![\""Video](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/video_in_the_classroom.jpg\")
Every year, I watch in awe as students take ownership of their films and are challenged to exercise new skills and proficiencies:\u00a0self direction, creative expression, and problem-solving. I’ve seen this assignment throw some of our most academically-capable and motivated students off-balance.<\/p>\n
I’ve also watched many diverse groups pull together to create some powerful, beautifully-shot films.<\/p>\n
This may be the most challenging course we offer.<\/p>\n
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https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BRZUfSMgtL9\/<\/p>\n
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Today I watched my 11th and 12th grade students in our common room during the last block of the day. Class looked like this:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BRtXWbNAZfU\/<\/p>\n
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A full 13 years ago, Compass School pulled off its first film festival, with four or five original, student-written and student-produced films, shown to\u00a0the public and \u201cjudged\u201d by a local guest filmmaker. It was the culminating event for our first interdisciplinary filmmaking course for 11th and 12th graders.<\/p>\n
The films reflected our low budget equipment and amateur filmmakers, but there was a buzz during the event that results when students\u2019 hard work and original stories are shared with and enjoyed by a public audience. Since then, I have offered this six-week course each spring, taught in tandem with a science\/technology teacher.<\/p>\n
The course runs for only six or seven weeks, and the groups of 3 or 4 students each make two short films in that time, so they are forced to work creatively and collaboratively on a deadline — a \u00a0great skill to practice.<\/p>\n
My colleague teaches a single lesson on camera basics in the first week (this year, the first day) of class before students are thrown into groups. Each group has\u00a0the task of creating an original two to four-minute silent film. They’re trying\u00a0out the idea of telling a solely visual story.<\/p>\n
As students work,\u00a0I squeeze in a lesson on what makes a good story.\u00a0I usually also spend a class helping them generate ideas for their screenplays. For this, I’ve tried several strategies, including bringing in objects (or just a selection of shoes) that I ask them to examine and then create a plot or character around.<\/p>\n
We also look at films as texts.<\/p>\n
We examine various scenes from feature and short films in class, and they watch and write analytically about films as homework. It\u2019s full immersion because both their science and humanities classes are now one class.<\/p>\n
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As they’re in the midst of the screenplay writing process, they’re simultaneously thrown into camera work, including the creation of their silent films. Then, three weeks into the course, they pitch their scripts and quickly begin to cast and seek locations with their four-member production crews.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve chosen several of each other\u2019s scripts to produce, and they are tasked with all elements of the filmmaking process, including casting, finding locations, creating storyboards and a shot list (with a schedule), shooting, and editing.<\/p>\n
To produce a film, students need to constantly think ahead, create (and revise) a schedule that involves multiple people (including outside community members who sometimes serve as actors), and deal with forces beyond their control, including snowstorms and sick actors. If they don’t have someone in their group who naturally keeps track of costumes, props, and details like microphone batteries, they\u00a0quickly learn the need for one.<\/p>\n A\u00a0student who took the course in his junior and senior years reflected on the important lesson of organization and planning:<\/p>\n Last year I was somewhat scattered on what we were doing and was making up the schedule as we went along. I would frequently pull students outside of class, begging teachers to let me shoot in their room and more than once lie, cheat and steal to get what I wanted…<\/p>\n This year I\u2019ve found that making a calendar has been such a huge help! I wished that I had done this the year before as it made the filming so much easier.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The quality of this student\u2019s film in the second year reflected enormous growth, and he credited much of this to his improved organizational skills.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Many schools are paying more attention to teaching the \u201csoft skill\u201d of collaboration, but we are challenged by how to teach and assess this crucial skill.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I find that filmmaking is an ideal task for groups\u00a0because it simply can\u2019t be done by a single person. You need your peers, and you need to figure out how to use each other\u2019s strengths. It provides my co-teacher and I with the opportunity to describe what strong collaboration looks like, and it throws students\u00a0into learning by doing.<\/p>\n This student\u2019s advice to future Compass filmmaking students touches on just one element of healthy collaboration:<\/p>\n \u201cListen and… make sure that you get everyone\u2019s advice as this is an \u201cour\u201d film, not a \u201cyour\u201d film. Whether it\u2019s staging a shot or choosing music, everyone should be heard because each of them has an idea and it could be just as good as yours.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The public venue, in the evening, even if it’s just at our little school, raises the stakes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a festive event that present and former students and families enjoy coming to. I also invite two or more local filmmakers to act as judges, and they provide verbal (public) critical feedback and praise to the students after the viewing. This year, one of our esteemed judges includes one of my former filmmaking students who has gone on to work in the film\/TV industry.<\/p>\n Pre-YouTube days, one of the student tasks was to create a DVD\u00a0of all of the films to be sold at the festival. I’ve found that using these past films in class is a crucial aspect of modeling student work; it helps both to raise the standards each year but also to inspire and to remind them that it can be done.<\/p>\n The film festival has become an annual event that has even been described as a rite of passage. The filmmaking process calls on many of the skills we\u2019ve asked of students throughout their high school career, including:<\/p>\n The popcorn and M&Ms help, but there is nothing quite as satisfying as witnessing the students’ pride and gratification at seeing their stories come to fruition on screen, with a rapt and appreciative audience.<\/p>\n The beauty of the course is that students are at the center of the work, and they take complete ownership.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the end, my co-teacher and I merely stand behind them (or sometimes in front of the camera), push them a little, and provide some guidance as needed; our role is\u00a0as\u00a0coaches rather than the teacher. They are the leaders, the producers, the problem solvers, and the artists.<\/p>\n Standard 3-part story-driven post: 1) what it is, 2) what it looks like in a school, 3) how to do it in your school<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[318,522,984],"class_list":["post-12102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-student-filmmaking","tag-the-compass-school","tag-video-in-the-classroom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12102"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17516,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12102\/revisions\/17516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"student-centered](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/staffonly.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h4>\n
Like in any course, different students are challenged by different elements, but in their final reflections, most students point to the hardest thing of all: organization.<\/h4>\n
“One of the biggest differences I made this year was being organized.”<\/h3>\n
Students also need to immerse themselves in the messy creative process with peers who they didn’t necessarily choose to work with.<\/h4>\n
![\"student-centered](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Compass_film6-1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nFinally, one of the keys to success is our\u00a0public exhibition of the films.<\/h2>\n
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Why student-centered filmmaking?<\/h3>\n
![\"student-centered](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/esther.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCompass’ 2016 student-produced films<\/h3>\n
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