It's not the car

It’s not the car that you drive, it’s how well you drive the car…

Insert the collective groan from students as I elaborate on why we won't be splurging on the latest rad camera for our classroom equipment closet. The fancy equipment is futile if they can't master the basics of framing. But more on equipment later. For now, let's delve into the realm of AI-generated images for the classroom and why they can be a boon.

Prompt

1. Create: a film still in the noir style of the 1940s-1950s.
2. Content: a woman, the femme fatale is driving away at night.
3. Image: medium shot, focus in the foreground, technicolour, side view.

AI is here to stay, and regardless of your stance, it holds significant potential for educators. Not so much for the actors and writers in the real world of film right now, but for us, navigating the world of teaching film, it's a possible game-changer.

Sometimes I need an image that is simultaneously fresh and familiar. I do not want the students to be derailed by the fully loaded context of an actual film. Instead, I want them to delve into the essence of what makes a film, to decode, so that they can later encode, without being hijacked by recognising the actor or the film. AI-generated images provide a pretty great space to do that in.

And with that, I can do the following:

1. Introduce film-specific vocabulary
2. Explore embedded contexts
3. Initiate an understanding of film language and genre, creating a direct link to film history and theory, depending on our time, interests, and needs.

3 classic and very simple questions to ask about this image and to get a discussion going:

1. What do you know? This answer must be objective and justifiable, grounded in observation.
2. What do you think you know? This answer can be subjective but still needs a basis in observation and justification.
3. What do you want to know? And why? This answer reveals the assumptions and beliefs about the story, shaped by individual and cultural contexts, filled with inherent biases.

Read the full supporting post to this resource on the Film Matters Substack at It's not the car.

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