Lesson plan:

Film language: montage

This episode uses a montage of images at the beginning to remind the audience of previous episodes and foreshadow future events. This is a technique used in many television programs and from this episode onward is a regular feature of the format of Round the Twist. The montage is used to put the audience in the appropriate mood and to set the narrative framework for the program.

As a whole class

View the whole episode of Birdsdo then replay the opening montage. Before replaying the opening montage write the following categories on the board or ask students to write their own lists - humour, adventure, romance and fantasy.

Ask one group of students to time the sequence and another group to count the number of shots. After the replay discuss:

• the fast pace of the sequence (refer to the total length and the number of shots)
• the specific images in the sequence which suggest humour, adventure, romance and fantasy.

Advertising

Have students design a promotional poster for Round the Twist. Their poster should inform the audience about the humour, romance, adventure and fantasy to be found in the programs.

The episode Birdsdo is one of the most complex episode narratives in the Round the Twist series because it involves three different narrative sub-plots:

• the threat to Nell's' cottage by Mr Gribble
• the dragon sub-plot
• the ghost gull sub-plot.

As a whole class

Read to the class Paul Jennings story Birdscrap from Unbelievable! (Puffin, 1987) on which this episode is based. The story has a simple, single plot structure which highlights the more complex nature of the television adaptation.

As a way of drawing attention to the way in which stories can have more than one plot draw a diagram showing the plot structure of the episode Birdsdo and compare the plot lines in Birdsdo with those in Birdscrap.

Film language: camera techniques
As a whole class

This episode provides a useful example of the way in which a point of view shot can be used to create drama and suspense. Point of view in film is the outcome of a set of visual conventions.

Replay the sequence where Bronson is outside the cave and discuss the way in which the camera creates the impression that something is in the cave watching him. The point of view of the person or beast in the cave is established by:

• the use of a hand held camera - the shaky effect replicates the movement of a body
• the lack of any zooms or close-ups - zoom and close-ups are not natural eye movements and their absence suggests that eyes rather than a camera are doing the watching
• the continuous shot - the lack of cuts in the sequence again suggests an eye rather than a camera.
  

For Further information on teaching of plot and point-of-view see:

McMahon,B and Quin, R (1995) Real Images MacMillan, Melbourne.