Summary of the day : Production

What does a stuffy computer lab NOT need? More body heat!

Yesterday, Digital Arts Alliance (DAA) and 10 BPS teachers joined our program. The teachers were given laptops and introduced to Premiere Elements. They are being taught by DAA how to build video projects into their curriculum.

We welcomed Nancy (pictured above) from DAA to our lab, who has guided us over the past 2 days through the production process. The students recorded their voice overs based on their polished narratives, and then imported their assets into Premiere. The crews have been doing a great job of managing their files correctly and following the production process. Time management has been critical and Nancy has intervened often to keep us all on track.

By lunch time on Tuesday, each crew has been able to check off the first 6 steps :

1. write the narrative



2. create a storyboard



3. record the voice over



4. edit the voiceover in the timeline



5. import stills into the folder in your project panel



6. create subclips of camera A, B, C and extra footage

After a hearty lunch from Finale (I love pickles!), each crew will spend the rest of the afternoon dragging subclips and stills into their timeline in sync with their narrative.

Shout outs & summary of the day : Narratives & Storyboarding

Over the last 2 days, the crews have been intensely writing their scripts and so asking them to write ONE more time at the end of the day in this blog was a bit much!! So I thought I'd record a summary and reflection of the work we've been doing here.

And oh boy have we worked! No blood (we're like a family here), and no tears (we support each other when it's tough), but we sure did sweat it out! It was nearly 90 degrees in Boston this afternoon, and the AC doesn't work here at TechBoston Academy! (But it DOES blast plenty of cold air in the winter! Go figure.)

Wednesday morning, Julie lead the crews through a lesson about the structure of a narrative - the thesis, introduction, body, and conclusion. The crews went to work combing through their transcipts to pull out key points and quotes, and annotated it with post-its and highlighters in order to form a thesis statement everyone in the group could connect with. Previously, the students had been individually finding personal connections with their interviewee. Now, the challenge was coming together as a group, and finding an overarching statement or question that was meaningful to EVERYone in the crew!

Script writing began in the afternoon, while I was logging and capturing, and feverishly re-organising the files and folders into a way that made the most sense to the students. Paulina, Juan and Julie floated from crew to crew, giving valuable feedback, listening to the ideas that were forming, and guiding them through the writing process.

Today, Paulina and I, after reviewing the first drafts of their scripts, met with each crew, and showed them how to storyboard as a visual connection to their scripts. They looked through the assets loaded onto the computer and thought about what additional footage and/or photos they would need to gather by the end of Monday.

I was so impressed by the professionalism, creativity, and determination of EVERY team! They were receptive to our feedback and each other's comments "You need to be clearer who is saying what here...", collaborative in the brainstorming "Maybe you should have a voiceover here instead...", critical of suggestions "I'm not feeling that...", respectful of new ideas..."I think we'll decide on that once we get into the editing process...", and enthusiastic about their project despite the heat "I love that quote! Where did you get that?"

I think I can speak for Juan, Julie, and Paulina in saying that we sooo appreciate your efforts and are excited about the ideas you have!! You all have strong foundations for your stories. FINISH STRONG!! Nothing feels better than taking an idea from planning all the way through production into a piece that YOU are proud of and Facing History will be proud to show off!!

See you all on Monday...Keep cool.

- lisa

Summary of The Day :Intro to Premiere

Like my picture?!? I know i love it too :) So, it's Jessica's turn to do the summary of the day. Basically, today was a fast paced day! In the morning, my crew had to do what eveyone else did yesterday and learn the basic usage of Adobe Premiere. It was fun. Other groups just continued using what they learned yesterday with Premiere. Then Sophia and Teeyana came back and taked a lil about their interviewing experience. Then we all had to do our blogging stuff again. It's almost lunch time and we are going to have an early release! Good luck to the last group interviewing!!!!!!

Summary of Our Day : Intro to Premiere & Interviewing

Alright everybody time for a quick summary of today.

First we learned about the software we're going to be using to make our video. Its called Adobe Premiere and it allows us to capture video and edit it along with pictures and audio to make movies. Its what the professionals use to make there movies. We can add subtract clips from what we recorded and replace audio as well as put an incredibly wide range of graphics to our movie. We tried it today and I must say it was a very fun.

Sevon, Cheryl and Jessica have finished interviewing Mel King. We were pretty excited about seeing the footage of them. We took a look at it on the TV when they returned. It gave the rest of us an idea of what we would go through in our interviews.

Kevin, Omarou, Anjelica have left for their interview and we're going to see how that goes tommorow-the remainder of us will interview tommorow.

Well, until then, see ya.

Summary : preparing for the interview

As the day went on it became more and more interesting. I'm walking into the room and there they are. my group. my teammates working extremely hard as always. today we got a better understanding of what most of us will be doing tomorrow and Thursday. we picked questions that we thought was appropriate for our interviewees. in some way it was complicated because of the fact that we wanted to pick some good questions, but we also wanted to make sure it flows and the group agrees with it. we worked on pre-interview, during interview and post camera work which pretty much means after interviews. camera work is always fun for me and the others. the camera people got some time to think about how they wanted their shots to come out and what type of different view they wanted. the people practiced hard to get their lines correct...I FEEL LIKE I'M ON A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE SET...with everyone working together and as a team i believe that this is going to be one of the projects seen and made by DLP..

summary : preparing for the interview & camera practice

Hey all!!!!

Today was a nice day the birds were chirping and the sun was shining but i was tired - enough about me

Today we started off by breaking into our groups and picking out our top 15 questions for our interviews.It seemed to be hard for almost every group because we all had great questions.Then we came back together as a group and went over them as a group.We helped each other edit our questions.

Then we looked over the the correct film terminology.next we looked at the films The Color Purple and Jaws and we studied the scene's set up and why certain shots were used in the movies. Paulina kept talking about "intention" and how important it is to be selective with our shots.

After that we learned how to use our cameras and we went outside to test them. We went in our groups and set up shots .They really came out great!!!!

OK its time to go home now and watch GH(general Hospital).

Summary : Practicing with cameras

lisa

today was lisa's first day with us. it was fun meetin` her. she seems reallie nice. &&is reallie pretty. she jumped right in and wasn't shy to voice her opinions. she has a lot to contribute. i think she will be a big help to us when we make edits so paulina won't go crazy.

today-mornin`

in the mornin` we did draft #2 of our questions. everybodyy came up with some really go0d questions, some reallie WOWed us. cuttin` down our questions with the help with the rest of the team-mates.

so by the end of today, i've learned that teeyanna is not camera shy to say the least. it was very fun workin` with her to make our commercials which was a success. i kept awake today until after lunch, go me =] the cameras` were amazin`. i had so much fun with them. watching everybody's videos` was really fun.

SEVON

poor baby. hopefully, he will join the team tomorrow

a`more sophie

Summary of week 1 : history lessons

It's Friday and I'm finally back to the office. I can't belive it's only been one week. It feels like it's been two! I'm excited to share with everyone how wonderful this group of young people are. We have been impressed over and over again with how smart, thoughtful, mature, focused, friendly, and just how genuinely nice this group of young people are. They all have wonderfully unique personalities and qualities, with a lot to share and contribute to the community and project. They have taken to each other very well, and are very supportive and accepting of each other. It might sound like I'm painting an incredible rosy picture, but we can't say enough how pleased we are with this group.

This past week was an intense week of learning.

The week primarily focused on historical content, both the traditional civil rights history, as well the history of civil rights in Boston. The participants were stellar in keeping up and grasping the content. They had thoughtful questions and comments to contribute.

We also introduced the concepts of Identity and Choice making in connection to the history we're studying - Little Rock Nine, Elisabeth Eckford, Linda Lowery, SNCC, and Jesus Colon. Mid-week, students were assigned to their teams and the person they would be interviewing (Mel King, Sarah Ann Shaw, James Breeden, and Jean Mcguire). They began researching these individuals preparing their interview questions. Everyone seemed excited to meet these people in person.

We also began reflecting on what is socially responsible media making, and what is the process of creativity as they begin thinking of their own media products. With so much that's happened, and with so much that has been accomplished, I feel like we've been working together for 2 weeks, not one!!

Next week are the interviews, and everyone has their eyes on the prize. It's going to be intense and challenging, but I have no doubt we will all rise to the challenge, while continuing to have lots of fun. Props to everyone on this team. You've all been great! And that includes the advisors as well :) Looking forward to next week!

Summary : Day Two Down!

Today was the second day of the Digital Legacies Project. I think the students literally sat through a six hour history lesson...and were still asking questions and sharing their thoughts by the end of the day! I was amazed. Steve Cohen, a professor from Tufts University, came in the afternoon to talk about Boston in the 1960's and 70's. He told a fascinating story of white flight, segregated schools, and the 1974 busing crisis. Everyone had such great questions and comments! Tomorrow everyone finds out what group they'll be working in to make their film and which civil rights activist in Boston they'll be interviewing. I can't wait to see everyone tomorrow!

Summary : the D.L.P

wow! how awsome...i cant believe that im really working. its my first job and im really enjoying it. but for some strange reason we were talking about the nastyest things and it was akward but fun. im being myself around here. Julies great. shes very educated. love the way she teaches. and juan hes always on point at all times...funny i kow. paulinas really layed back...she agree with everything wich is not a bad...we need that type of good energy around early in the morning huh...i guess the DEVIL REALLY DID WEAR THE PRIDA.As a younge teen i dont rally get a lot of great opertunitys, but so far so good. evryone here is really cool and fun to talk to. they always got jokes, but when its time to get to work we get down to bussiness. sophia and i are becoming close to each other. she cool to talk to.Savon's funny., he plays that " shy " game. Angelica is forever talking about FEILDS CORNER...LOL...Kevins kinda of quit...but he talks now and then.. ( maybe hes not use to the enviroment, we'll gave him time). im losing it, im always calling taina tati...which is weird because my cousins name is tati and they look nothing alike. "D"...well what can i say hes a really smart kid...he uses all these big words and i feel AWESOME being around that type of inviorment. jessica goes to school with me...and she and i underestand some things such as the sare values that i used yeaturday when we was making our gorund rules...( community with social respect)...all i have to say is that the girls exciting. i love how she said " think with your feet" thats soon to be my motto. dancers dont talk they listen and think with there feet. i know im a dance freak i cant help it...but yeah. arvia came today happy, energetic and raedy to work and learn. speaking of learning this is one of the best ways that i've learned something. usally i'll be sitting in calss listing to the teacher. its like i hear it but im not listening..lol..strange huh..im soo stressed out...u asked why im this way..well i dont know if i should get these sexy 8Os high top blaack and green pumas... or should i get a new phone...my minds going kinda CRRRRRRAAAAAZZZZYYYY...but i hope i find something good to eat for lunch

SUMMARY

Tuesday,july 10 day 2: YEAHHHHHH MANNN!!! =]
Ok,today...we learned about the civil rights leaders & their personal dilemmas.We had conversations on pivotal moments in history.We focused on incidents such as the murder of Emmett Till and The Little Rock 9.OoO yeSSSS!!! It was intense!lol.I really enjoyed hearing other people's personal experiences and seeing how others around me felt about the whole situation.It was very nice to learn things that I had not in school but was always curious about.I also thought that the activity I participated in today was fun....the one concerning a man who was afraid to help a woman off of a train because of his skin color.I probably would have had the same reaction being that so many people have misconceptions and numerous stereotypes about "minorities" and how we supposedly act.Its a shame that that is the way we are percieved.Although, so many of us are not bad ppl...that is what we are labeled as. My mother always told me that if someone passes judgement over you,do your very best to prove them wrong because most likely what they think of you is the total opposite of how u are.Do not stoop down to their levels and humor ignorance for its just an excuse to appear as if nothing is wrong.They only look at you with superior attitudes because they can smell fear and try to intimidate.She tells me to always keep my head high.I wonder if others were as lucky to recieve that same advice??

Monday, July 9th : Day 1

Day 1 of the project is off to an exciting first day. We began with Human Bingo, my favorite part of the day. Some highlights included learning that Oumaru had spent the first 9 years of his life in West Africa and speaks 3 languages, Angelica's grandmother run a bakery out of her home (Sophia was interested in having cake)and Teeyana has family in Jamaica that she will visiting in August.
Lunch time, brought good pizza and continued conversation/banter, some subjects included how chitlins are prepared to what a hot dog is made of. Yuck! No one cared for the orange soda, maybe this was because we were drinking out of bathroom paper cups. Mr. Love made an appearance, or shall I say Dr. Love and handed out discounted bus passes. Yeah!
The day ended with the sharing of our understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. I heard lots of curiosity and energy in the room. We're off to a great start!