Most students love to watch film and they also love to go to the movies. So they are already somewhat familiar with trailers whose purpose is to promote or market upcoming releases. Today, teachers and students can watch trailers via websites, so they are more accessible than ever. This lesson is for teachers who wish to consider using trailers to teach students how to be critical thinkers, identify mood & tone, and about persuasive techniques. Students will also have the opportunity to get hands on experience while making their own trailer for one of the videos they have previously made in your class.

In this lesson students will have the opportunity to learn what film trailers are and why they are used. This lesson will contain lecture, vocabulary, Hollywood trailer examples, and student made trailer examples. 

In this lesson, students will learn the basics of video titles and how to create their own using various techniques and programs for their video productions. Students will view, review and discuss the different types of titles for film and video, and then create title clips of their own either as stand alone products or as part of a larger video production project.

Instruct students on a good format for logging and capturing your video footage and keeping it organized within Final Cut Studio application. This is a crucial point in ensuring that everything is labeled and setup correctly so that the footage is stored and captured in the correct location.

This lesson focuses on the use of MiniDV tapes set at NTSC. If the students are using HD cameras, the settings should be specific for HDV.

If there are enough lab stations, students should complete this task individually. If computers are limited pair students in groups of 2-3.