| This dissertation contains the planning and design of an educational film. The film story is an adventure tale which takes place in the temperate rainforest of America's northern Pacific region. The content includes ecology, geography and vision-science.; The film's target audience is six to eleven year-old children. The production medium, IMAX format, is a large-screen film type.; Program development was carried out as a formative evaluation project. The formative evaluation process has been adopted for use in television, interactive videodisc and computer programming. This evaluation methodology had not been used in conjunction with the development of a large-screen film.; The thesis addressed specific research questions in each of two phases of program development, Planning and Design.; The Planning phase was evaluated in a needs assessment. This phase explored children's perception of the visual media, their attitude toward the natural environment and their knowledge and interest in aspects of the proposed content. My research utilized reviews of the literature and a questionnaire survey. The survey population included a national sample of two hundred and twelve children, and a local sample of seventy-two (the latter became the interview population for the design phase).; The results of the Planning phase were incorporated into program development. Species selected for representation in the final script included a balance between those found to be most appealing to girls and to boys. Program format evolved to contain incidences of quickly resolved conflict and a more active pace. Preachy moral language was removed.; The Design phase of the thesis was a pre-production evaluation of the film project. Storyboard materials which embodied potential program features were developed and tested with seventy-two children in thirteen study groups.; Following storyboard presentations, study groups were asked questions about the program content. The geographic location in which the story took place was recognised by 82% of girls and 76% of boys interviewed. The most critical vision-science aspect of the film was well comprehended by 97% of both girls and boys. Use of the novel format cue developed for this program was well understood by all children in the study groups. |
