Lesson 11: Teacher’s Guide

Purpose: 

1. To introduce the topic of editing. 

2. To inform students on the technical aspects of editing using popular editing software. 

3. To encourage students to consider the artistic choices inherent in editing. 

4. To begin the students’ editing process for their own PSAs.

Materials: 

• At least one computer – ideally, a computer per student or per PSA team. 

• Any necessary audiovisual equipment required to play the editing tutorial video and the sample videos from the Mental Floss article on film transitions. 

• One of the top two editing software programs most commonly used. You can download a free version of iMovie here and a free version of Final Cut Pro X for Windows here.  

• Printed versions of the Mental Floss article on film transitions and the FilmEditing Pro tutorial, “How to Sound Design a Video”  for each student (or computers such that students can read these online).

Time: 

1. Key Vocabulary 15 min. 

2. Editing software tutorial 15 min. 

3. Film transitions reading 10 min. 

4. Sound mixing reading 5 min. 

5. Discussion 10 min. 

6. Activity 10 min. 

7. Assignment 5 min. (in class), TBD (at home)

   
   Total time: 70 min (+TBD homework)

Teacher Preparation:

1. Set up audiovisual equipment needed to play the editing tutorial video.  

2. Download editing software onto class computer(s). 

3. Print out the Mental Floss and FilmEditing Pro articles for students (unless you have enough computers for them to read the articles online).

Tips:

• Remind students to bring their footage to class with them on an external drive or save it to a cloud-based system so that they can access it on the class computer(s). 

• This lesson has numerous important Key Vocabulary terms, so be particularly attentive to defining these and ensuring students attain conceptual understanding of them. Have students make sentences with each of the words and provide examples or pictures as needed. 

• Depending on students’ familiarity with editing and the availability of resources for them to practice with, you may break this Lesson over two class periods. If so, you might end the first class after the Film Transitions reading and begin the second class with the reading on Sound Mixing.