iMovie Trailer Voice-overs

A reason to go back to the CUE conference every time, is that even one good idea gained (and there never is just one) is so worth it! This week I implemented an idea from CUE, about student-made iMovie trailers with voice-overs. I told students to make an iMovie trailer about something they have learned in Social Studies, from the first trimester of school. It could be any portion we have covered; their choice.

First I showed the students how to make a trailer, beginning with choosing the template theme. Then I showed them how to fill in the outline and storyboard for their Social Studies trailer. Next was plopping photos and videos into the storyboard, then watching their trailer, and saving the trailer on their camera roll.  This was the first half of the process.

Now students opened a new project in the iMovie app, and instead of clicking on trailer, this time they clicked on making an iMovie. The first video clip to chose from, was the trailer they had just saved to their camera roll. They plop that into their new project, and now can do a voice-over explaining their Social Studies topic. 

The results are professional, and limited to a minute long since all of the trailer templates in the app are about a minute.

My idea then was to have students save their voice-over projects to the camera roll and email from the camera roll to me. A huge surprise came when a student told me, "Look, you can email it from the app itself!" Ah...kids...they teach me something everyday!

Apparently a new feature on the upgraded iMovie app is the ability to email the project straight from the app, to who you want to send it to. I still will save all my movies to unlisted YouTube, but since students don't have YouTube (it's blocked) this IS a way to share their creations using the iMovie app.

To top it all off, you get a couple of students who catch on with one explanation, and they become my helpers, instructing other students about the steps described above. When it all comes together, and projects are presented, it's a beautiful thing!