Video projects for children

[Tim Shirey]

I will pass the encouraging comments on to our girls so they will be
motivated to do more.

I also found the Apple education website (below) helpful for sparking new
project ideas.  With the younger ages, I avoid dwelling too much on the
technical lingo or expecting them to understand how to work all the software
or gear.  Our girls are aged 8, 10, 12.  Depending on the project, I may
tell them that I'm their technical assistant.  They need to tell me what to
do, where to stand, etc..  I then can tell them if their "idea" is possible
with our limited resources. :-)

Example: When talking about lighting, I don't get into tech talk about
lighting ratios, halogen vrs. Tungsten, etc..  I keep it very simple and
refer to the process simply as "capturing light" or "sculpting with light"
when we are doing a video project for an art class.  When we are painting,
then we "paint the effects of light on objects".  I tend to carry over into
video, what I learned as a painter.  What helped me the most with portrait
painting was that I shouldn't view it as painting a nose, ear, eyes, etc.,
but rather painting the effects of light on the planes of an object.  With
video, I carry this principle over.  For my children, I explain the concept
with a bit more pizzazz then I did here. <bg>

At this young age, I focus on developing their creativity.  Creativity can
simply be defined as "decision making".  I guide them on what questions to
ask (asking the "right questions" is the hard part!).  I leave it up to them
to come up with the answers.  I don't want them to grow up with all the
right answers ... but to the wrong questions. :-)

Another phrase they hear over and over again from me is, "think beyond the
obvious".  Don't settle for the first idea that comes to their mind.  That's
the obvious one that everyone else comes up with, while the really good one
remains hidden.  I just don't make them do projects like our one photography
professor who had us take 30 (B/W) pictures of a white piece of paper.  When
we brought our photos to class, he said, "I don't even want to see those
.... now go and take 30 more!".  The following week it was 60 photos of an
egg.  OK... I did give my 3 girls a spoon and an apple, handed them the
digital camera (each took turns) and told them to take at least 5 different
shots of an apple and spoon together.  I just carried around a simple
utility lamp and told them that I was their assistant and will hold the lamp
where ever they tell me to [they liked that part].  They learned to stand at
different angles, lighting from different sides, and that they didn't HAVE
to include the entire object in the frame!  I then printed out their 5 best
shots on the inkjet printer.

If you have children at home, I would encourage you to do a fun project
together.  Find out what interests them at this point in their life.  Our
girls love their dress-up clothes and play acting (we got a bunch of freebee
scraps from a nearby costume factory attic), so we are working on a
storyline where one child is reading a picture book and a character pops off
the page and comes to life (gotta have a princess in there somewhere! <g>).
We're keeping it VERY simple and having fun with it.  Keep it short - maybe
make up a TV commercial or perhaps a 3 minute movie trailer for a movie that
doesn't exist!

The biggest temptation for me...
Fight the urge to "refine" or "tweak" the rough edges of their project!  For
me that's tough. :-)

And when it's done, make sure you include their names in the credits (at
least once)!!

Enough of my rambling on...


- Tim



On 4/15/03 8:07 AM, "Macintosh Digital Video List"
<MacDV at lists.themacintoshguy.com> wrote:

> On a related note, Apple had hosted (and may still do, can't find it at
> the moment) some example video projects from the various school system
> enlightened enough to be using iMovie etc.
> 
> Some of the projects were extremely clever, including a autobiography
> of a girl from Russia who moved to the US, and the tale of a trio of
> inner-city kids who figured out who to measure a flagpole via
> triangulation, and more. There was a wealth of ideas that can be
> adapted for kids everywhere.
> 
> You can see the current examples here:
> http://www.apple.com/education/ilife/