Kayak

• Sound On/Vision Off. Before watching the film, listen to the first minute without visuals. What can you hear? Is there music? Are there voices? What sound effects do we hear? What do you think all this tells us about the film? Watch the film. Did it match up?
• Think about camera framing. Why do you think the directors only show us the child’s head at the start? What does it tell us? How does it make the audience feel? How does it set up the scene? What do we see instead?
• Watch the first 90 seconds of the film. What do you predict will happen next? How can we tell? What clues do we have? Do the colours used give us a clue? Does what we have seen already influence our thoughts?
• How is the sound used to tell the story after the first section? What do you notice about the music? Does this change as the film goes on? Are there significant changes that help tell the story? Where do these occur and what do they tell us?
• Could the eagle have been swapped for a different character? What would be an appropriate alternative? How would this have affected the story? Why do you think there are no other characters in the story?
• How did the child feel about the trip? What evidence do you have? What do you think the child was feeling?

• Did you enjoy the film? What did you like? What did you dislike? What do you think could make it even better?
• What does it mean to be going on a trip? What considerations need to be made? Who plans the trips in your household? Why?
• Is the father a good parent? What three things show us this? Were there points where he could have done a better job? What might he have done instead?
• Was it okay for the father to take the child on this kind of trip? Do we “cotton wool” children too much nowadays? Should children today take more risks – or less? What are the pros and cons?

WRITE

• Plan a different story in the same style. The story should still involve a journey with a father and a child and one more character. It should still be a comedy rather than serious.
• Write a news article that reports on the father and child having been missing, but now returned home. This may include interviews of the father and another parent at home.

FILMMAKING

• Make a short stop motion film about a boat on water. Working in groups, you should try to make the boat look like it is moving on water (e.g. rocking gently from side to side as it moves along). Investigate different suitable materials for the water.
• Using Post-It notes, pupils could use stop motion to animate the eagle flapping its wings. The sticky notes could be layered one at a time, allowing for “onion skinning” to occur, making it easier to change the wings slightly each time but keep the body the same. They could then experiment with other animal movements - a fish’s tail, or a rabbit’s nose twitching.

DRAW

• Draw a storyboard planning out what happens after the film ends. Use what you have already seen to make it fit with the existing story.

DRAMA

• Act out a conversation between the father and another parent when they get home from their trip. You might want to include details about how late they are, the state of the father etc. Is the father going to own up to everything that happened?
• Act out a TV report, presuming there was a parent at home that had reported the pair missing. This could be filmed as a TV report and played back to the class.
• Act out the re-telling of the story from the child’s point of view.
• Work in threes to plan then act out a script for the film that would involve dialogue between the father, child and eagle.

STEM

• Why does the child pop up in the water instead of sinking? Investigate sinking and floating using different materials. This might include a tinfoil ball vs hollow tinfoil. Why do certain things float, and others sink? Is it just weight? Keep a table of your results.
• Invent a better vessel for the pair. It should still be able to negotiate the small river, but be better suited for the father and child, offering them safer travel. It should include (sensible) protection from the eagle.

PSHE

• Work in groups to plan your own journey, maybe a school trip or your own adventure. This could include a map, equipment, and a risk assessment.