Sixteen years ago my wife and I were scolded by both a hotel clerk and an airport shuttle driver when they found out that our five days in Phoenix did not include a trip to Sedona or the Grand Canyon. We made partial amends this past weekend when we spent two days in Sedona. The natural beauty and the creative atmosphere are so infectious there that even the golden arches have caught it.
The Arizona Leadership Council (thanks Darcy, Diana, Rosy, Vicki, and you ASSET folks!) hosted a Saturday “Lights! Camera! Education!” Day of Discovery at Yavapai College’s Sedona Center for Art and Technology. What a gorgeous setting! From our high vantage point, one of the participants was even able to point out Cathedral Rock where she got married. A plethora of glass doors everywhere we turned did not discourage our film makers as they dove into the door scene and took advantage of the beautiful red rock setting. From dramatic angles via a sun roof to mysterious packages to the invasion of the cellphones and a car with a mind of its own (anthropomorphization!), these sunny storytellers put a southwestern spin on the venerable door scene.
And speaking of Arizona, their governor is the honorary chairperson of the Innovation America Foundation whose Voices for Innovation video contest team registration has been extended to November 9th with videos due by the 19th.
P.S. It looks like that $6.99 wireless mic is still in stock at geeks.com
Missing Links:
Email Frank Guttler to join the LCE! alumni list: fguttler@afi.com
My hero, Marco Torres (aka Mark O’Torres), and his students’ films: http://www/sfett.com
Thought you might like to see what the “Young Sloppy Brush” crew thinks technology can do for them. This was done as their entry into the Interwrite Classroom Makeover Contest. Sorry, I didn’t know about this one and the deadline just passed. But it looks like making a parody of a song can be just as much fun as anthropomorphizing.
Over 2,000 student film makers had to use at least three elements out of these eight: Location: Park Bench, Prop: Bird Cage, Character Name: Robin Darjeeling, Background Sound: Radio Static, Costume: Tuxedo, Camera Angle: Dutch Angle, Narrative Device: Dream Sequence, Editing Technique: Match Cut, Dialogue: “Don’t tempt me,” and Makeup: Old Person. Then they had 24 hours to produce 3 minutes. Easy, right?
I spent a few days vetting a couple hundred of the entries; making sure they were PG-13 and had at least three of the elements (a few squeezed in all eight). It was a lot of fun, but if I ever really meet a Robin Darjeeling, I may die laughing. 1,837 videos made the cut. That’s just over five years of makin’ movies by my reckoning and you can see them all at www.apple.com/education/insomnia. I’ve been randomly skipping through entries and hope to see them all before the next Insomnia Film Festival rolls around. Thought you might enjoy this quick trip to the coffee shop for starters.
Friends and family voting ends November 9th. Highly rated videos will move on to the panel of judges to determine the final winners. Login and register to rate videos at edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/contest.php
You know, that’s when you assign human qualities to animals or inanimate objects. Of course, you should never anthropomorphize computers because THEY really HATE it when we do that to THEM. Yeah, I get that same groan when I crack that joke in person. But this can really be a fun way for students to tell stories. Think of the gnome in the travel commercials or the gekko selling insurance. And if that’s too much of a stretch for you, consider a fifth grade art class in my home town.
I had to go to Schaumburg’s Screen Test Student Fest a couple of suburbs over last winter to meet those neighborhood art students myself. “Young Sloppy Brush” beat out a number of videos by high school students to take the grand prize. And their notoriety hasn’t stopped yet. Last night the video was shown at the The Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. At the end of November, he will be getting his passport stamped and appear at the Kids for Kids Festival in Naples, Italy.
What thing could your students anthropomorphize that would breath some life into what they are learning?
Posted on October 21, 2007 in Makin’ Movies by Joe Brennan
In the past I have mentioned the “real world” need and 21st century skill of being able to communicate visually. Well, fellow STAR Discovery educator (and Spanish teacher - ¡qué bueno!) Linda Bilak got just about 48 hours to put together a 30 second video that would go to the voters in her quest to carry the Olympic torch in Beijing. Of course you know I’m going to encourage you to vote for her at newthinkers.lenovo.com. But you also have to know that we’re going to take a good look at her video.
One of the reasons I like the commercial/PSA format so much is that they are naturally short and to the point. You have to reach a balance between speed talking your words (burying your viewer in information) and letting a few, carefully chosen words and images lead the viewer to understanding. Linda and the friends who gave her a hand did a very nice job of striking that balance. Her few words and strong imagery make for a great message. She gives a quick nod to her life at the beginning, strikes a “classic” pose to emphasize that she is a (the?) thinker and uses a close-up of her car keys and passport to introduce the joy and value of travel. Her world view is nicely underscored with pictures overlayed with a spinning globe. Higher level video editing programs like Premiere and Final Cut let you layer any number of videos and determine their opacity. You can get the same effect with a slow, very slow cross dissolve transition in any of the entry level programs. With a little finagling you can actually trim the beginning and end off so that neither picture appears at 100%. Haven’t you voted yet?
Posted on October 16, 2007 in Makin’ Movies by Joe Brennan
It appears the recent, sudden onset of chilly fall weather here in the Chicago area is all my fault. Last weekend when we were flirting with the 90’s and the air conditioners were running, I foolishly told family and friends that this weekend’s trip to Florida was going to be wasted weather-wise. Within hours we had to flip over to furnace, making Tom Turner’s advice to wear shorts yesterday all the more appreciated.
With that off my chest, I feel the need to confess one more thing. With all the “Lights! Camera! Education!” workshops I’ve done and am scheduled to do, I fear there’s nothing new that participants will do with the door scene. No worries here. The Florida folks found an electronic twist to that stubborn door and an interesting situation with a rocking SUV. Imagination!
And there was a learning moment for me. I have warned readers in the past to avoid the newer hard drive and DVD camcorders. Well, there was a team that had a hard drive camcorder and couldn’t import their video for the final edit. One of the new features in iMovie ‘08 is the ability to bring in video from either of those cameras. So I lent them my MacBook Pro and they were in business. I’m still a bit ambivalent about this version, but it came to our rescue on Saturday.
Thanks to the Florida DEN (Debbie, Diana, Mark, and Tom) for extending my summer by a couple of days and for sharing some great southern barbecue food for lunch.
P.S. Frank Guttler is still inviting all you “graduates” of our LCE! workshops to share your emails with him for an alumni list that will keep you informed of the American Film Institute’s ScreenEd happenings. And I can tell you that there is a pretty cool announcement in the works. Send Frank an email to stay in the loop: fguttler@afi.com.
The Innovation America Foundation wants to know how high school students can improve their world through innovation. Teams must register by October 19th and their 45 second entries are due by November 2nd. Apple is facilitating the contest, but PC people can still get in on this one. You just have to be able to upload your entry as an .mp4 or .mov.
When I’d give a test on the 13th of any month, I would usually tell my students that Friday the 13th falls on a Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday, etc.) Not that the kids needed any more angst, I thought it lightened the mood a little. Anyhow, you’re in luck! The 13th falls on Saturday this month and it is full of digital storytelling things to do.
First of all, the Florida DEN is hosting a Lights! Camera! Education! workshop in Poinciana. Central Florida folks, you can contact Tom Turner (thomas.turner@polk-fl.net) to see if there are any seats left. (Arizona, by the way, is also hosting a similar event two weeks after this one. Those interested in spending a fall day makin’ movies in Sedona can check this AZ DEN post for more information.)
Next, just in case you don’t want to travel on Saturday, our Second Life DEN is kicking off an Education Fair on EduIsalnd II with a session on digital storytelling. The fair, including an open house and several other presentations, begins at 1:00 SLT (Second Life Time, which I believe is also Pacific) and goes to 3:30. Details can be found in the post linked above.
And finally, Apple’s Insomnia Film Festival begins this Saturday morning and runs for 24 hours. Prior registration is required. Whether you plan on participating or not, there is a fine list of storytelling and editing resources at the site. Even though this is just for high school and college students who use Macs, you might consider giving teams of students a similar challenge video with a limited amount of time and story parameters. Probably would only work for those of you on block scheduling or who want to spend a Saturday or day off with the film club though.
This is a re-post from September 22 that didn’t make the migration from the old blog site.
Just in case you haven’t got the message that digital/visual storytelling is pervasive in our society, here’s another contest (thanks to Pam Nielson). The Meijer chain of stores is sponsoring a contest for grades 5-12 with another “Just for Fun” category that is open to the general community. Basically, all you have to do is tout the value of any Meijer branded product in a 30 second commercial. In their school sample video a cheerleading squad claims their bake sale profits have gone up while the football players show how the store brand cola reacts better with Mentos. I’ll have to turn that one over to our in-house Mentos and soda expert, Lance Rougeux, for independent verification before I lend any credence to it though. The “Just for Fun” category sample mimics the old black and white private eye genre.
Do you have a favorite Meijer product? Would you and your class like to try for the $2,500 grand prize or one of the four $1,000 prizes? You have until December 27th to submit an entry. They also have a page with downloadable music and some graphics that you can use.
And even if you don’t take part in this contest, consider using commercials as a storytelling vehicle in your classes. They are short and to the point and easy to spoof. Imagine Pythagoras selling his theorem on late night TV, maybe even throwing in the formula for the circumference of a circle if you order in the next 15 minutes. Or a Spanish speaker extolling the virtues of the imperfect tense over the preterite. There is lots of fun to be had along with deeper understanding of subject matter selling learning this way.
What a great opportunity it is to get to listen to and interact with the people who make the shows we watch on the Discovery networks. And Wednesday was no exception as Mick Kaczorowski, Senior Executive Producer for Animal Planet, shared his insights working on “Meerkat Manor” and the upcoming feature length film based on the life of the Meerkat star, Flower. Of course, any time he mentioned story telling I was on full alert. Some things that I’d like to hold up for review…
The Meerkat team rolls the tape and shoots and shoots and shoots from before dawn until the family calls it a day at dusk, for months at a time. The closest we in education might come to filming like that is setting up an unmanned, stop motion camera to catch a plant growing or a butterfly emerging. To make the most of valuable educational time and limited equipment, shots need to be well planned and kept short.
Extracting/finding the story is key. In addition to the exciting photography, someone has to glean the moments and the personalities out of all those hours of footage so that we care and maintain interest. And what (even occasional) viewer didn’t care about Flower? It has taken them four years to gather Flower’s story and only now do they have enough for a full length motion picture. Imagine how much thought and writing has gone into that project
What does it take to tell a good story? Mick says READING. Get to know literature. Understand the classic conflicts. Harold Ramis (“Caddy Shack,” “Groundhog Day,” etc.) came to speak to our students a few years ago and said almost exactly the same thing. Students were asking questions about preparing to be actors or writers or directors and he told them they had to understand the human condition first. And that understanding didn’t come from talk and reality shows. Read… and write was his message.
In short, the technology plays a very small part in good digital/visual storytelling. It’s still all about telling (writing, planning, preparing, organizing) a good story.
Posted on October 4, 2007 in Uncategorized by Joe Brennan
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Sixteen years ago my wife and I were scolded by both a hotel clerk and an airport shuttle driver when they found out that our five days in Phoenix did not include a trip to Sedona or the Grand Canyon. We made partial amends this past weekend when we spent two days in Sedona. The natural beauty and the creative atmosphere are so infectious there that even the golden arches have caught it.
The Arizona Leadership Council (thanks Darcy, Diana, Rosy, Vicki, and you ASSET folks!) hosted a Saturday “Lights! Camera! Education!” Day of Discovery at Yavapai College’s Sedona Center for Art and Technology. What a gorgeous setting! From our high vantage point, one of the participants was even able to point out Cathedral Rock where she got married. A plethora of glass doors everywhere we turned did not discourage our film makers as they dove into the door scene and took advantage of the beautiful red rock setting. From dramatic angles via a sun roof to mysterious packages to the invasion of the cellphones and a car with a mind of its own (anthropomorphization!), these sunny storytellers put a southwestern spin on the venerable door scene.
What a great opportunity it is to get to listen to and interact with the people who make the shows we watch on the Discovery networks. And Wednesday was no exception as Mick Kaczorowski, Senior Executive Producer for Animal Planet, shared his insights working on “Meerkat Manor” and the upcoming feature length film based on the life of the Meerkat star, Flower. Of course, any time he mentioned story telling I was on full alert. Some things that I’d like to hold up for review…