You Oughta Be in Pictures: An Introduction to Making Videos Imagine saying to your students, “Let’s make a TV show or music video!” Few projects can engage children like video projects. They’re fun, and what could be more gratifying for a child than to see his or her name rolling in the credits, just like in a movie? Making a video isn’t difficult, even though you may have little experience with video yourself. You probably know more about it than you think. Video can be one of the most powerful forms of communication, and it offers a tremendous vehicle for learning. Experiencing video production, even in its most basic form, can open new career opportunities and avenues for personal expression. It teaches kids about multimedia communication with action and motion, and it helps them reinforce a variety of other skills, including critical thinking, literacy, interpersonal communication, collaboration, public speaking, composition, storytelling and group decision making. Studying video has another advantage: It helps teach vital media literacy skills so kids can understand how the many images they encounter every day affect them and so they can observe those images with a more critical eye.
24 2020 Wisconsin Film Festival Big Screens, Little Folks Study Guide
Working with video isn’t something you can just jump right into, however. Children must be prepared for it with preliminary excursions into concepts like storyboarding and photography. Each stage can be made fun and educational, and at the end of the project, the children will understand how all the pieces come together to make a video they’re proud to show parents, friends and the world by putting it on the Internet. Children as young as age five can make a video with the proper guidance and preparation. Below is an overview of the stages involved.
RECOMMENDED TIME Plan on working on the various elements of this project for about 30 minutes per day over several weeks. Break it up into modules that make sense for your program schedule and the age of your students. Young children will require more time with modeling and practicing various segments.
GOALS • To teach kids about simple video production techniques • To explore storytelling in more depth • To learn basic photography skills
