make A 90-Second Newbery, Step 4: Shot-By-Shot Analysis Of A Wrinkle in Time

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This is the fourth step in the "How To Make A 90-Second Newbery" series. If you haven't already, check out Step 1: Watch Great Previous 90-Second Newberys and Step 2: Read The Boo...

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Curriculum for Creating a 90-Second Newbery Film

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3-2-1 Vocabulary: Learning Filmmaking Vocabulary by Making Films - ReadWriteThink

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Bring the vocabulary of film to life through the processes of filmmaking. Students learn terminology and techniques simultaneously as they plan, film, and edit a short video.

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Charlotte's Web by E.B. White 1953 Newbery Honor Book Adapted by Ava Levine (2017) From Chicago, IL Judges' Remarks: So, so good! The "directed by Michael Bay" twist was masterful comedy, and made for an ingenious contrast with the gentle source material. The repeated ridiculous low-budget green-screen explosions (the same one every time!)

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Hatchet by Gary Paulsen 1988 Newbery Honor Book Adapted by YOUmedia Rudy Lozano Branch (2017) From Chicago, IL Judges' Remarks: I knew this movie would be great from the very beginning, with the model plane flying (thanks to strings) over an elaborately detailed landscape.