Recently I have received several requests from both parents and students for some video challenges to keep current and former video production students busy during holidays and when they aren't taking my class. Most of these video challenges are from Vimeo, which has an awesome collection of tutorials and challenges for any level of filmmakers. The ones that I have chosen are geared more towards beginner to intermediate-level filmmakers.
5x5
One of my favorite film challenges is the 5x5 video. Simply put, it is a 25-second video composed of five 5-second shots. There are several different kinds of topics you can cover in your 5x5; here are my favorite challenges:
Me Right Now: In this challenge, you decide what you would like to share with what's going on in your life. Here is a beautiful video:
The Great Outdoors: Get outdoors and capture the beauty around you! This challenge uses only natural sound and simple shots. Here is the winner from the last challenge:
Other Challenges
Travel Video Album: I often say that the art of the home video is dying out with the use of iPhones and Snapchat. People just aren't stopping to make videos of memories anymore. In my community, traveling is a huge pastime and I encourage my students to make videos of their travels whenever they can. Here is one of my favorite ones from my home country, Puerto Rico.
One to One Hundred: The idea is simple, but the possibilities are boundless! You can use up to 100 seconds to tell a story about your home, investigate a mystery, explore a deeply philosophical concept, make people laugh, make people cry, or just to make something beautiful.
Hot or Cold: Challenge yourself to capture the essence of temperature. It is not as easy as it seems!
Convey a Color: You can choose to either focus on one color or the entire spectrum for this video challenge.
Pet Portrait: Our pets are so loved and such important parts of our families. I have given this as a challenge a couple of times to my students and they absolutely loved it.
I hope these videos give you some inspiration to make your own! Enjoy!
Friday, October 17, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
Unit and Project Overview: Stop-Motion
For my new 6th grade Digital Expressions class, I wanted to start out the students with a project that all students love learning about and creating: stop-motion. While I had not formally taught the genre in my other video production classes, my Day in the Life project for Digital Storytelling always had some stop-motion films.
Because my Digital Expressions class meets only every other week for a trimester, I had a rather short timeline for the stop-motion project. I would recommend at least 8 days for the project, but 2 weeks (10 school days) is a perfect amount of time for the students to learn about stop-motion, practice with filming and then create their own film.
To begin, I spent 2 classes teaching the students about the basics stop-motion and how to plan and storyboard for a stop-motion short using these presentations:
After the first lesson on stop-motion, I gave the students several wooden figures to use to make a quick stop-motion short as a formative assessment. It was extremely helpful in getting the students to understand the techniques of stop-motion and how to create a quick movie on iMovie.
When I assigned the students their stop-motion, I used this Google Doc and Sheet to explain the criteria and grading rubric. Please feel free to use for your class:
The students had a tough time with thinking about a story for their stop-motion object, so for future classes, I will spend about 2 days working on the storytelling portion in class before the embark on filming. I also would really emphasize to the students how tedious and time-consuming shooting the stop-motion shots can be; I had several students request extra time for their project because they simply did not calculate how many shots they would have to take for a simple 30-second video. For future reference, a smooth stop-motion film requires about 8-10 frames per second, so aim for about 300 frames for a decent 30-second shot-motion film.
When finally completed, the students actually turned out some great work. More than anything, they were able to display their storytelling skills through the stop-motion shorts which is ultimately the more important skill I want the students to work on. Watch the videos below to see the students' finished work. I hope your class enjoys it as much as mine did!
Because my Digital Expressions class meets only every other week for a trimester, I had a rather short timeline for the stop-motion project. I would recommend at least 8 days for the project, but 2 weeks (10 school days) is a perfect amount of time for the students to learn about stop-motion, practice with filming and then create their own film.
To begin, I spent 2 classes teaching the students about the basics stop-motion and how to plan and storyboard for a stop-motion short using these presentations:
After the first lesson on stop-motion, I gave the students several wooden figures to use to make a quick stop-motion short as a formative assessment. It was extremely helpful in getting the students to understand the techniques of stop-motion and how to create a quick movie on iMovie.
When I assigned the students their stop-motion, I used this Google Doc and Sheet to explain the criteria and grading rubric. Please feel free to use for your class:
The students had a tough time with thinking about a story for their stop-motion object, so for future classes, I will spend about 2 days working on the storytelling portion in class before the embark on filming. I also would really emphasize to the students how tedious and time-consuming shooting the stop-motion shots can be; I had several students request extra time for their project because they simply did not calculate how many shots they would have to take for a simple 30-second video. For future reference, a smooth stop-motion film requires about 8-10 frames per second, so aim for about 300 frames for a decent 30-second shot-motion film.
When finally completed, the students actually turned out some great work. More than anything, they were able to display their storytelling skills through the stop-motion shorts which is ultimately the more important skill I want the students to work on. Watch the videos below to see the students' finished work. I hope your class enjoys it as much as mine did!
Friday, October 3, 2014
CC-Friendly Stock Footage Websites
Currently my Digital Expressions class is learning what they can do with special effects in iMovie for future use in projects across contents. My students have run into the issue of not knowing where to find royalty-free stock footage, so I put together this list to help them out. Feel free to use it for your own videos or to share with your classes.
Finding Creative Commons-Friendly Music
Trying to find the perfect song for a movie project is one of the most fun post-production tasks. Unfortunately, it can also be one of the most difficult because finding free, downloadable CC-friendly music online can be a bit overwhelming. To make things easier for you during your time in Video Production, here are some of my favorite CC-friendly song websites for you to check out during post-production.
Vimeo Music Store
Great resource for finding hundreds of songs for your film. The Vimeo Music Store has a nice feature where you can specify your search for music, which I always put on FREE. Make sure to hit the button that says Advanced Filters in order to get the search in the picture.
YouTube Audio Library
Not many people know that YouTube has an audio library with music and sound effects to download for free for your video projects. Like Vimeo, it has a great search bar where you can specify exactly what kind of music you are searching for. You can get here by either clicking the link above or going to the Creator Studio on your own YouTube account.
MusOpen
One of my favorite sites for finding music for my movie projects, MusOpen offers thousands of classical songs for free use in your projects. It also has sheet music for any music buffs out there.
Free Music Archive
Also know as FMA, Free Music Archive has a great selection of free CC-friendly songs for download. Hint: if you search by Most Interesting, it will sort your songs by most downloaded.
I hope these websites can help you out during your music search for your movie project. Of course, there is a way to always get the perfect song for your film: Create it yourself! Garageband is easier than ever to use, and it's a blast finding your musical groove. If you want more websites, check out the Google Doc below. It lists websites with free, CC-friendly songs, loops and sound effects for all your audio needs.
Unit and Project Overview: Silent Film
One of the first projects we do in our Digital Filmmaking class is a silent film. I find that it really is an excellent way to introduce both new and experiences students to the curriculum, but to challenge them as well. To begin the unit, I do a lessons on Silent Films, Storyboarding and Screenwriting.
History of Silent Film
Storyboarding Silent Film
Screenwriting for Silent Film
Throughout these lessons, we also watch several clips of silent movie scenes from traditional and modern films to give the students examples of how they can make their stories come alive in their own project.
For formative assessment, the students have fun creating traditional silent scenes to become familiar with the cinematography and acting style.
Here are some of the completed scenes. The students commented that it really helped with feel like the grasped the genre before embarking on their summative film project.
After giving feedback on their silent scene formatives, the students are given their Silent Film Project.
I couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome of the students' work. They really took ownership of the project and also brought a lot of their personalities into the films. Here are their final projects. I hope your students enjoy the project as much as mine did! |
Climbing Shanghai Towers
Pretty amazing what you can capture with a GoPro camera! This video seriously freaks me out, I hate heights!
Vertical Video Syndrome - A PSA
In the spirit of our PSA work these past couple of weeks, I found this video on Jim Sill's YouTube channel and had to share. It truly explains my hatred and concern over millions of videos shot with people suffering from VVS. Share and pass on!
Smart Girls at the Party
Recently, I was browsing some new channels to subscribe to on YouTube and came across this fantastic channel called Smart Girls at the Party featuring the amazing Amy Poehler. It a channel that interviews normal teenage girls about their lives and talents, and it always ends in a dance party.
Wouldn't it be amazing to start something like this at SAS where we interview our fellow students and make them feel like rock stars?? Who's up to do this challenge with me?
Wouldn't it be amazing to start something like this at SAS where we interview our fellow students and make them feel like rock stars?? Who's up to do this challenge with me?
Rick Mereki - Move
Rick Mereki spent 44 days, traveling 38,000 miles, across 11 countries, just to film this one-minute video. The concept is simple, but what he made is stunning and creative. Don't blink at 0:28!
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