Today's bulletin is partly a short film one, and partly a web 2.0 one, and partly just a 'get the best out of your laptop' one. To begin with, we want to remind people about Keep Video. This is a web tool that allows you to download videos from Youtube. This is a great tool to use if your school blocks Youtube or you have slow wireless at your school making it difficult to show Youtube videos.
The tool can be found here: http://keepvid.com/. To use it, you simply need to cut and paste the internet (or URL) address of the Youtube video you want, visit Keep Video and paste it in the clearly marked box. Keep Video will then give you a number of different file formats you can download the video in. MP4 is best.
You might like to test this out on a favourite video of ours. It's been a viral hit on the net and has now been watched by over 20 millions viewers on Youtube. Some of you may have seen it. It's Ksenyia Simonova's Sand Animation from - surprise, surprise - 'Ukraine's Got Talent'. In real time, Ksenyia creates a series of sand drawings representing Germany's invasion of Ukraine in the Second World War. There is no dialogue, just the sand pictures. No historical context is needed to understand the story - because it could be any place, anywhere. It's and extraordinary short film which your students will be fascinated by. It can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo
One reason we like the film is that it is an amazing illustration of the power of visuals in film. In your class, it can be used as a comprehension activity. To help you do this, we've uploaded to our website a handout you can give to your students. There is eight stills from the video on the handout. After watching the video, discuss with your class what it's about and then get them to put some plot summaries to each picture. You can find the handout here.
You can capture your own stills from films. If you have a PC, it's easy. Simply use the small print screen button up the top of your keyboard somewhere (it's different on different PCs). Play your film and then just click on print screen when there is a visual you want to capture. You can then open a Word document and click on paste and the picture will paste into the document. If you have a Mac you can use the Grab Screen function in Utilities. This will allow you to capture stills from Youtube, but not from films played with DVD Player.
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