Cool videos: Fall 2015

I am so proud and impressed with my students' work this year. It is amazing to look back at how far they have come in production: filming, editing, writing, promoting.

Here is a sampling of their work from this quarter:

Student work: Miracle League game

This summer we held our inaugural journalism camp at Olathe Northwest High School.

The camp was based around the Miracle League game. Our students planned, filmed and edited stories about the game.

We talked a great deal about the video storytelling process discussed in this post.

Here are their stories!

Ryley DeMaro:



Val Cartwright:



Sean McPartland:



Alex Gabel:



Brooke Biasella:

Student Work: Creative Stand-ups

How you begin your news package is one of the most important decisions you will make. Viewers will tune out within seconds if they aren't hooked.

Previously I wrote about creative stand-ups from professional reporters.

For a quick challenge, I gave my students a fake news story about our school and asked students to create a stand-up for the news piece. Here are examples of their work:

Pig Latin added as a new foreign language:




Our principal will tryout for American Idol:




Jedi training added as a sport:



Super hero gang revealed at school:

Process for video storytelling

My favorite show on TV right now is The Profit. 

In this show, investor Marcus Lemonis helps struggling businesses become successful. Lemonis stresses his 3Ps of business success: People, Product and Process.

This year I want to stress the process of video storytelling.

Lemonis often tells business owners to "Trust the process." This will become my motto as I often see students who want to skip or rush steps along the way. I want my students to tell engaging and compelling stories, but they must learn to follow the steps of the process in order to do so.

Objective:

Students will follow and execute the storytelling process.

Process:

1. Plan: Students must develop a plan before they can begin filming or editing. That means storyboarding. Developing a shot list. Pitching their idea. Researching. They can't just show up and "spray and pray" that they will film a great story. They must first develop a plan.

2. Film: Students now have a plan for what they are going to film:

• Students know to utilize the 6-shot system.  
• They should also think to shoot in sequences for when they go to edit. 
• Interview subjects. 
• I also want them to capture action/reaction in everything they film. 

3. Organize: Next, they should organize their footage after importing it into FCPX. Create In & Out points, favorite/reject clips, and keyword clips. This should all be done before anything is placed on the timeline.

4. Write: Once the clips are organized, it is time to write the script. This is a step that is often rushed by students, but is extremely important to the process. They often want to start editing their story without a plan.

I created a news story template that combines elements of a STORYBOARD and NEWS SCRIPT so students can write a script of what the viewer will HEAR and SEE.

5. Edit: If all steps in the process have been followed, editing should be easy and quick. It should be easy to find the clips needed if they are organized. The script should lay out the entire story. Everything should come together easily.

6. Feedback: This is an important and often scary step of the process. Showing your unfinished work to other people can be intimidating. We have class feedback time where we go around to each work station and review the work - and the class provides feedback to the unfinished story. This is an important part of the process - much like receiving peer feedback on an English paper.

7. Publish: This is simple. Once you have completed your story, publish your work.

8. Promote: However, you are not finished once you publish your work. You must now promote it. We create these stories in order for people to view them, so they should be promoted through various mediums: Twitter, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, websites. Multiple methods of promotion should be used, and it shouldn't just happen once. Promote your story several times to reach the most viewers possible.


Assessment: 

I want to assess that students are following this process and not skipping steps along the way. Here is the rubric I am going to use this year for assessing process:

4 (A): Above and beyond in following the process. Meticulous attention is paid to each step.
3 (B): 100% of the process is followed.
2 (C): 50-75% of the process is followed.
1 (D): Less than 50% of the process is followed.

Finally...

This is the plan I am going to execute this year. What do you do to teach process? Any feedback on what I have developed? I welcome your comments below!

Advanced video sequencing

The six-shot system and video sequencing is the best thing I have implemented in my broadcast journalism classes.

Here is a simple example of video sequencing and the six-shot system:



As you can see, this is one subject doing something that is repetitive. The six-shot system allows you to tell a simple, short story with a variety of shots.

Now, let's take this concept to the next level.

In this next story, the student used sequencing to connect together different characters to make it appear that there were multiple cameras filming at the same time. Check it out:



There are several sequences here that act as little short stories within the scope of a bigger story.

Let's break down one:

The sequence starts with this student looking to the left and slightly behind her. It poses a question: Who is she looking at? The next shot answers.

This student turns his head to look to his right. Whether or not they were actually talking to each other is really irrelevant. That is the power of editing. Who is he talking to?

It appears that he is talking to these students.

The next shot is this student again answering a question. He has a great expression on his face. He is talking to...

...the moderator. She turns back to the student from the previous shot and tells him "I can't accept that answer." This completes a simple five-shot sequence where we have multiple characters appearing to interact with each other. 

This looks simple, but it is complex editing. It takes a plan both in shooting and editing to make it happen. It doesn't happen by mistake.

If you want to take your editing to the next level, think ahead next time to how you can film and sequence shots to tell short stories within the context of a full video package.

Challenge: Feature story

Here is a challenge I am giving my convergence journalism students for next semester. Feel free to use:

Next semester, you will create a 3-4 minute short feature about a subject of your choice. Use what you have learned about the 6-shot system, sequencing, editing and storytelling to create your film.

Think about interesting people or ideas here at ONW. Talk to your friends. Ask around. Come up with original ideas.

This feature will be due by the end of 3rd quarter, just before spring break.

Step #1: Watch 3 stories and fill out a "beat sheet." Download the beat sheet here.

This website has great short features and documentaries.







Step #2: Write a project proposal as a blog post. Use this template for your proposal. 

Steps #1-2 are due before you leave for Winter break!

English nerd to Journalism geek

The transition

SID Students film GameDay: Northwest

Eighteen months ago, I embarked on a new journey in my teaching career: transitioning from English teacher to a Convergence Journalism instructor at Olathe Northwest High School.

For 10 years, I taught English at Olathe South and ONW. I feel like I came a long way teaching English from my early years when I didn't know how to teach Julius Caesar or Close Reading strategies.

I majored in English and Journalism at K-State, and it was always my dream to teach Video Journalism. It was just a natural move for me to go from English teacher to Journalism teacher, while incorporating my love of video, technology and social media.

However, last year I felt like I was behind the learning curve of my students. The software, technique, studio and cameras were all foreign to me. I felt like a brand new teacher all over again.

Washington, DC bound

Last February, I traveled to Washington, DC to learn the concept of Backpack Journalism from Bill Gentile. Backpack Journalism is the idea that anyone can film, edit and tell a story with equipment that will essentially fit in your backpack. 

Working with Jerry Gardiner on his backpack journalism video

I elected to do my story on one of the workshop participants, Jerry Gardiner, who came from Liberia, Africa to learn video storytelling. I followed Jerry on his journey for two days, documenting his mission to film and edit his story. Here is my finished documentary:

This experience taught me so much about video storytelling. I learned the six-shot system and the concept of video sequencing.

It was such a great experience that we brought Gentile to Olathe Northwest High School last summer to work with 15 of our students. The students learned a great deal, and I took away even more ideas for my students.

Bill Gentile working with our students in the summer

Tri-ing new things

Last year, our studio and equipment was falling apart. It had not been replaced since the building opened 11 years ago. 

This year, we tore out the old set and changed our studio into a green screen, infinity wall. We also ordered a new tri-caster system that allows us to produce our ONW...NOW! shows in a much more efficient and up-to-date way. We use a virtual set for our anchors, and we can produce the show with fewer people than we did before. Overall, it runs much smoother than our old set-up.

Students producing ONW...NOW!

Here is an edition of a show from this year:

Sophomore redesign

One other change we made this year was to redesign our sophomore video curriculum. I was excited to share what I learned from Bill Gentile, and I saw many of the ideas were applicable to our sophomore class. 

We started the year with "Cutting Carrots" which is a filming and editing exercise that implements the six-shot system and sequencing. Here is an example:

We took this simple concept and applied it to the rest of our projects: AB Sequencing, Chase Scene and music videos. The last two projects directly applied the ideas of backpack journalism, where students filmed each other putting together legos and told the story of the blood drive.

Sophomores filming the Lego Project

I feel great about the direction our sophomore video class is going, and I believe our students will be much more prepared for my Convergence Journalism in the future.

Looking to the future...

I have a vision for where I would like to take this program. A few goals I have for the future are:

1. Learn more about the tricaster. I am hoping to attend a workshop in New York City this spring where I will learn how to use the tricaster to its full potential. I know it can do much more than we already do with it.

2. Implement more writing in the class through news articles and student blogs. I spent most of first semester working on the video portion of the class, and I feel great about the progress we have made. I want to improve our writing and begin creating stories for our Raven Daily website.

3. Win awards. e-Magine is our spring film festival that we host every year. Last year, we didn't win any awards in the news story category. After the competition last year, I told the class I was making it a goal to win awards at e-Magine. I feel great about the work we have done, and feel we can be competitive this year.

Final thoughts

I feel like I have come a long way in the last 18 months as a convergence journalism teacher, but I know I still have a great deal of work to do. I am constantly reading other blogs, websites and communicating with other journalism teachers. It has helped me grow a great deal. I am excited about where I will be a year from now when I look back again.

6-shot system for video journalists

Last winter I learned the 6-shot system from Bill Gentile for video storytelling. This system gives videographers a game plan for shooting video.

There is a list of six shots to get, and you can keep cycling through those shots to get everything you need to tell a story.

The shots are:

1. Close-up of the hands

2. Close-up of the face

3. Over the shoulder

4. Medium shot (Waist up)

5. Wide shot (Feet up)

6. Extra-wide shot (Establishing)

Here is a great blog entry from one of my students that gives photo examples of the six shots.

The first exercise I have my students complete is called "Cutting Carrots." This exercise asks students to film someone doing something routine, using the 6-shot system. They then will edit it together in a SEQUENCE to tell a short story.

Here are some examples:

This is what it looks like when applied to a complete news package:



This method for shooting video has given my students a game plan for shooting video. No longer do they go shoot and "Spray and pray." Shooting everything around and hoping to have something great. 

Finding your story

"I don't know what to write about."

If you teach English, you have heard that statement numerous times. I know I did when I taught English.

In my new role teaching Convergence Journalism, my students often struggle to develop story ideas that are unique and fresh.

For example, they want to tell a story about football, which is a very broad topic.

I often ask, "What story about football do you want to tell?" They struggle to dig deeper and come up with a story angle that is more specific than the broad topic of football.

To attack this problem, I returned to my English roots and Kelly Gallagher's Six Modes of Writing from his book Write Like This.

The six modes of writing are:
1. Express and reflect
2. Inform and explain
3. Evaluate and judge
4. Inquire and explore
5. Analyze and interpret
6. Take a stand/propose a solution

First, students generate a list of interest areas. These are the broad topics that they will then narrow down. For example, some of my broad topics include:

• Coaching
• Teaching
• Football
• Journalism
• K-State

From there, students will choose one of their interest areas and develop 2-3 story ideas for each mode of writing. This gives my students between 12-18 different angles, rather than the broad topic of "football."

Here is a simple handout that I use:

I always model this for my students first. Just like when writing, I employ the "I go, you go" approach where students see me model first and then they proceed to develop their own story ideas. Here is a picture of my modeling of the topic "football."

In five-ten minutes, I generated 19 viable story ideas for the broad topic of football. If needed, I could turn all of these ideas into stories.

So far, my students have only picked one from their list and turned that into either a video package or written story. My next step is to have the students choose one written and one video story from their list to combine together as a package.

Here is an example where the video story is an Inform and Explain about ACT Prep and the written story is an Inquire and Explore about how to raise your ACT score.

I have found this method forces students to dig much deeper and come up with better story ideas. 

What methods do you use to have students generate story ideas?