Digital Arts Service Corps - video production

In the merry, merry month of May...

Elizabeth Goussetis — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:25:35 +0000

I wrapped up a 20-week long after-school outreach I’ve been teaching at an elementary school. I worked with two groups of students: the older group made a documentary about the experiences of their classmates who have moved to the U.S. from other countries, and the younger group made a collection of short instructional videos on topics of their choice (drawing, making a paper airplane, counting to ten in Japanese, making farting noises with your armpit, etc.).

Both videos were screened for parents at the after-school program’s year-end showcase. The kids were excited to see themselves on the screen, and it was really cool to talk to all the parents whose kids appeared in the film or who worked on it.

But the highlight of the month was taking a group of kids to a fancy, televised awards ceremony.

The Blue Chip Cable Access Awards are given out each year to recognize the work of volunteer producers of cable access programs in Greater Cincinnati. A short documentary made by one of last summer’s video camps I helped with at Media Bridges was nominated in the “student K-5” category. So, I rounded up the kids and parents to go to the award ceremony, which was held at a grand old restored movie theater. When their group was announced as the winner, I ushered a bunch of mostly shy kids up on stage, where they all got big rounds of applause for their acceptance speeches. One girl’s was, “Thank you, people.”

Here's the group photo, complete with shiny award plaque: http://ctcvista.org/files/IMG_7496b.JPG

Both events were good reminders of how important it is to follow through on projects that involve people in creating media. If we want people to realize the power their voices can have through media, we should involve them in the distribution, not just the production. When you put a piece of media “out there,” others will see it, and that is an important media literacy lesson. I see a lot of light bulbs turn on when kids see other people reacting to their work, whether those people are their parents or an entire theater full of people. Distributing one’s work can be an encouraging ego boost, but it can also be humbling and intimidating. Either way, it promotes responsible media-making.

The award-winning documentary was about an awesome, kid-friendly art museum where you can touch and interact with the artwork. It is called the UnMuseum, and it is housed in Cincinnati’s Contemporary Art Center. You can see the video in the youth section of the Media Bridges Web site.

Those of you looking to hone your armpit farting skills will have to wait. I haven’t been able to put those videos up yet. One problem that we constantly have with younger groups is that the instructor always ends up having to do additional editing after the outreach or class is over. Does anyone has a good model for this or any advice?

Month 8: Internal Improvements & Video Training Advice

Stephen Fonzo — Sat, 09 May 2009 06:43:34 +0000

Feb-Mar was a time of organizational self-assessment. I was part of, or led, several discussions about needs for the IMC, including grants, involvement with social justice issues locally, more public-access computers, reliable building maintenance, and perhaps, most importantly, the consistent presence of volunteers to be available to staff the main space meeting areas to answer visitors' questions. This was the month when early winter conversations started to yield actual volunteer mobilization, in the form of a Community Connections group, to assess the relevance and accessibility of the organization to visitors and members, staffing of the building for increased hours, a functional library with more public computers (running Ubuntu), and 1-day projects to inspire people to work together.

I planned and facilitated a volunteer workday with the University of Illinois Alternative Spring Break club, who came to the IMC to help a) catalog our library collection; b) catalog and organize our radio station's music collection; and c) move boxes of books for our twice-a-year Books to Prisoners book sale. Trainings on video and audio editing continued, culminating in another set of productions for UPTV. Even though the IMC hosts many concerts, a real highlight this month was Roy Zimmerman, a clever and entertaining singer-satirist who was kind and fun to work with.

In all, this was a month of vision, mobilizing others, and meetings. The IMC is filled with people who have more ideas than they seem to be able to implement, and as a VISTA I am often the person they share every new inspiration and request with. It is, in turns, distracting or informative.

Due to our members being so over-extended and busy, and due to the DIY ethic of the IMC itself, I have relied upon a very simple format for teaching video editing, which I would like to share. This is crucial if you have people asking you for training who are also expecting to immediately begin working on their pet project. I often receive these types of requests from activists and academics who have already filmed a bunch of events, or long lectures, and want to turn it into an informative video after the fact. I just tell them that there are essentially only five elements to editing a digital video (outside of planning a video, which is different):

1) Cuts: Cut the scenes that you need to include to tell your story; nothing more, nothing less.
2) Arrange: Re-order the scenes creatively to maximize your message, or merely arrange them chronologically for a simple educational video.
3) Transitions: Decide the types and lengths of transitions between scenes (i.e. crossfades, dissolve, etc.)
4) Captions or Titles: Add text and/or still images for clarity and information, or to break up scenes.
5) Audio: Normalize, remove or gate unwanted noise, clean up hum/buzz; then add any necessary music, overdubs, or voice-overs - making sure to keep levels balanced. Also, make sure audio is in sync with video!

This is a really simple approach that is ideal for quick learning and for basic, educational videos that are not aiming to be grand cinema - perfect for citizen journalism, YouTube, event documentation, and anything that prizes speed and accessibility over perfectionism and budget.

A Digital Arts Resource Handout

Kevin Palmer — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:13:53 +0000

Lauren Bratslavsky developed this one-page handout (attached below) detailing resources for video editing, computer skills training, free media, digital photography and more.

Back in hizzy!(thats house for those that don't speak hood) lol

Ramon Myers — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:20:43 +0000

I'm back on the blog tip. We didn't have the net for a few weeks due to some funding issues. I had my own funding issues and I'm holding on with my finger tips, but its all good! We are in full effect at Jordan high located in Watts and I'm proud to be apart of such a life transforming project. The kids are really picking up video production fast and Ill post some of the project's as soon as they are done.

Today I picked up a donated computer which will be used for a community information Kiosk. I'm still in the process of creating some content for the Kiosk. It will be information that will help serve the community here... you know ...health issues, where to find help and government services, local sports and the finished video projects from the students in the program. we gettin it crackin (done, for those who don' speak..you know) LOL