Sunday, July 13, 2008

Video editing workshop (with Michele)

The purpose of this workshop is first and foremost to have you spending time mucking around with video editing and remixing techniques. One key objective within this purpose is to have you identify and explore the possibilities (or otherwise) remixing videos might have for identity performance or exploration. To do so, the theme of your video is to be some aspect—or aspects—of your own identity. You can use the images you brought with you, or download meaningful images to use in your clip.

By the end of this session, you each should have a short video clip that opens with a title sequence and closes with a credits sequence. If time permits, muck around with including a soundtrack, too.

To begin:
In small groups, discuss the five video clips you found as part of your preparation for this workshop. Discuss what it is about these clips that appealed to you in terms of:
  • Actual content (i.e., what the video says about the maker's identity or identity in general)
  • Conceptual dimensions or "message" conveyed
  • Emotional dimensions
  • And how the technical elements of the video (e.g., transitions, effects)

What you'll need:
  1. Video editing software such as iMovie (Mac) or Windows Movie Maker (PC). Each is highly likely to be already on your machine. Otherwise, you can download the software you need for free using a quick Google search.
  2. Still images: These can be downloaded from Flickr.com (paying due attention to Flickr photographer's copyright instructions; look for Creative Commons licenced photos). Other picture sources include: Photobucket.com and Picasa.com.
  3. Moving images: These can be downloaded from Youtube.com, Break.com. You may need to convert these files in order to be able to sue them in your video editing software. See below for more on this.
Questions to discuss:
  1. Lawrence Lessig (2005) argues that many young people see alphabetic writing as just one way to write, and not even the most interesting way to right. Given that you've spent some time mucking around with video editing yourself, why might this be?
  2. What are some of the affordances (and otherwise) offered by video editing for expressing some aspects of one's identity? (click here for four definitions of "identity" that will help inform your discussion). What might these affordances mean for classroom practice? Should matters of identity even enter into classroom literacy practices?
Technical things to remember:
  • Keep all of your media files that you plan to use in your movie in one (1) folder on your harddrive (i.e., don't grab an image file from your C drive and then a sound file from your external F drive), otherwise you'll run into issues when you come to convert your movie project into a portable movie.
  • Keep file types consistent and limited (i.e., all *.wav, or all *.mov or all *.avi NOT *.MP4 ever)
  • Your movie making will by default save as a "project"--this is simply a set of images and movies and effects and transitions etc. as you have ordered them. It is *not* yet a movie. In order to create a movie that can be posted to YouTube or burned to a CD, choose "file" and then "export," " Save movie file," or "burn movie to disk" etc.

Resources:

If you need free video editing software:

For downloading video clips from YouTube:

Video (and other) file conversion service:

Content/media repositories:

For those who like a challenge:

Online film locations:
Screen-based video recording software:
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)