Scenes from a Student Video Contest

I am a teacher advisor to the Student Council at my school. I’ve given up planning and prep time, on and off over the years, for the Student Council as a way to empower students and give them an opportunity to be leaders in the school. This year, a group of students asked me personally if I would help re-start the Student Council because they had ideas for school spirit activities, and how could I say no to that?

I said, yes.

The last project of the year has been a Video Contest. This came from the students, who wanted to do something different and creative, and it has been a real interesting experience. The council put out the call for short videos to our entire PreK-Grade 6 school (about 500 students) in four categories (documentary, comedy, music and “freestyle”), and they wondered if they would be barraged by cell phone videos.

Not quite (which sort of surprised me for I, too, wondered how a small group would handle the load of video submissions, and I even began a back-up plan of inviting more students into the Student Council to help.) We only had a handful of videos, but it was enough for the Student Council to award prizes (gift cards to a bookstore) to winners in each category, and to recognize some honorable mentions, too.

The above video is a small compilation of clips from the winning videos, which ranged from a Lego stopmotion movie to a music video about a sandwich to a movie teaser featuring a strange raccoon to a digital story capturing the small town in which the school is located.

The 2016 Norris Tiger VideoRama was a success (and we will be sharing the winning videos over our close-circuit television system next week), even if I wonder how we could get even more students to be making videos in the future. (For my sixth grade students, I just never found time to do a lesson on using iMovie, which I now regret.)

Peace (and pass the popcorn),
Kevin

My Son’s Video Journey

When my oldest son, now graduating high school, was young, he wanted to learn how to make movies. It turns out, I was teaching myself how to make stopmotion movies at the time, thinking I would bring that kind of moviemaking into my classroom (which I did for a few years). So, my son and I made movies, together. It was a blast.

Mouse and Cat Together from Mr. Hodgson on Vimeo.

Then, he began to venture on his own, planning more complicated and longer films, and using a little flash video camera for shooting and MovieMaker software on our old PC. Sometimes, he would ask me to help or to be in the movie. Sometimes, not.

The Squop from Mr. Hodgson on Vimeo.

Then, he began to go deep with the idea of making movies and explored various editing tricks. He would storyboard, just like I showed him, and once he had a YouTube account, he’d post some of his short films online.

For his senior year Capstone Project, he spent months making this documentary of his friends’ rock band, and as I watch his work from behind the camera and in the editing “room,” I see how far he has come and how much he has learned on his own.

I still remember with fondness those early years, though. And the videos bring me back …

Shovel Trouble from Mr. Hodgson on Vimeo.

Peace (over time),
Kevin

What My Son Made: Ant Man Jr.

Rowan storyboard

My 10 year old son enrolled for the second year in a row at the free Apple Movie Camp, which is a three day gathering in an Apple Store for kids to learn about iMovie and Garageband and the basics of moviemaking, including storyboarding.

My son had recently watched, and thoroughly enjoyed, Ant Man and he remembered how last year, the Apple folks showed him how to do “picture in picture” and he wondered if he could “shrink” himself and do his own Ant Man-style movie. He could. He did.

I was his trusty cameraman and gave advice on some editing, but overall, he was able to make this over the course of two days (three hours) plus some video shooting at home.

The free Apple Camp idea remains a bit of a tension point for me. It is cool they offer it for free, and it is neat that my son wanted to do it again. But parents are trapped in the Apple Store during the camp time (which I understand) and it is hard not to think the camp is a genius (excuse the pun) way to hook a new generation on Apple products and get parents to play with iPads and more during the wait time. Maybe even buy something. Or think about buying something. It is never a hard sell. It’s a soft sell. And it is brilliant marketing. I should note that this year, one of the counselors did work with parents a bit, to show us what the kids were doing with some of the apps.

Peace (may it get bigger not smaller),
Kevin

Mini-Movie Premiere: Escape of the Furious Three

Making Robbers on Loose 2 collage

My youngest son, age 10, wrote and directed and edited this short movie. We shot it during winter (I was cameraman) and then hemmed and hawed on the editing (we needed to shoot one last scene and never did) until recently, when I turned my computer and iMovie over to him and he did the editing. I only helped here and there and mostly, I just let him alone to edit the movie as he saw it (working around the missing scene).


The only thing I changed from the original edit is the soundtrack. He had some copyright music from his iTunes collection that I would not allow to be included in public sharing, so we composed some original music in the Garageband iPad app and used that. We’ve had lots of conversations about fair use and copyright and he is tired now of m mantra of “make your own stuff as much possible.” We kept his original edit for home use and DVD burning.

This is actually the second movie in a series that began with Robbers on the Loose. He writes the scripts on Google Docs, asking for input from neighborhood friends. Most involve chase scenes and nerf guns. He’s a ten year old boy who loves Mission Impossible.

Can you tell?

Peace (with popcorn),
Kevin

PS — here is the original movie from 2012: Robbers on the Loose.

 

A Video Poem About Vine, Using Vine

I am not a newcomer to using Vine, but I still wonder about how to best utilize the restraints of its six seconds. Here, I wrote a poem about Vine, recorded it in pieces in Vine and then used an app called PicPlayPost to coordinate the Vine videos together as a collage.

Interestingly, the first time I uploaded to YouTube, I had the settings wrong, and it was set to run all of the videos in the collage at the same time. It’s a bit of cacophony, and yet …. it’s interesting, too. Your mind tries to grasp at the words, and the last sound heard is in the first video, a little “uttt.”

Director’s Notes:

I kept the poem rather simple. Four lines, two couplets. Each line had to be around six seconds long, of course, to fit into a single Vine post (I wonder what my Vine followers were thinking as I posted one after another.) I added a fifth intro video when I realized that the poem might need a little context.

With Vine, your videos also get posted to your Camera Roll, which allows PicPlayPost app to access them for a multimedia collage. I really like PicPlayPost for the way it can use various media. As noted above, you can also sequence the playback of videos. I did it rather linearly here, but I didn’t have to.

The shots themselves were simple, too. I did try to move the lens a bit for each of the posts, to give a bit of variety to the eye. As it is, the collage looks strange, with all of my faces looking at you. Sorry about that, but it will lay the grounds for a joke in my “how to” comic coming up for my Got Some ‘Splaining To Do Tumblr.

A look at Vine .. Give it a try …

Slice of Life: Our Own Little Hollywood

(This is part of Slice of Life, a regular writing activity facilitated by Two Writing Teachers. We find small moments to write about. You come write, too, OK?)

Making Robbers on Loose 2 collage

Our video production budget would make the penny pinching budget dudes in Hollywood very proud: seven cups of hot chocolate and a overflowing plate of nachos as pay for the acting team. The creative energy that is going into the filming of my son’s second feature film? Priceless.

As the script for Robbers on the Loose 2 (a sequel to his last film, shot three years ago and featured at a local film festival) took shape in the past few weeks — written with friends, with advice from his parents and brothers — the excitement of shooting a movie took hold. Organizing the schedules of nearly 10 kids (all nine and ten years old) has been difficult, and we have about one-third more of the movie to shoot.

Making Robbers on the Loose Day2 Collage

I won’t give away the story. Let’s just say, someone is on the loose. But in the script that they wrote on their own, I noticed references to the first movie, foreshadowing for something to be stolen, the use of frames within frames (done in the editing process), and the boys’ obsessions with Nerf guns (only one girl is in the acting team, as the police officer. She’s the best actor of the bunch.)

As an independent media activity, making a movie is interesting and complicated, as my 10-year-old son is finding out. He has his crew rehearsing their lines, making adaptations to the script, adjusting his vision to the reality of what is available to us, and more.

I am merely the camera operator, adding in some advice when I think it will help. (I am also taking still photos of the filming, which is where these collages came from). Seeing my son and his friends pouring over the footage of the day is such a nice sight to behold, as they laugh at the retakes, and critique their own performances.

What more could you ask for?

Peace (on the loose),
Kevin

Fruit Horror: A Movie Short (by my son)


I wrote about my 9 year old son being part of Apple Movie Camp last week, and here is his final short movie about fruit and a blender called Fruit Horror. I helped only with the filming (holding the video camera for him, and using the big knife). He made the soundtrack, did the editing, etc, and I had to resist the urge to do too much with him.

On the last day of the free(!) camp, we watched about three dozen short movies (true!) made during the week by kids, and most had no or little narrative structure. Some seemed to go on forever about nothing and others were just video taken of self. I am not being critical of the kids, who were making movies after all instead of watching them so that is good, nor of the Apple camp, which only ran three days for 90 minutes each day and that’s not enough time to do much (did I mention it was free?).

But the Showcase Viewing that we experienced does point to the need for us educators to still teach story and narrative and pacing, even in video production (storyboards help), and to have young people consider audience and all of the elements of storytelling that we have always taught for print media. It still have value in the digital age. It brings to mind how we can’t assume young people know what they are doing when we put them in front of a screen, or put a video camera in their hands, or a microphone, or whatever.

We still need to teach the skills that underly how they compose for the world.

Peace (in the blender),
Kevin

Bottom of the Ninth: Two Versions, One Story

Yesterday, I wrote about my son being in the free Apple Story Movie Camp, and how I was able to storyboard out a story, too. When we went home, we shot video footage for his movie (which came out great!) and then he agreed to be the actor in my movie, which is called Bottom of the Ninth. I wanted to do it all on the iPad only, with iMovie app.

Here’s how it came out:

But I also tried another version, using the PicPlayPost app, which is a video collage. I like the iMovie version better but it is interesting to see the story in this format.

Peace (in the vid),
Kevin

At the Apple Store: When the Cynical Me Met the Maker Me

Storyboards
My youngest son is participating in a free “Movie Making Camp” through our local Apple Store. The cynical side of me thinks, This is such a sneaky way to get parents and kids into the Apple Store and get us hooked on Apple products. (not that we aren’t, already). But the kinder, more generous side of me — the Maker/Educator  me — thinks, This is a free and accessible way for any kid to learn how to make movies, and how can that opportunity be anything but a good thing?

Apple Camp. Creative creatures wanted.

It’s a three day camp that goes for about 90 minutes each day, run by three energetic young Apple people, and my son had a blast yesterday as they began learning about the basics of making movies on mobile devices. Now, my son has made movies before and much of what they are telling him he already knows. That didn’t matter. He is still enjoying it.

What the Maker/Educator Me liked about it?

They began with work away the iPads completely, by focusing in on the storyboarding process. It was a neat image, all of these young kids bent over their storyboard papers, mapping out a short movie project that they will be completing in just a few days. Now, parents are required to stay in the store (Keep quiet, Cynical Me!) and the program leaders offered up storyboards to all the parents, too. (See, Maker/Educator Me?)

I was on the only parent to accept a storyboard and as the kids were drawing and planning, I began working out my own movie idea, too. I guess no other adults wanted to play. But I sure as heck did.

After the storyboarding, they (we) moved into learning how to use the Garageband App to create their own original music that will become the soundtrack for the movie itself. Making original music? (Well, as original as it is when it is constructed out of loops). I’m down with that. I always have fun with the GB app.

Their homework assignment was to shoot about four minutes of video, based on their storyboard. The final version will be about 2 minutes long, or less. My son is working on this neat idea, inspired by the Fruit Ninja game, that involves fruit, a large knife, and a blender. Let’s just say, it does not end well for the fruit. We spent about 45 minutes shooting his raw video, and then I bribed him to be the star of my movie called Bottom of the Ninth, which is based on him playing whiffle ball in the backyard. We spent another 30 minutes shooting that raw video, which I shot and then edited entirely on the iPad last night. I was curious if I could do it all on the iPad. Yes, I could, and did.

Storyboards

For a free camp, the Movie Camp is pretty nifty. I’ll keep the Cynical Me at bay here so that the creative spirit can be open to possibilities, particularly when it embraces a shared ethos of allowing kids to be creators, not just consumers, of movies. On Friday, all the kids will be sharing their short movies, so that should be a hoot. I’ll share out mine here later this week.

Peace (at camp),
Kevin

 

My Son’s Short: Chase Your Dreams

Video award (my son)
My eldest son and high school friends recently won an award from an Electronic Media Festival that took place at a local community college. He submitted a short film that he and his friends shot in the high school category, and their movie came in second place. We had a scheduling conflict, so we could not go the event itself, but apparently, they showed the winning movies on a massive screen, which is pretty neat.

And he got a neat engraved Laser Disc as an award.

Here is their movie short (the ending is a bit too violent for my tastes and the whole thing has an purposefully creepy feel to it — right down to the soundtrack). You’ll notice at the very end a reference to a larger movie project that has been in the works (and might be on hold right now for all I know) for a full-scale zombie movie that they have written together collaboratively.
Chase Your Dreams.

Peace (in the flick),
Kevin