The Legend of Tom Trueheart

Although this is not a film trailer, (it is a book trailer) I think this is the best place for this to go. 

"Tom Trueheart must rescue his six brothers and their Princess brides from the Land of Dark Stories." 
A stunning opening scene zooms through the pine needles and falling snow to zoom in on the hero of our story, Tom.
"He has a special sword,  He has courage, He has purpose, There is only one problem, he is the size of a thumb."

Teaching ideas
  • Ask the children to write the opening of the story, describing the setting before introducing Tom.
  • Write and record a voice over for the trailer.  Ask children to time it, record and overlay onto the film.
  • Write adventure stories using Tom as the hero. 
  • Create own version of The Book of Dark stories using prompts from the clip.

La Luna - Trailer from Pixar

La Luna is a new animated short film from Pixar that will be shown in Cinemas before lasts weeks 'Resource of the Week' Brave. The film will be 8 minutes long in total.   La Luna is the timeless fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait.  A big surprise awaits the little boy as he discovers his family's most unusual line of work.
Introduce the children to the first clip.  Ask the children to brainstorm who the characters are, what their relationships are and what they are doing.

Use the last few seconds of the clip to stimulate rich descriptive writing.  You could introduce similes and metaphors to describe the moon and the sea.
The second clip lends itself to some fantasy narrative writing.
Ask the children some stimulating questions;
-What happened after the first clip?
-Where have the stars come from?
-What will happen next?
-Can you describe the boy's feelings?
-What do they do with the stars?
Writing ideas
Dialogue between the characters, an opening scene, a story board showing the action between the two clips, extend the story and write an ending
The children could write diary entries for the day before the fishing trip and one after the trip describing the 'star fishing.'
They could write instructions for how to catch a star or poems about the night sky and shooting stars.
Write a voice over for the film trailer then record it and add to the films.
The children could write a narrative about someone who collects stars

Brave - Pixar

BRAVE

As well as using whole short films - film trailers provide a wealth of visual
images to use in the classroom.

This beautifully animated film from Disney Pixar is wonderfully wild, rugged
and dramatic.
I have used this trailer in Y5 over the course of a week.

Firstly without the voice-over, I ask
the children to write descriptions of the hero, the landscape and the bear. 
 
I include discussions about the trailer and  the girl.
I also ask the children to write a new voice-over that they can read out while the trailer is being played. This  is extremely challenging for the children. Their writing has to be long/short  enough to fit with the action. They need to use a range of long descriptive  sentences and some short, dramatic sentences that add to the tension in the  trailer.

 The children can write an extended narrative based on the trailer. They can  produce this in various text types. 1st or 3rd person narrative, fairytale  style, newspaper report, etc

 I have had some exceptional results with this film. The children have not  seen it as it is not due for world release until June this year. This means that  they don't end up writing other things that happen in the film.


I have included some stills to use for the descriptive elements of the  unit.