www.merge-media.org

New website! Stream the videos. Feedback always welcome.

Time for Defense!

It's football season, but this defense is all about the creative thesis project! My thesis is the resulting 6 group videos we made during my collaboration with the 5th grade ICS class. Last year's 5th graders, that is. This year, they're 6th graders! A world of difference.

Since my last post in July, I've re-edited the videos to clean them up some and make them shorter. I also built an additional website (www.brigetteflood.com) where you can stream the videos and where I talk more about the collaboration, our approach and the process. I also got married, so it was a hectic late summer/early fall.

Defense date is scheduled for November 2 at 11 a.m. in Georgia State University's DAEL theater (Digital Arts and Entertainment Lab) . It's open to the public, so feel free to join us if you're interested!

Editing continues in July

Time flies when you're editing. It's July, and I'm still sifting through footage filmed by myself and the students. Though we managed to get both the personal and group videos finished in time to view on the last day of school, I've still got a lot of work to create my overall final thesis project, which I hope to defend this fall.

Ahhh...June

Whoa. There was a big crunch of getting pick up shots and editing during the days after Memorial Day! Because the plan was to watch all 6 group videos together on June 1, the last day of school. That worked out, with only a few technical difficulties. I brought lots of snacks to thank the kids for their hard work in front of and behind the camera. The did a lot of good things during this project, and hopefully learned a thing or two as well.

The entire 5th grade got together to watch them, which was fun. The only bummer was that more than a handful of students weren't there to share in the excitement, because Dekalb County's summer school started that same day, June 1. ICS was on a different schedule, so the ICS students who needed to attend summer school had to miss the last day of their normall school year (which includes many of the international students). I talked with the principal of the Stone Mountain campus, and hopefully I can go back and show the videos again at the beginning of the 2007-08 school year.

Editing Begins...& Only 5 Working Days Left!

We starting editing together today. I hooked my laptop up to the LCD projector in order to work with one video group per class. In true team spirit, Annie took the rest of the kids into the hall to do their writing workshop. Much appreciated, Ms. Perry!

The editing was great! The students viewed existing clips (I'd already imported them into FinalCut Pro and then sorted the clips into folders per each video group) and told me which parts to edit out of the clips. There was a lot of giggling and laughter and cheerfulness...although the girls from the Friends video were all mortified to hear their voices in the videos. Too cute. They think their voices sound too deep and are embarrassed about it. I told them I feel the same way about my voice & I know what they're talking about. But honestly their voices sound just like they do in person. Everyone's getting used to their image and sound on the 'big screen.'

I'll be working with the other 4 groups over the next 2 days to edit the other video clips and to move the projects along. Then I'll probably have to do some fine tuning over the weekend, since we only have 5 school days left to work on videotaping, pick up shots, editing, etc. Yikes! I'm a little stressed about the time. Monday's Memorial Day, so school's out. And we're planning to watch the group and individual projects on Friday, June 1 in a viewing bonanza. It will be a fun last day of school. I'd also like to put both the home video and group projects on DVDs to distribute to the school and students sometime soon. It won't be by June 1. But I can easily do that in time for the first day of school next year.

Individual Video Projects

Ms. Perry and I watched the students' personal videos last night, to make sure they'd followed the assignement (to write a video plan before taping). Some of them are priceless and well done, others had technical problems, and others didn't follow the assignment - they just taped people or things without describing them and seemingly without any plan. So now, about 11 students need to revideo their individual video project, for one reason or another. Zoinks! We only have about 8 days left to get them finished so we can preview them. Hopefully the retakes will be finished by the middle of next week.

Videotaping ending this week...editing next week

The video projects are moving along...sometimes smoothly, sometimes not so smoothly. Today I arrived at ICS over an hour early so the "Day in the Life of Recess" group could videotape recess again. But when I got to school, only one student from the group would take time to actually videotape. Afterward in class, another student from the 'Recess' group asked if he could videotape then. I had to tell him that he'd had a chance earlier but had chosen to play soccer instead of participating in the video project. Bummer for all of us! At this point, we really needed to get that footage taken care of, but the students have to understand their choices matter.

The good news is that all the students who chose to participate in the home video project have taken the video cameras home. Ms. Perry and I are watching them tomorrow night to see if we have all of them and to make sure none of them need to be re-videotaped before we begin to edit them into one vidoe.

Additional good news is that most of our 6 group videos are coming along nicely. We've videotaped almost all the footage we need for them. I'm going to download the footage onto my computer over the weekend and take it to school next week so the students and can edit it together, using a video projector and my laptop computer with FinalCut Pro on it. I'll have to make some editorial choices about which parts we view together because we have videotaped enormous amounts for each group video project.

Middle May Madness

All the video projects and home video projects are underway! The students are doing a great job thinking through their shots, scripts, etc. It's exciting and exhausting. We are getting so much footage that I hope I can get it all onto my computer and firewire drive in order to take to school next week so we can edit them together. We'll use a LCD projector and the laptop so the students can see how the editing process works. Some of them get the editing concept and some are still struggling with the abstractness of what we're telling them we can do on the computer, so I think this is a hugely beneficial step in this collaborative process.

On another note, have I already mentioned that I successfully defended my Thesis Prospectus in early May? I did! My committee (Niklas Vollmer, Ted Friedman, Merrill Morris) brought up some fantastic additional resources and questions for me to consider throughout the project. Shows that the more people you include in the planning process, the better the project can be!

Home Video Projects Begin

The student-friendly, plastic video camera's have arrived! We're using Hasbro's VcamNow. They're great for a functioning, child-friendly camera at a relatively low price. Annie and I tested them out over the weekend and made sample videos to show the classes. Parents signed the necessary permission slips over the weekend, and the students are taking them home beginning this week.

4 students per night will be able to video journal at home, showing us where they live, what they like, their families, neighborhoods, etc. The students are so excited about this project, they've been writing ideas and talking about how fun it will be in their written journals.

Downloading the videos off the cameras, erasing the videos before passing them to the next group of students is going to be a quick logistical turnaround. But well worth it. This is a 5th grade version of Kirby Dick's Chain Camera, a video that inspired and informed this project.

6 Videos in 1 Month!

Before the CRCT break last week, Annie and I wrote down the students' ideas for videos, sorted those ideas into groups and let the students choose a first and second choice of which video they want to participate in making. Last Friday during a CRCT break, Annie and the students arranged everyone into 6 video groups. The entire ICS 5th grade is participating - fantastic!

Even better, the other 5th grade teacher, Ms. Hamilton and Annie figured out they could let the students split into different groups than they are normally in during the afternoons. So now, 5A and 5B distinctions are gone and students are working with classmates they may not have been in class with this year. In my opinion, this shows how great the teachers are and how excited they are to have the 5th graders working together in this way.

The video project groups are:

1. Interviews with 6th Grade
2. Friends
3. A Day in the life of Recess
4. Advice for 4th Grade
5. Memoirs
6. Digital Tour of ICS

Our initial brainstorming, planning & scheduling sessions took place yesterday & today, and I learned some important lessons:

First lesson, it takes a long time to get the students settled down and focused!! I'm so used to working with adults, I often forget that the students are new to many of these ideas & new to working within these groups. Explaining one concept can take longer than I anticipate, especially when the normal kid silliness, teasing and side conversations are also occurring.

Because of that, I learned my second lesson, which is that I need some good one liners to get the students' attention. I know that simply shushing them doesn't work; plus, they're old enough where I can say something (hopefully) quickly and semi-quietly that should get them to stop the monkey business. Annie is really good at it. I should have been taking notes. We'll see! Tomorrow the actual video taping begins...

CRCT Week

We're taking a break this week because the students are taking the CRCT standardized test all this week and Ms. Perry will be teaching science during the place of the Writer's Workshop this week. Our video collaboration is part of the Writer's Workshop curriculum, as it helps the students with storytelling...using video as a medium instead of traditional paper and pencil.

Exciting news: we got a friend to sponsor part of this project. He prefers to remain anonymous, so I'm going to refer to him as Mr. S (for sponsor). We are so grateful! Mr. S bought 4 plastic, kid-friendly video cameras that Ms. Perry and I hope to send home with the students as part of our project. The cameras arrived last week. I haven't seen them yet, but according to Mr. S the resolution is not great. He taped a test inside and said it's nearly impossible to see.

I'm going to pick a camera up tonight and do my own test. If we have to we can ask the students to do their taping outside during daylight hours on sunny afternoons and evenings.

Making Connections

Peter Jordan emailed me back. The community-based connecting expands!

Brigette,
This is so cool! I'm thrilled that you are using the work. I was just on a panel about the internet at Full Frame Documentary Festival and told them how excited I
was by how you are using Localfilms. How did you find out about the site?

Keep in touch. I'd enjoy seeing your thesis when you're done.

Peter

Reach Out Recess

Yesterday, we watched Speak Luvo Speak Jane (2005), from localfilms.org about kids whose parents have HIV/AIDS in South Africa and Kenya. Fortunately, we followed it with a funny movie made locally by Hein's older brother which had everyone laughing and enjoying good homemade comedy.

Today we watched Starring Us (2004), the earlier collaboration Ms. Perry's 2nd grade students, Steve Schaefer and I co-directed several years ago. Lots of laughter! Everyone has grown up so much they've forgotten how small they once were. They also got a kick out of how much higher their voices were. Ahh...the maturity of 5th grade.

Earlier during recess, we let the students do their own version of Chain Camera (2001), using a camera to video each other and then passing the camera onto the next student. We named it Reach Out Recess.

While the students went to Art, Ms. Perry and I downloaded the videos onto the computer. As a group during class, we watched the videos from recess and discussed what the students liked & disliked about each other's videos and what they learned from watching the videos. We discussed different ways to frame shots, lighting (keep the sun behind the cameraperson) and how to be aware of sound (easily done when there are lots of screaming kids in the background in recess). Another great day! The students are beginning to think visually and watch the videos as if they were the documentarians instead of the audience. Good stuff!

Localfilms.org

Yesterday we watched a film by Peter Jordan of Localfilms.org called The Children They Are Left With. Since many of the students are from other countries, including many from Africa, this initiated a fantastic conversation, where many of the students reflected on their lives before coming to America. Annie and I were thrilled at how the students internalized the movie and how moved they were by them. They asked some great questions and shared their stories. Today, it began to feel like we are getting somewhere!

I emailed Peter Jordan to tell him about the experience and included some photos:

Hi Peter,
I'm a graduate student in Communications at Georgia State University and have
been very inspired by your work. Thanks for making it available to view on your
website. As a mediamaker, I thought you might appreciate how your work is also inspiring
my current collaborators, the 5th grade class at the International Community School
in Decatur, GA. (www.intcomschool.org). My thesis project is a community-based video
collaboration with them.

ICS has a lot of refugee and immigrant children, and today we watched your film
The Children They are Left With to begin our conversation about documentary filmmaking.
Your film initiated some fantastic conversation! Afterward, Majur, who is from Sudan,
said it reminded him of himself and his home. Dilbar (from Iraq) and Farwad (from
Afghanistan) said it reminded them of their lives before coming to America too.
Thank you for creating work that is meaningful and so inspirational to these kids.
They ate it up! I'm attaching some photos for you.

Lastly: where did you get the plastic video cameras the kids use in your projects?
Is there a particular brand to look for?

Best regards,
Brigette Flood

Who's merging?

The purpose of this website is to document my community-based storytelling/video project and partnership with the 5th grade class from the International Community School (ICS) in DeKalb County, GA. ICS is a charter school whose mission is to provide “refugee, immigrant and local children with a remedial to advanced education at the elementary school level. The school explores and celebrates cultural differences in a challenging, nurturing, and intentionally multi-ethnic environment” (www.intcomschool.org). The class teacher, Annie Perry, and I hope to engage the students to the ideas and practice of using videography, digital photography and computers.