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Create your own poem

This session examines how to use a film still as stimulus to writing a poem.
Black and white still image from Snowball Fight film scene - Louis Lumière c. 1895 - 1897. Group of people having a snowball fight in the street.

Now it’s your chance to try your hand at creating a poetic masterpiece. In this instance the stimulus will be the Lumière brothers’ film from Week 1 – Snowball Fight.

Use the image above as a stimulus to create your own poem entitled Snowball Fight. Think about all the elements of the snowball fight portrayed in the video (which we watched in Step 1.16. Consider the cold, the crunch of the snow, snow hitting skin, melting snow inside clothing, the sounds, the expressions on people’s faces, the fall of the cyclist.

Write a simple eight line poem using the following template:

Snowball Fight

Line 1 – establishing shot
Line 2 – extreme close up
Line 3 – long shot
Line 4 – close up return

Line 1 – close up
Line 2 – establishing shot
Line 3 – long shot
Line 4 – extreme close up

If you’d like to share your poem with us please post it in a comment below, or add it to the Into Film Padlet wall.

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Teaching Literacy Through Film

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