Hello to all,

I'm speaking on Career Day at my children's elementary school re; editing. Has anyone else given career day talks at an elementary school? Any suggestions? I have 30 minutes to fill. I have a few ideas, but I'd love to see what the group comes up with.

Thanks so much!
Lisha
www.badamitv.com

Take a cartoon that your audience is likely to see and love and recut it wrong. Do the "What's wrong with this picture" thing.

Recut a well-known piece with the wrong voices--his voice behind her face.

Throw Wile E. Coyote off the cliff and mess up the timing when he hits. See if anybody figures out what happened and why it's not funny any more.

Show a clip of CSI Miami, but cut in the establishing bumpers from one of the other two.

Mess with their heads.

Koz

Oh my goodness! That is soooooo much better than what I had planned! This is a fun idea! Duh! It's for elementary school kids. Thanks Koz!

Lisha

Most people don't realize they're watching cuts and somebody has to make those decisions.

Nobody realizes that the picture and sound are different.

Koz

Wow! Koz. What a nifty set of ideas! I'm saving this one myself. We have a program called Kid Watch LA that is ran by the City Attorney's office and this would be a terrific idea for some of the stuff we do. Big thanks. How did you ge so smart? Genetics or just lots of practice.... ;-)

Regards, Cyrus
iMac 27" Intel i7 Quad-Core; 16GB RAM; 2TB HD
Final Cut Studio, FCP X, Photoshop CS5, After Effects, etc.

[Show a clip of CSI Miami, but cut in the establishing bumpers from one of the other two. ]

CSI Miami in elementary school, that's great! LOL.

Place two kids opposite ecahother. Have a third act as "camera." Have Camera swing his or her head from one kid -- and have Camera point in the direction the first is looking, then swing to the other and point the direction that kid's looking.

Then show a loaded DVD scene of two people in a clip talking to eachother, showing correct eyelines-- but no swish pan!

Tell them there's always an imaginary swish pan between two actors talking to eachother. And that's a part of editing craft applied to shooting. on set

But... career day?? I sggest real estate or biofuels.

- Loren
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I used to teach a filmmaking workshop ("Panasonic Kidwitness News" for kids aged anywhere between seven and 18. I did two instructional videos and we took the exact same approach -- showed a sequence from Toy Story and Shrek and then analyzed the shot structures with the kids. At that age, they don't want technical mumbo-jumbo -- they want easy, relatable concepts with examples they know.

Another great exercise from way back in the day was to replace the sound of a well-known film to completely warp the emotional effect. For example, putting cartoon music over the death of Col. Elias in Platoon. Or putting hip-hop over Star Wars.


www.derekmok.com

<<<How did you ge so smart? Genetics or just lots of practice.... ;-)>>>

I was a real dunderhead until I started to hang out on the forum...

Koz

<<<Place two kids opposite ecahother. Have a third act as "camera." Have Camera swing his or her head from one kid -- and have Camera point in the direction the first is looking, then swing to the other and point the direction that kid's looking. >>>

I forgot about that.

Another related one:

show an actor executing his (brief) lines straight but with pauses, beginning to end and changing expressions--seemingly at random. Then show the second actor doing the other half of the dialog. Then show what happens when you cut it together and suddenly the story makes total sense. If you do this right, the first two short performances will make no sense at all.

All of this has to be tuned and adjusted depending on how old the kids are, but you could end up with a very respectable film/editing class.

Tape the show--with the kids--and cut it together. Post it here.


Look for the kid with the glazed look when it suddenly clicks that he might be able to do this, too. Don't actually leave until the last kid is gone.

I remember being that kid.

Koz

These are all great suggestions. I wish I had these ideas years ago when I did this for my son's elementary school class. After showing some clips of shows that I did, and trying to explain what an editor does, I asked the class if anyone had any questions. A little girl in the front row raised her hand and proudly exclaimed, "I have a kitty!"

That pretty much sums up the general public's awareness of the art and craft of editing.

On a more optimistic note, my son now can shoot, edit, and post his own videos on "You Tube" without my help. Video literacy for the next generation is just going to be assumed. Today, who can't operate a word processing program? It will soon be that way with video.

Mark

I can't wait for Career Day. I've already started planning based on these ideas. My original plans are a complete wash! LOL!

Lisha

Tell them to stay in school FOREVER...

Just going through my old post and came across this one...

F.Y.I., Career Day was a hit!!!!! According to the teacher who organized the event, I was the 2nd most popular speaker next to the concert booker! The kids were impressed with someone who books Chris Brown for a concert! But a couple of music videos still won them over. I see kids on campus and they still say to me, "Whenever the picture changes it's an edit." I told the kids when you are watching television and the picture changes clap. Career Day was 8 months ago and kids are still watching the television and clapping. One parent stopped me in the hall and said, "Hey, your the parent that has my child clapping when we are watching television." I've done my job! LOL! Thanks for all of your suggestions! It was great fun!!!!!!

Peace,
Lisha

Very cool Lisha. Congrats. Keep changing the world.

Michael Horton
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