Effective Use of Movie Clips for Captivating Learning Experiences

Different training activities are retained for different durations in learners memories. The lectures and bullet point presentations are forgotten first. Activities and discussions are more or less forgotten with the exception of the rare ones that stand out. The most retained training activity that stays with learners for long periods of time is movie clips screened during training. In fact, I sometimes forget where I attended a certain training and what the training was about but have retained the memory of the movie clip screened in the training vividly while everything else about the training it was screened in is a foggy memory.

Movie clips touch our emotions. We relate to movie characters and remember the situations that resonate with us. This makes using movie clips in training an important technique in instructional design. I started incorporating movie clips into my design recently and was encouraged by the positive responses of the learners to try and incorporate them in my instructional design as much as possible.

I will share my experience in using movie clips in training. I will walk you through examples of different types of movie clips with different learning objectives, I will share the do and don’ts of each type, and the educational logic of using each type:

Direct Examples

In these movie clips, the trainer shows a movie directly depicting the concept of the training. The purpose in this case is to demonstrate the idea through a different medium to reinforce the learning points. After sharing the information in presentation/lecture format or conducting an activity the trainer may use a movie clip as a direct example that will most likely be retained by the learners for a long time.

For example, in a training on media literacy, trainers usually try the “telephone” activity (where participants whisper a sentence to each other and see how the message deviates from the initial sentence that started the chain) to demonstrate how rumors may develop even if no malicious intent was involved in the diversion.

After the activity, you may close the session with a direct example of the rumor by screening a short scene from the HBO Series Five Days in Memorial to present a direct example of this dynamic in action.

Plot: Doctors, hospital staff, patients, and families are isolated in Memorial Hospital for five days during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Screening Time: 00:02:10

Segment: Five Days at Memorial (HBO) S01E02 00:14:44 - 00:16:24

Scene Description: A security guard informs a nurse that a group of vagrants were eyeing another nurse. The nurse tells a doctor that the vagrants assaulted the nurse. The doctor tells a hospital administrator that a nurse was sexually assaulted by vagrants. The hospital administrator discusses the rumor with the hospital board and debates drastic measures to ramp up hospitals’ security.

Learning Objective: (a) exhibiting the development of rumors and (b) providing an example of substantial implications of rumors.

Discussion Questions: what happened in the scene? How did the rumor grow as it passed along? Was there a conspiracy to misinform? Do similar things happen in our workplace or in our life?

Comparison Clips

In trainings that target behavioral changes, participants would benefit from seeing two different clips that depict contrasting behavior or practices towards a similar situation. The participants benefit from seeing two extremes in conduct. It provides a behavioral spectrum where they can gauge where they stand in their practice.

Through this comparison, they start to identify elements in their behavior that they need to address in order to move toward favorable behavior. An example of this is comparing two separate scenes of police investigators’ management of sexual assault victims. The series “Unbelievable” provides two scenes that showcase this contrast:

Plot: A serial rapist is assaulting girls in different towns. The series follows the investigation with two different victims before it was discovered that the perpetrator was the same person. Each investigation depicts a police detective that has a different approach to the victim.

Scene 1 Description: Two investigators are questioning a young girl that reported she had been raped by an intruder. The investigators have found inconsistencies in her story and people who know her compunded their doubt by portraying her background in an unfavorable way. They pressure her until she retracts her claim about what happened to her.

Screening Time: 3 minutes 54 s

Segment: S01E01 00:43:15 - 00:44:14

Scene 2 Description: A female police investigator debriefs a rape victim. She is very comforting and considerate to the needs and considerations of the victim. Through the scene you can evidently tell how the investigator coaxes the victim into dealing with the trauma while collecting important information at the same time.

Screening time: 6 minutes 33 seconds

Segment: S01E02 00:14:34 - 00:20:51

Discussion Questions: How are the two investigators different? What could have caused this difference? What are the good practices we can learn from the scenes? What happened in the scenes that we need to absolutely avoid?

TIP: at the end of the series, the first detective gets devastated when he learns that the girl he forced to withdraw charges, was actually a victim of the serial rapist. It is important to mention this to the participants as it confirms that it's completely normal for a trauma victim to have an incoherent recollection of events that may seem inconsistent.

Progressive "phased" Developments

This method is quite impactful for concepts that change in iterations. I first tested the method in training on Trafficking in Persons. The key message was that trafficking may start as a simple case of smuggling across international minds initiated by the future trafficked victim actively chasing the trafficker (perceived as a smuggler at the time) to facilitate undocumented travel. Oloture is a Nollywood movie available on Netflix. This movie exhibits this progression, and these three scenes deliver the message of how things deteriorate from the perspective of the victims.

Plot: Linda is an investigative journalist doing undercover reporting in Lagos where she poses as a street worker pursuing a madam who facilitates travel to Europe through illicit means. She finds out that she was deceived and sold to a criminal ring that exploits young women.

Scene 1 Description: Linda pays a madam for the trip to Europe. The madam accepts the money and is very secretive about the details of the transaction and the possibility of including others in the arrangement.

Screening time: 6 minutes 33 seconds

Segment: S01E02 00:14:34 - 00:20:51

Scene 2 Description: Linda and a group of girls are moved to a location where they are rounded up, and separated into groups and their documents and phones are confiscated by males.

Screening time: 6 minutes 33 seconds

Segment: S01E02 00:14:34 - 00:20:51

Scene 3 Description: One of the girls is found with a phone, she is paraded infront of the other girls in the middle of the night and murdered by one of the criminals to set an example to the.

Screening time: 6 minutes 33 seconds

Segment: S01E02 00:14:34 - 00:20:51

TIP: It is important to discuss the status and progression after each scene. After the 3rd scene, the discussion becomes elaborate as the participants have seen the full transformation from smuggling to trafficking.

Technical Explanations

This is an incredibly efficient tool to explain complex technical concepts in action. These explanations are abundant in documentaries and if selected properly, can provide lively demonstrations of theories. To make the best use of technical explanation clips the instructor needs to diligently explain (1) the general premise of the documentary, (2) the context of the scene that is going to be screened, and (3) the relevance of the screened content to the training topic.

An example of this is using a scene from the documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. The scene is an excellent complimentary selection for training legal and investigation practitioners on the importance of "chain of custody" for the admissibility of evidence in court.

Plot: historians and litigators explain a discrepancy in the bullet retreived by investigators in the JFK assasination.

Scene Description: the scene describes the theory of the “magic bullet” which allegedly ripped through President Kennedy and Governor Connelly in the assassination of the latter in 1963. Oliver Stone interviews forensic experts on what “chain of custody” is and how the bullet retrieved from the assassination scene might be compromised in terms of legal admissibility.

Screening Time: 8 minutes 22 seconds

Segment: 00:14:45 - 00:23:13

• Remember that key to this technique is the discussions that follow the video. This shifts the exercise from a simple movie break to a practical learning activity. As an instructor, you need to make sure that the title, the topic, and the context of the scene need to be clearly defined i.e. this means you need to familiarize yourself with the plot and the scene. To avoid passive viewing, consider building up some tension by giving the learners a brief synopsis about what they are about to view. You may spike their attention by asking them to focus on a particular character that will appear in the video.You also must prepare the post-video questions to ensure the learning objective is achieved. An example of these questions would be:

  • How did the investigator manage the victim? Was she successful? Explain.

  • What was the trafficker trying to achieve by being apprehensive about accepting funds to smuggle Linda?

  • How was the chain of custody for exhibit C-399 broken?

• Finding the scenes is tricky, either you determine the topic and jog your memory, scan through movie plots, or you are an avid movie binger who notes all training-worthy scenes and collects them in some repository. Luck is definitely a factor in finding relevant scenes.

• Consider the appropriateness of the movie clip for your learners. Think about the movie’s rating, its language, and the suitability of its content. Try to cut the scenes precisely to avoid mishaps when searching for the right scene.

Key Takeaways