TRIVIA
- Random interesting (and uninteresting) fun-facts about the movie:
- Doina and Rune are both Ph.D. Students at DAIMI (Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus).
- Most of the people involved in the film are either Ph.D. students or academic staff from the University of Aarhus.
- The very last scene in the film, featuring Susan and Robert (Doina and Rune) collaborating on an exercise, was incidentally the very first scene to be shot.
- In the last scene of the film, Doina and Rune were actually put to solve a real live exercise (an exam exercise from the Semantics 2006 course, taught by Claus).
Thus, the spontaneous enthusiasm and excitement at the end (when they finally did solve the exercise) is entirely real - and just happened to coincide
with the exact same moment that Jacob Andersen (camera-man) was zooming out to get the final disengaging-the-film effect.
- The scene with Robert on a bench, smoking, and listening to music on his iPod proved by far to be the most complex scene.
It involving Jacob rebuilding an analogue clock to be remote-controlled (in order for it to tick as the camera brought it into focus).
The clock was then fixed with fish wire and held by Doina (who was standing on and behind a table put onto its side). The scene is
shot uninterruptedly by one continuous camera pan-and-zoom movement.
- The no-smoking-policy in the "IT-Huset" building, meant the scene with Robert on a bench, smoking, and listening to music on his iPod had to separated and shot at two different locations
(reassembled in post-production).
This involved carrying tables and props between two buildings. At the exact same time a fund-raising show was being conducted in IT-Huset, which meant that materials and props were carried
visibly behind the big scene while Lotte Heise (a Danish comedian) was performing. It must have looked like trendy office equipment was lifted from the building during broad daylight.
- The manuscript was written using lots and lots of images from the Google Image Database in order to convey information about the atmosphere of various scenes to the actors.
- Mogens (playing the "Level one Teacher") was not present on location for the Robert-enters-the-auditorium shot.
This means that we only hear the teacher, but do not see him.
- The script originally featured extra "level 2 teacher scenes" for so-called "teacher metaphors" (policeman, gardener, petrol station tenant, guide, evangelist, ...).
However, these were dropped because they didn't advance the story (going too far deep into one particular aspect of teaching not crucial to the overall message of the film).
- The brand new auditorium where many scenes were shot, wasn't ready for use yet which caused a number of problems (particularly with locked doors).
In the scene where two students are interviewed about their opinion on the "entertainer teacher", shot outside the auditorium (with students
pouring out in the background), we had to use a complicated protocol of having people inside the auditorium pressing the digital door open buttons,
waiting 10 secs, and so on. To make matters worse, the alarm also went off spoiling takes. At the end, we found ourselves with only a single decent
shot in the editing room (namely the one included in the final film).
- We have tons of footage of Rune eating popcorn and drinking coke, but only a few seconds ever made it into the film.
However, Rune really enjoyed this part of his role tremendously, much to the envy of Doina.
- Illustrating the SOLO taxonomy proved to be one of the biggest challenge from a cinematographic standpoint.
At the end, Claus settled on exemplifying the concept using "cows" shortly before shooting.
The lines were found interleaved with and only minutes before the shooting (using particularly wikipedia as a source of inspiration).
- Part 4 originally featured Claus (in a cameo role) as a game show contestant who was asked a question on teaching.
Although a good way to introduce "The Solution" (constructive alignment), by putting it as an important question, the scene in the end
felt too confusing, and was therefore later eliminated.
- For the auditorium scenes, we used 3600 Watts (800W + 800W + 1000W + 1000W) of lights (the rest of the scenes "only" involve 1600 W).
- We shot a total of 3.5 hrs of footage for the total 19 minutes of film.
- We ended up following the script tightly. The final result is very close to the original script.
- Torben added the concept of TLA (teaching/learning activities) when he delivered "the solution" (constructive alignment), increasing
the precision with respect to John Biggs' theory of constructive alignment.
- Hanne (the "level 3 teacher") rewrote her lines to make them more level 3'ish.
- Hanne (the "level 3 teacher") at the end of the film, actually does teach "semantics", although not as a formal computer science
discipline (as in the film), but from a French linguistic perspective (at the Faculty of Human Science as opposed to the Faculty of Science).
- The students acting out the SOLO levels (aka. "the cow examinations") were actually taking exams that very day at the very location we
were shooting the scenes.
- We didn't have the ink-pads for the stamps, so Claus sacrificed his socks and cut them into shape (in order to have them resemble ink-pads).
The result looks convincingly real.
- The mountain in the Hallelujah scene is Cotopaxi seen from Pichincha next to Quito, Ecuador (taken by Claus on vacation a few weeks before
the shooting started).
- During the shooting, Doina was taking lots of pictures using her own digital camera, essentially documenting the whole process.
- Rune was told to be careful in not getting bruised in his martial arts training during the weekend (the shooting lasted five days with
a weekend in between), but returned on the set the following Monday, bruised on one cheek.
- The signs held by the teachers in the "three levels of thinking about teaching"-staircase scenes were originally meant to be readable,
but quickly proved to be completely illegible (this was fixed by using appropriate close-ups).
- Richard Raskin provided many insights on cinematographic aspects, pitfalls and dangers; particularly on the importance of having initial
eye contact with main actors as they are first introduced (hence both Susan and Robert look almost into the camera as they are introduced).
- Mogens' wonderful performance in acting disappointed about Robert, actually made us change the scene so as to put the stapling after
talking about Robert (instead of as he is saying the word "bad").
- The books in one of the scenes were kindly lent to us by the campus bookstore: Stakbogladen.
- The music is written by Mikkel Eskesen (MonoLogo AudioDesign) who has also written music for "Drengene fra Angora" and "Rockerne".
- The total budget for the film was about 280 DKK (cirka 40 EUR); most of this was spent on soft-drinks and popcorn for the extras and
on empty DVD casings.
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