The guide to Making Grimm Movies speaks directly to students about the challenges and rewards of movie making. These are notes from the field, not exhaustive analyses of media topics, that inspire by example.

The guide offers some technical tips for student producers, but technicalities are kept to a minimum in Making Grimm Movies. Technology changes rapidly and students always find a way to adapt their skills to the resources at hand. If you can offer students access to equipment and training, that's great. If not, forge ahead anyway. The basic lessons of Making Grimm Movies can be taught without any special equipment.

Storyboards (Excerpted from page 44)

\Storyboards help translate a written script into a visual story, allowing you to try out different camera angles before going on location. Stick figures are all you need. Comic books are a particularly good source of ideas. These are storyboards we drew for Mutzmag.

The Glass Shot (Excerpted from page 29)

Lesson: Simple special effects can save money and add drama to movie projects.

Try out a glass shot with your students. You can add a new top story to the school; build a castle on a distant hillside; or even land a rocket in the school yard. Use paints or existing photographs to create the image you want. Magazines are particularly good sources for crisp photos.

You will need a piece of clear glass about 20 X 16 inches. Affix your image to the glass using rubber cement. It would be a good idea to ask some students with access to a workshop to build a wooden mount for the glass and a way to hang it from a stand or put it on a tripod.

Place the glass at an angle instead of directly in front of the camera. Black cloth can be used to shield he glass from glare and prevent unwanted reflections.