Presenting the Videos the Youth Made at the Vodafone Offices in Chatswood

With CuriousWorks, I had an opportunity to work with the awesome OzGREEN folks and train some young leaders from around Australia on media making, interviewing and editing.  OzGREEN are an Australian environmental justice network that are just getting up and running with their social/digital media strategy.  Our main work with them was to train their young, regional leaders on media making tools to tell the local stories of environmental justice, challenge and opportunity in their communities.  OzGREEN simply serves as the ‘network connector’ of these stories/regions.  We did quite a bit in 3 days…

We used some basic tools like digital cameras (with video capabilities), Windows Movie Maker and iMovie.  We used 2 Macs and about 6 Windows XP computers with only one connected to the internet (which was slow and sporadic:(  Overall though, it was awesome.  We played a remixed version of the Social Media game, developed awesome projects, learned how to shoot video for live events and developed techniques for interviewing people.

We also made some awesome videos,  an OzGREEN/CuriousWorks Digital Media group on All Around You.net and a few blog posts with pix of our work. Here’s a quick recap of all the things we learned, broken into nice bitesized chunks.

Top 4 Things We Learned in the Past Two Days

• we had to reshoot our videos because the sound quality was bad
• we had good video because we had great lighting
• you can always use photos to overlay on spoken word
• you can even record yourself as you’re traveling about the conference, town and community

Techniques For Editing

• process of using the same questions and then edit all the answers together
• interviewee repeats question and then edits out the interviewer
• use of titles to show what the question is
• when editing, listen out for sections that relate to what you want to communicate

Tips for Using Photos in Interviews/Movies

• good to add in photos to give context to interviewee/place
• you can sometimes download photos of people – just be sure you let them know you are

Tips for Filming

• pay attention to the background of where you’re interviewing someone
• it’s good to have trees all around you:)
• variety of camera angles can keep attention when interviewing people/places

Tips for the Interviewing Process

• when interviewing/prepare what you want to say ahead of time
• if you have a particular focus, listen out for sections of the interview that relate to that point
  • for instance, if you’re interviewing about leadership, listen out for things that your subject says about leadership
  • if you’re interviewing about the environment, listen out for things that your subject says about the environment
• if you’re only using the mic on your camera to record sound, be sure to keep the camera relatively close to your subject
• dissolves can help to play with the sense of time in the video
• use the description of the video or the comments to give more info about the project – website to go to,
• photos can be used to represent the theme of the video
• you can use titles to clarify things in the video
• if you make a mistake, sometimes you can turn it around by some clever editing techniques;)
• it’s good to have natural light on people’s faces – medium close ups are good to use
• if you don’t have a tripod, look for things that can be used as a stable surface to place your cameras on

Tips for Using Sound/Music

• when adding music, try and make it instrumental – that way the singing doesn’t interfere with anyone speaking
• as soon as you’re at a venue where you want to record people, be sure you find a nice, quiet spot to record – watch out for air conditioners!
• if you’re interviewing people with differing heights, adjust the level of the camera to be on their level

Tips for Using AllAroundYou.net

• allaroundyou.net can be used to host your media – you can then embed your videos into other sites – you can even share links!
• it’s also how you can connect with Morgan and Shakthi (and anyone else you met and connected with at the workshop!)
• here’s a few tips on using it: http://toolkit.allaroundyou.com.au/tag/aay/

Tips for Using Facebook

• from the awesome Beth Kanter
  • So you want a Facebook Fan Page for Your Nonprofit? Here’s the Scoop!
  • Frank Barry, Guest Post: 4 Facebook Tips for Nonprofit Success – See What Others are Doing
  • A Guide to Facebook Activism
• from Mashable:
  • Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?

Tips for Using Windows Movie Maker

• 63 Video Tutorials For Rocking Windows Movie Maker (via Atomic Learning)

Australia has been awesome.  Here’s a quick recap of things I did/accomplished in one month.

1. visited a tiny town called Marble Bar to take pictures with ‘feral’ 5 year olds (lots of these kids seem to be missing on any oversight running around barefoot and unattended most of the day – ‘feral’ was an affectionate term one of the locals used to describe them)
2. did a cultural leaders workshop the first week in Newman
3. did media classes inside the primary and high schools
4. helped kids build a WordPress site/Facebook Page
5. made short movies with kids using iPod Nanos
6. hiked in a beautiful, beautiful place called Karajini
7. met the local Martu Aboriginal people (they’ve lived here for nearly 40,000 years – the first white man they saw was in the 1960s)…
8. helped to coordinate a youth media festival – the kids even got on the national news!
9. learned 33 things that the young people of Newman can do

…and there’s more coming.  Awesome.

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> The adventure for this Curious Worker begins. Will be in flight for > the next 8 hours as I fly out to Newman, Australia.
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> Yeehaw!

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Today I set a game plan with Shakthi on how we're going to tackle the next 6 weeks in the Pilbara.  I'll need to:

• develop/find/improve on some curriculum for 'object-based storytelling'
• develop/find/improve on curriculum to introduce the 'craft' of working with audio and photography
• develop online social network strategy for cultural leaders in the Pilbara

For the first week, we're going to go to Marble Bar (population? 194) to do an ad-hoc community media class – completely open-ended, depending on who shows up an what they'd like to learn.  Could be storytelling, filming video, even djing if that's what they want;)  Should be fun.  Main purpose is to introduce ourselves to the folks in Marble Bar to as well as connect them to the community media network we're in the process of building.

Second week, we begin 5 weeks of work in Newman, culminating in a community festival.  One of our partners on the ground has already secured Thai dancers (WTF, in a rural mining colony in the middle of nowhere???), MCs and a space for the festival.

In the meantime, please enjoy this lovely video of the CW office loft in Sydney.  In it, I give a nice tour of the CW art/office loft.  It's truly one of the nicest spaces I've ever worked (and will hopefully play in soon!).

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