Terrafarmer

Key Learning

• How narrative is created in film.
• Every element of a visual image carries meaning.
• Visual images can be ‘read’ like other texts.

You will need

TV and DVD player or computer, projector and screen.

A closer look using tools for reading film

Sound and Image

Before watching the film


Cover the video screen and play the soundtrack.


Ask pupils to listen carefully and describe what they think they can hear.


Can they guess the kind of story it is?


What effect does the music at the end of the sequence have on the meaning?

Now watch the film with the picture


And use the "questions for discussion & evaluation below.

Freeze Frame

• Use the pause button to freeze the film on any short sequence of shots in the film. Ask the pupils to describe exactly what they can see.
• Where do you think the camera is?
• How far away is it? How do we get from one shot to the next?
• What can you tell about the characters from the way they are dressed?
• What things can we see in the background? What do they tell us about the place?

Prediction

Having watched the film, ask pupils to discuss, on the evidence of what they have seen, what might happen next. Use the best suggestions to draw or storyboard the narrative.

Questions for discussion (evaluating)

• Who, or what, are the two characters in the film?
• Where do you think the story takes place?
• Why do you think they have come here?
• Why do you think the little man punches the little guy?
• What do you think the little plant might be, and why do you think it is important?
• Is the film supposed to be funny or serious?
• Why do you think it is called ‘Terrafarmer’?

Further activities

English/Literacy

Talking:


Tell the story in your own words or imagine the two characters in another adventure. What kind of things might they get up to?

Art and Design

Drawing:


Draw a scene from the film, or imagine another part of the planet and draw it.

Make/Create


Make the spaceship the astronaut and the robot might have travelled in. Use whatever materials are available to you.

Science

Use the film to explain and discuss the possibility of life on other planets, and the history of space exploration. Learn about the sun, the moon, and the planets in the solar system.

Focus on the significance of the plant in the film and the reason the astronaut and the robot are there.
Why might we need to establish life on another planet one day?
What plants can you grow in the classroom?