Sources of inspiration and other helpful resources

• yale.edu's Virtual Tour (Click on Comic)
• Miniature Earth (video)
• dfilm.com's Movie Maker
• gnomz.com's Comic Creator
• ninjam.com's Collaborative Tool to Make Music Online
• Artwork available to use in our video
• usjournal.com Audio: Student Visa Issues / Timeline
• usjournal.com Audio: Financial Aid / Scholarships
• usjournal.com Audio: Selecting a U.S. Campus

The Title: The proposed title of the film is Plus Discamus, the Latin phrase for learn more. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. Latin is still used (drawing heavily on Greek roots) to furnish the names used in the scientific classification of living things.

Developing the Plot

The theme revolves around the broad concept of learning more: Learning more about the world, learning more about oneself, learning more about the process of studying in the USA -- where students create a scenario to learn more academically, socially, and in every other sense.

Let's try to incorporate the slope of the final A in Learn more in the USA as a symbol of how students must climb upward to achieve their dreams. Then from the full view of our English version, we can fade into and out of our 12 other images in similar format:

• Simplified Chinese
• Korean
• Japanese
• Spanish and so on.

That way, we can include references to all of the languages within our family of sites. We can begin and end with those images.

Introduction

The opening scene might have a James Bond-type twist, where the foreign country's Minister of Education presents our hero / intern with the task of investigating the procedure of gaining admission to the U.S., with the ultimate goal of advancing that country. Our hero would be invited to a sophisticated laboratory where he was presented with usjournal.com as the powerful tool to achieve the mission.

Part One: Learning more about the world

Create three scenarios that ultimately reinforce the student's commitment to studying abroad. For example:

• The student's mother tries to welcome a new neighbor by taking a plate of cookies over to them. It turns into an awkward experience, because the neighbors don't speak the language.



• The student's dad gets rejected for a promotion due to lack of global savvy.



• The student's older cousin returns from a very positive study abroad experience, and lands a very good job that contributes greatly to their local economy and well-being.

Part Two: Learning more about oneself

The student looks at himself / herself in the mirror, determined to succeed in a worldwide context.

Part Three: Learning more about studying in the USA

Develop three specific challenges that the student must overcome:

• Academic Eligibility: The student studies furiously for placement exams; some of his / her friends fail, but he / she succeeds by a small margin.
• Financial Resources: The parents are committed to their child, so the mother gets a part-time job.
• Visa Interview: A few of his / her friends were rejected after their two-minute interview at the U.S. Embassy, but he / she is approved.

Conclusion: The student arrives in the USA, just in time for his / her New Student Orientation.