Quiet on the Set

I'm very excited to be learning about digital video in class over the next couple of weeks. So far, we have learned to create things that can be added to our vocational ed advocacy wiki. Last week, my group and I had to create an 30 second interview from 3 experts on our topic. We chose to print out pictures of our experts faces and held them in front of us while we talked. We used flip video cameras, which seemed very easy to use. You push one button to record and the same button to stop. Every time you hit record, it creates a new file. Then you use the usb drive already attached to the camera to plug into your computer. Some of their software gets installed, but then we used windows movie maker to edit our interview segment.

I can definitely see where this specific example can be used with students. They could use a little more imagination and create sets behind their experts and also make decisions about using a tv talk show personality, a roundtable discussion, etc.

This week we are in the process of creating PSA's for our advocacy wiki. We created our treatment and storyboard and should be able to start taping footage next week. What I really like about this process is that all the planning is done before hand. In the storyboard, we had to think about camera angles, placement of people, props, effects to be used in editing. It's like a low-budget movie! Each of us has a role to play, which again is a great idea for students! Give them a reason to take ownership of the project, not just get a grade. I think our PSA is going to turn out great!