Please Help! School Project Suggestions
 

Hello Turtle fans. It's come to pass that for one of my classes a partner and I are to give a 5 minute power point presentation about something that is dear to us. Our teacher said we could choose anything so we both decided upon the TMNT.

As all of you know the Turtles have tidal waves of stuff to talk about but the problem is how to narrow it down into a comprehensive presentation that would last roughly 5 minutes.

This was the first place I thought to come for help. I'd be eternally greatful if you guys could help me out. Just a basic outline/timeline of the Turtles to help me with my research. If I can figure out an outline my research time will be much quicker.

Thanks for reading/helping/whatever you choose to do. :tgrin:

I wish I could have that project! I had something like this in drama in 7th grade. Had to take a random piece of paper with a subject on it and improv. for 3 minutes on the spot.

My favorite presentations are the funny ones! Why not have some props like sunglasses and talk like a surfer dude and talk about the fabulous older toons! It is just 5 minutes and if your having fun it will go quick!

Just take your favorite aspect of the TMNT universe and run off of that make it entertaining to your class and show that your enthusiasm toward it!

To be broad you could focus on their influence in pop culture.

If you want something narrowed down then choose a niche: comics, cartoons, toys, etc.

Impact on Pop Culture sounds like a good idea. I really just wanted to hit some basic points in history. But I can't assume the other people in my class will know what I'm talking about. >.> I can't live life assuming everybody knows who the TMNT are.

Yep. :twink:

Awesome! I did a speech on this back in October for a contest. I ended up having too much info, and narrow it to 8 minutes, but the topic was: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Their Effects On Popular Culture. Here's the file on YouTube of the speech (won second place by the way!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LdrOpD2XQ

(just copy and paste that!) Let me know if you need any other info or sources. Some quotes actually came from fellow fans on these forums. Good luck!

When I was in college I took a History of Animation class and our final project was to do a (HUGE) report on any animated movie or TV show (that we didn't cover in class). Most people ended up choosing subjects that really didn't have enough material to write about, whereas I had tons and tons with the TMNT. Because it was a class on animation, I only skimmed over the early history of the TMNT while explaining how it all lead to the development of the old toon (this was still a couple years before the 4Kids series would come along). Then, I explored its popularity and how that popularity affected future TMNT projects. It all worked out quite well and not only did I get an A+, but my prof. commented on it that he was extremely impressed because he didn't think there to be anything worth writing about the TMNT, but he ended up finding it to be quite interesting.

Point being, do an outline of the story you want to tell, then pull in all the relevant details that flush out that story. Don't worry about covering EVERYTHING, especially in only five minutes. Pick the bits that interest you the most, find sources to back you up, and go for it.

Good luck!

^^ That sounds MUCH cooler! All my prof. was worried about were the stuck-up communication professors and judges not taking it seriously. Kudos on your success!!!

Hmm I think I'll talk about the pop culture aspect. Sadly this isn't an animation class. :(

Yeah, just be sure to cover the basics, like of course who they are and their origins. Perhaps share something people DON'T know about them, just to spice it up a little. Is this just for a high school audience?

Nope. College. Art Institute of Dallas. But this is one of those "why the heck am I here" lecture type classes.

You should make four guys try to act out a scenario pretending to be the four turtles. Ask someone to pretend to be Shredder and attack them. That would be funny.

If it's an art class you could try talking about the development of their style. They started out four turtles who all sort of looked the same in a black and white comic and evolved into CGI turtles with lots of detail. But I'm not sure what the emphasis of the lecture is supposed to be. But that's a topic that interests me so...

Their stylistic evolution could tie into a cultural line of thinking if you present it as coinciding with major technological changes. Like the development of animitronics in the first three movies and later CGI and how CGI is so much less expensive, which accounts for the new CGI series. Maybe I should give a lecture on this to somebody since I'm practically writing my own here.

Heh I do plan on briefly touching on the animatronics of the films.

Oh, well there's nothing like picking a fun topic! What I liked about doing the TMNT was the fact that my audience would be attentive rather than bored (depending on how one presents). For me I had to be careful as to what would make sense to the audience. It was hard to drop some topics, but it's for the grade so you just have to do it. When is this due? It took me nearly 3 days to do that powerpoint, so be sure to plan carefully in order for things to run smoothly.

I think its due in about 2 weeks. But yeah I'll probably have to drop stuff that I'd really want to talk about were this a different kind of class.

Okay, well let me know if you need any help. I'll be off and on these forums, and be happy to answer whatever questions you may have.

Oh, I thought you where in high school too... Hence the fact my idea is more goofy, works better in a high school atmosphere.

All I can say is talk about the pop culture explosion or the Old Toon. I doubt you grew up on the Mirage Comics so don't talk much about those. :twink:

I'm thinking of talking briefly about the conception of the idea and how it turned into a cartoon deal, and the resulting cultural phenomenon it became afterwards.

Now that I'd actually like to read!