3. Be Creative
During this last stage of the webquest, your work as a director begins. Keep your knowledge about the novel's historical background and about its former film version in mind when work on your creative tasks.
Your Tasks
These creative tasks represent different aspects on which a director has to decide when he or she plans a film. Your group is asked to decide on two of them.
Every group should prepare a presentation of their results (10-15 min). Since the tasks differ to a larger extent, you are free to choose how to present them. You could, for instance, enact your scene, show photos via the projector or prepare a gallery walk.
- Decide on actors for the main characters. Keep in mind the traits of the characters while choosing an actor and be ready to explain your decisions. In order to illustrate your choices, look for photos of the actors in the internet. They have to be still alive, of course.
- Build three freeze frames of crucial scenes and take photos of them that others can guess which scene you have enacted. Think also about an appropriate setting of your photos.
- Write a screenplay for a central scene of the novel. This is a creative writing activity so you may add certain parts, left other parts out or change the language. Please be prepared to enact your scene in class.
- An important part of the film business is promotion. That is why you should create a film poster for your own film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath which makes your future audience curious.
Every group should prepare a presentation of their results (10-15 min). Since the tasks differ to a larger extent, you are free to choose how to present them. You could, for instance, enact your scene, show photos via the projector or prepare a gallery walk.
Resources
Klimo, V. Director Chair. 2005.
- examples of freeze frames - "Dancing in the Dirt", a 'dust bowl' fotoshooting by Vanity Fair
- background information on screenwriting
- an example film script of GoW by Nunnally Johnson
- background information on how to create advertisments
- film poster of Ford's version