Photo Shop Elements Used in Final Movie

I started with the basics, removing black borders, red eye and genera cropping. I also rotated several photos ( individual book pictures) which were positioned horizontally. Text over pictures in various fonts, styles and colors was also used. The "fun" pictures were the intro shots into the different themes. For the "survival themes" I applied an filter effect under standard elements called "add noise." On the "sports theme intro" I tried the rubberstamped effect in standard elements. This is also the effect, on teh background layer of the "war theme intro." Over the rubber stamping technique, I used the oval elliptical tool to cut out a clip from a Civil War picture, a Holocaust picture, and a Vietnam War picture and feathered each cut 20%. Then, I pasted each of these on top of the rubber stamped layer and moved them around to position them. I also used the arrange layer option to position the Holocaust clip under the Civil War clip, and to place the Vietman clip over the Cicil War clip. It was fun and better yet, the students loved the look and are excited about learning how to use photo shop elements.

The project to have them create movies was neat, but very time consuming. I have them in a two period block and it still took two weeks. I am hoping that with more practice on their part and mine, any future movies will take less time to put together. Even though it was time-consuming, it was beneficial and I will admit their final projects turned out better than mine. I am planning on positng their movies on the schools web page and my Angel account. The students however, asked to have them put on You Tube. I agreed, but then got negative comments form some parents about this. After explaining teh project to the parents with concerns however, and eliviating their concerns of non-appropriate usage of You Tube at school, they seemed to understand the project and gave me permission to post their child on You Tube. I also had to get the school's computer technician to unblock my computers from blogs and You Tube. When the project is over, he will put the filters back up on all computers in my room but mine. I think I have him convinced that just because it says "tube" on the end of the site, it isn't all inappropriate for school use.