National Media Museum

4. Exactly what does your venue offer to educational visits? The museum has six floors of free galleries including: the Magic Factory – with hands-on exhibits to help pupils explore light and shadows; Experience TV where pupils can discover how television programmes are made, as well as learn about the early pioneers of TV; Kodak - tracing the birth of photography and the development of the camera; Animation and TV Heaven – with over 1000 programmes in the archive for you to select and view. School groups can book FREE gallery sessions to enhance their experience of a particular gallery – popular talks include the Mystery of the Cottingley Fairies, Experience TV, Victorian Photography, Animation in Motion and The Race for TV and there are downloadable resources online to help you make the most of visiting. We also offer a wide range of practical workshops in a variety of media skills including: Animation, Television Advertising and Editing, Movie Trailer, Documentary Newsday, Website Design, Digital Storytelling. All our workshops are led by media industry professionals or trained teachers. Events can be subject to change or we might introduce a new workshop – so it’s best to look at the Educators’ pages of the website or the Learn brochure for schools to see what is currently available. KS2 groups can also pre-book to see CinemaMagic, the Museum’s live interactive show demonstrating optical illusions and cinema tricks that have been used in filmmaking for decades. Devised exclusively for the National Media Museum by multi-media performance company Forkbeard Fantasy, the show will entertain and educate, as well as demystify the science behind some technical illusions such as pixilation, the glass shot and the travelling matte. For 14+ students, we run a bespoke programme of Media, Film Studies, English and Creative and Media Diploma events and Study Days designed to enrich and complement the AS/A2 course content. You can also book to watch an IMAX film as part of your visit (group discounted charges apply). There are usually five different titles to choose from and these screenings are often one of the main highlights of the visit.