We did a video blitz assignment in today’s class that I’ve turned into an assignment called, One Archetype, Five Movies, Five Seconds. The assignment asks you to create a five second video of one archetype from five different movies cutting together one second of each. The exercise gave everyone the opportunity to experiment with downloading YouTube videos as well as working with a video editor such as Final Cut Pro or iMovie. We looked at the UMW links to a lot of great video creation resources, a few of which we will need today, such as: Handbrake, MPEG Streamclip, and Video DownloadHelper.

I drew ‘Nerd Girl’ for my five seconds and used the following films:

Welcome to the Dollhouse (Heather Matarazzo)
Napoleon Dynamite (Tina Majorino)
Superstar (Molly Shannon)
Sixteen Candles (Joan Cusack)
Square Pegs (Sarah Jessica Parker)

Admittedly I exceeded the five seconds by quite a bit, for the sake of action, dialogue and the use of the ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’ song. But the spirit of the assignment I think is still there.

Here’s a grab bag of character archetypes for you to choose from (or pick your own) for the assignment:

Prisoners, Thieves, Beauty Queens, Kings, Robin Hoods, James Bonds, Bank Robbers, Assassins, Bad Boys, Kung Fu Masters, Femme Fatales, Sports Heroes, High School Bullies, Rogue Police Officers, Brainiacs, Pregnancies, Principals, Mean Teachers, InspirationalTeachers, Gunslingers, Gangsters, Monsters, Bartenders, Warrior Princesses, Swordsman, Knights, Mad Scientists, Nerd Girls, Obstructive Bureaucrats, Sidekicks, Wise Old Men, Hardboiled Detectives, Tough Coaches, Swooning Ladies.