You have practised editing images, audio, video and animation, and you know how to source material you are allowed to reuse. Today you stop collecting skills and start deciding what you will actually make.

By the end of this lesson you will have a clear plan for your digital montage: the interest it follows, what a viewer should understand by the end, which format carries each part, and a storyboard of the order. You will also test whether that order really does the job you claim.

A montage is a short sequence that takes a viewer somewhere on purpose. It is built from a handful of separate moments, one after another; we will call each of those moments a beat. Before you touch a tool, lock four decisions on the board:

1. Interest: what topic or passion does this follow (something you actually care about)?
2. Viewer takeaway: in one sentence, who is it for and what should they understand by the end?
3. Formats: for each beat, will image, audio, video or animation carry it best?
4. Order: what comes first, next and last, and why that sequence?

Build your own montage plan. Work on paper or on screen, whichever the class uses for drafts. Save it the class way when you finish so it is there next session.

Lock interest and takeaway

1. Interest. Write the topic your montage follows in one short phrase (for example "learning Irish through short clips", "my local GAA club's underage teams", "how skate parks get designed").
2. Viewer takeaway. Write one sentence that starts: "By the end, a viewer should understand that…" Name the viewer you mean inside the sentence, such as classmates, family, a coach or younger students.

Build four beats

3. Sequence storyboard. A beat is one moment in your montage: one shot, one sound or one card that the viewer meets before the next one starts. Plan four beats in order, and add a fifth or sixth if you have time. For each beat write: (a) what the viewer sees or hears, and (b) which format carries it (image, audio, video or animation). If you want a starter shape, use these four beats: open, explain, show, close.

Before you save

4. One format why. On one beat only, add a short why in a few words. Model: Beat 3: coach whistle and crowd noise (audio). Why: sound puts you on the sideline faster than a still photo.
5. Format mix check. Circle at least two different formats across the whole montage so you use more than one craft you have practised.
6. Honesty line. Note one thing you still need to source (an image, a sound, a clip) and one thing you will make yourself.

Before you finish, check:

• A named interest and a one-sentence viewer takeaway that names who it is for
• A four-beat storyboard with a format on every beat
• A short why on at least one beat
• At least two formats used across the plan
• One sourcing note and one "I will make this" note

You will read two montage plans written by other students, each with the takeaway its maker wrote. For each one you decide together: keep the order, swap two beats, or rewrite the takeaway so it matches the order. You will spend about 4 minutes on Plan A and then a quick 90 seconds on Plan B, so make one decision on each and move on rather than redesigning the whole plan.

Then take 60 seconds on your own plan. Circle one beat you would move, or rewrite your takeaway so it matches the order you already have. Save the plan the class way when you are done.

Pull the four decisions together. A montage plan is strong when the interest is real, the takeaway is one clear sentence (with who it is for), each beat has a format chosen on purpose, and the order actually leads a viewer to that takeaway.