My company supported a television production and media literacy program for about fourteen years at our local middle school. I’d trot across the quadrangle of town buildings twice a week to the school. We had a “hot set” studio ( a backdrop, temporary lights, and movable equipment to make it look like we shot in a real studio). The idea was to give the kids a film school environment.
During the years I taught, I discovered the seventh and eighth graders could indeed crank out some outstanding products. As they matured, I hired some for paid internships and videographer jobs.
Almost anyone can master the basics of running a camcorder. It’s the lighting and audio that can trip us up. Lighting that is too light, shaded, dark, or muddled confuses the eyes. Audio imperfections – crackles, hums, or extraneous noise are distractions. Both lighting and audio are hard to teach and harder to master. Why? The issues can be very subtle. When you edit the recording -in the background someone mutters. Or that a beam of light makes it appear that the person you are interviewing has horns. It’s easier to fix problems like those before you shoot. Sometimes, there is no solution you can afford in post-production.
That’s why in a class of ten students, three ran around. Two checked for bad ambient sound, lighting issues, and other things that can ruin a shot. The grips and gaffers would do their thing. The director reviewed the script. And the talent would check their hair – no budget for makeup. One year, a lighting specialist from an actual production company stopped by to see what his nephew was up to. Everything was running in a way he recognized as professional, albeit with simpler equipment and kids doing the work.
Motivations? They were in charge in class; I provided instruction, tools, and advice. It was a class where most of the projects were theirs to select – beauty pageant, soap opera, campaign ads, nasty oppositional smear ads, Or a madcap dollar chase through the school. For many years, we had a partnership with an English teacher. The scripts were written in English class and recorded in TV production.
The final payoff for the class was that all their “products” were used on our cable channels; they walked away at the end of the year able to say that they were TV professionals.
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What a fun class! I’m sure your students learned a lot and had fun at the same time. 🙂
I love it. The boys on bikes and I made a video of their BMXing. MY biggest challenge was remembering the lens cap, so one of the boys named us, “Lens Cap Productions.” They were far more imaginative in their use of the camera than I was, but I was brave enough to lie down in the trough of a jump while they sailed over me. I loved it. BUT when one of the boys killed himself (gun) we stopped making the movie. I gave the reels to their moms except for one. Sorry for the detour down memory lane.
One of the reasoms liked classes like mine, and project like yours was that it was very separate from their normal reality, and they had a sort of freedom that they didn’t have elsewhere. Unfortunately real life manages to creep in.
It was a life affirming project for those boys. Maybe me, too. My life was pretty shaky at that point, too.