Why do we call it "movie-making" instead of the more popular and trendy "digital storytelling?" I thought long and hard about the issue and decided that it's basically a marketing issue and the folks I want to market to are my students, that is, my clients, not my funders. The nonprofit tech world is awash (and has been for years; this is nothing new we're doing here) with "empowerment through digital and social networking and storytelling."
Everywhere you go, you're told that it's stories that sell, stories that have power, stories that make your "brand." I know that's true, but getting on the bandwagon has never been part of my modus operandi. What I have wanted to say to my potential students is: We will teach you to make a movie. It's that simple.
And it was that desire--to make a movie--that I saw again and again in the faces of our students last Saturday. A couple of them want to join the 21st century, to get with it, and several of them want to do music videos because music is central to their lives.
I want this space to expound on the "how-to" of the class. We have at least one volunteer who is coming explicitly because she wants to use these same techniques in her classroom at the Newcomer School, where children whose parents have just arrived are taught English and introduced to American Life. What better way to land someplace than to document what you see, what is weird and amazing and terrible and wonderful about your new home?
Class One:
- Introductions all around.
- Explanations that this is GRASS-ROOTS video, meaning that we are not looking for perfection, for professional polish, but for stories from our hearts, and just to learn the process.
- Interviews--students in pairs interview one another and then "tell the story" of the other to the class.
- Break
- Storytelling around the proposed themes--everyone in the room, volunteers, teachers, students, even the newspaper reporter must come up with a one-minute story about each of the themes proposed for the class. I think this may be worth a whole blog entry, so I'll save it until tomorrow.
- Choice of the class theme. Between our teacher, Joe, and I and the other volunteers, with the class, we agree that "My Journey" had the most "juice," the most "heat," the most "energy," the most power as we went around the room. So that will be the theme of our movies.
Movie-Making is a partnership between FaithAction International House (including its VISTA volunteer--me), the American Friends Service Committee, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Also in the mix is Worlds Touch, the international tech assistance organization that I founded and direct in my spare time.
Next: Improvisational storytelling a key to community building.
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