Since Will had used stop-motion with claymation figures to make his own movie, we reviewed the incredible detail of the making of the movie, Nightmare Before Christmas. Will then watched a video of the behind scenes making of the movie and how the animators, photographers, director, and actors came together to make the movie.

We finished our discussion about horror movies and watched a video that discussed the psychology of scary movies and why they appeal to audiences. Will also watched a video that provided some surprising information about popcorn and its critical importance to the survival and sustainment of the movie theater.

Will watched an instructional video from Filmmaker IQ about the history of horror in the movies. We discussed how horror movies evolved from the original monster movies, like Frankenstein and Dracula to the psychological thrillers of the early B movies and Alfred Hitchcock to the current fascination with slasher style and zombie movies.

Will surveyed several of the special effects used in the movie The Wizard of Oz. We discussed how they had to create such things as tornadoes without using computers. Will took detailed notes about the tornado as well as how some special effects were dangerous, injured the actors, or made them sick.

Will finished watching The Wizard of Oz. Throughout the last hour of the movie, we continued our discussion about how it was made, especially how the different special effects might have been created, including the use of jump cuts and chroma key compositing.

Will chose to watch The Wizard of Oz as a movie that's considered a timeless classic. We frequently stopped the movie to discuss the various filmmaking techniques that may have been used in the late 1930s to create this early Technicolor movie.

I began class asking Will to define what he thought makes a movie great. We talked about many different elements, including screenplay, acting, directing, music, and cinematography. We also watched a clip of an interview Coppola gave about what he thought made movies great. Finally, Will scanned several different "top 100 " lists, noting that different websites had different movies on their lists, and determining that it is all subjective.

Will learned about the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA's) rating system for movies. We discussed the history of the ratings and how they have changed over the years. Then, we watched a video that gave a broader history of movie censorship prior to there being a rating system.

Today's topic was about film vs. digital. I think Will was surprised to learn that some filmmakers still use actual 35mm (or 65mm or 70mm) film to make movies, rather than all digital. We looked at videos that compared film and digital, and we also watched video with directors and directors of photography explaining their preferences for one or the other.

Will revisited a video on the use of mattes and the green screen to create special effects. We stopped and started the video so he could take notes and expand on the explanations given.