a Hollywood eye, along with the tremendously complicated encoding
process it involves, must be learned. Their newly found filmmaking
skills, and its expanded critical awareness, also tend to mature and re-
shape their thought process. For instance, now when they contemplate a
future movie project in their mind’s eye, it may include a lighting plan
and structural story device.
These students are focused on becoming publicly acclaimed filmmak-
ers and TV producers, and they hold a certain reverence for mysteries
behind making it big in the motion picture industries. There is nothing
natural or intuitive about the filmmaking project akin to how easy it is to flip on one’s visual imagination. And they take pride in their newly acquired skills.
The Egg Answer
However, when it comes to the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders we
work with, the equation leans the other way. These youngsters seem
more comfortable in their organic interactions with the camera and edit-
ing gear. They, and we, are not focused on emulating Oscar and Emmy
worthy professional practices and story strategies (though their works
are beautiful in other ways). Rather we are enjoying the novelty (com-
pared to other classroom activities) and kinetic qualities of the media-
making experience. And the object of the research we are doing with
them is to encourage them to express themselves in ways related to their
particular learning objectives. The overall experience feels more like a
game than work, and a very natural and engaging game at that.
When we’re on our way out of the schools we work in, we can’t help
feeling a real excitement about where we are going with these kids and
their video cameras. Part of it is the sheer energy involved in exploring
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the expressive delights of the children. Another part is watching the joy
and creativity in their expressions that pour out like water from a faucet
stuck wide open.
When you think about it, we might be closer to that magic monitoring
device in the brain when we tap the visual expressions of untrained,
unrefined, unconditioned, pure moviemakers than we are when we
watch polished works of their heavily trained, experienced, comparative-
ly mature and professionally focused counterparts. Why is this?
One reason might be that the further we get from professional movie-
making practice, the closer we get to the genuine selves of young movie-
makers. Current research in neuroscience (Gazzaniga, 2012) is also lean-
ing in this direction, suggesting that if there is such a thing as a command center for the human brain, it seems to be closely connected with the
natural human tendency to make sense of their worlds through storytell-
ing. In Gazzinga’s research, it is the story that we tell ourselves in our
inner monologue that creates the illusion of consciousness we experience
as living, breathing “selves.” He writes (Gazzaniga, 2012), “Our subjec-
tive awareness arises out of our dominant left hemisphere’s unrelenting
quest to explain the bits and pieces that pop into consciousness.”
In educational terms, storytelling could be seen as an outward exer-
cise of this natural, internal process of sense-making, and it does not
seem a far-fetched possibility that we could connect this storytelling pro-
cess to classroom activities and objectives.
In addition, when we try to monitor, connect with, and share the
movies in our mind, we thus could be seen to be engaging in a natural
process, square at the core of who we are, as opposed to a highly techni-
cal process which moviemaking is most often understood to be.
Thinking about my college film students grimacing in the screen’s
reflection of their first cuts, it would stand to reason that there is nothing inherently natural when it comes to the framing of their stories through a
professional moviemaking process, for little of their story comes out as
easily as they imagined it. And the professionally rooted moviemaking
practices I am teaching them are serving only to aggravate any honest
and untainted connection between their minds and a camera.
When we play video camera games with elementary school kids, we
seem to be genuinely closer to their untainted stories, their inner selves, and the actual movies in their minds. The camera exercise is not as much
a process of translation and extraction for formal public presentation;
rather, it is an honest and visually rough expression. But to appreciate
these kinds of formless, unstructured stories, we likely need to watch
them differently and learn to recognize substance amidst chaos, what
Virginia Woolf would have termed “a pattern behind the cotton wool.”
Near the end of her life she wrote about the story-like fabric of the human condition:
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. . . it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this;
that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of
art; that we are all parts of a work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no
Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and empathetically there
is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.
—Virginia Woolf (1925)
Likewise, you could say, there is great potential (educational and other-
wise) in connecting the movies in our minds with others.
THREE
Nature
On the surface, the college-level video/TV production culture might ap-
pear very different than the K-12 brand. For instance, the typical student
in my production classes is a well-rounded, focused, driven, and high
performing individual who sees him- or herself in a professional position
in the media industry immediately after graduation. They are, in short,
very serious about media and their professional future in it. Because
these students share so much in their ability and aspirations, the profes-
sional approach to teaching them production (including media tools and
resources I call upon) is similarly focused and consistent.
The K-12 video/TV production scene is much more complicated by
comparison. Students not only come from very different places in terms of their interests and abilities, but they are also headed to very different places. The approach to media activities with such a diverse group is
similarly complicated.
At the root level, however, more similarities emerge. One thing that
seems to unite these two groups is the visible satisfaction students exhibit in sharing their media creations with other people. We often talk about
this with our college students telling them it’s something we moviemak-
ers share in our DNA. We have the storytelling gene.
This explanation results in a glimmer of familiarity and acceptance.
They nod in agreement, as if some secret behind their intense motivations
has been revealed. On the very simplest of levels, people with this media-
making DNA strand care profoundly about what other people think and
feel, and they want to engage these other people in some way.
<
br /> Sharing our visions gives us purpose. It certainly seems to ignite self-
esteem. But within this need to share lies a significant challenge to media-makers: the challenge of having something to say. The actual technology,
work, and craftsmanship of media-making, however time consuming
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Chapter 3
and backbreaking it might be, is much easier in comparison to the chal-
lenges of having something to say.
For instance, we explain to students that a filmmaker is the metaphor-
ical equivalent of a spot-lit figure standing up on stage in front of a large audience waiting for this storyteller at the podium to give them something they don’t already have. What does the storyteller do now? Hope-
fully, what they have to share will be a worthwhile and fulfilling experi-
ence for the audience. Having something meaningful to say is by far the
greatest challenge to a media-maker.
The best we can hope for as media-makers is that our audience will
leave feeling moved by our works. Filmmaking students often talk about
their dreams of making someone else feel as good as they felt after watch-
ing a great movie. They want to give back. Having something to say
when it’s time to share our stories, and truly “giving back,” are not arbi-
trary acts of pointing the video camera at whatever is in front of us. These aspirations involve connecting the camera to the purpose, vision, and
creativity within us, and articulating these elements aurally and visually
for others to appreciate. The value in this for an audience is in experiencing perspectives from points of view other than their own.
Whether a media-maker is creating content for a professional studio
or television network or their social studies teacher, they are fueled by
their hope and desire to impress those who read or listen or watch or
click on that content—including their bosses and teachers.
For filmmaking students, the object of their efforts is an unseen, and
unforgiving, public. If they are successful they receive increasing com-
pensation and public recognition for their efforts. The object of K-12 stu-
dent efforts is a little different: teachers, parents, and peers. If they are successful, they receive an academic reward, compliments, a boost in
self-esteem, but perhaps more important than all of that, they receive a
meaningful and lasting education. In visually and aurally playing out
their subject matter and ideas in their own way, students can cross the
line between learning and living—applying learning to their own expres-
sion, all fueled by their intense desire to share—their media-making
DNA.
With this in mind, it seems a bit ridiculous to characterize media
makers as genetically different than other humans. Is it out of the realm
of possibility that being seen and recognized in a positive way is closer to a universally human trait and desire? If so, then why wouldn’t mediamaking be considered a partner in the learning process, or more fittingly,
the DNA of an inquiring mind?
In the end, it’s not the “DNA factor” that distinguishes media-making
professionals (or professionals-in-training) from others. It’s more the way that “DNA” is used. In the professional’s case, it is skill-driven, toward
industry success. In the student’s case it is lesson-driven, toward educa-
tional success.
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It is gratifying as a filmmaking teacher to talk to others about what we
do: we teach a highly captive audience—captive to the love of expressing
their ideas to others. The reaction from those we brag to is predictable:
“That seems like it must be fun to do.” And it certainly is a true joy to
teach students something they want to learn. When we consider why
they love this “moviemaking thing,” it’s easy to characterize it as a spe-
cialty interest, like a DNA trait.
But considering the same question in realm of K-12 media-making, the
answer gets more interesting. It never ceases to amaze us how much K-12
students enjoy the experience of making videos, even when they learn
that it involves a lot of time commitment and real work. In the end, it’s
clear that the love of visual storytelling is not all that unique. It is more broadly human nature to enjoy the act of sharing stories and impacting
an audience.
FOUR
Motivation
If there has been one finding more resonant than all others over years of
K-12 videomaking (Schoonmaker, 2007), it is something we call the rele-
vance factor. By relevance we are referring to an inherent comfort, understanding, and buy-in on students’ parts when it comes to educational
activities. There is purpose in their learning when video is involved.
What we have consistently found is that videomaking seems to make
the educational activities associated with it more relevant to young learn-
ers than they would have through more traditional instructional means
of exposure, such as teacher-to-student lecturing, use of written hand-
outs, film strips, videos, audio recordings and field trips, and even the
simple act of writing terms and concepts on a black or white board.
The Idea of Relevance
The learning process comes with a question on students’ parts about
why they are doing what they are doing: a continual, “What’s the point of
this?” By necessity then, teachers are involved in a process of engaging
their audiences. For a lesson to take complete hold on a learner, it must be relevant to the learner. To the extent that they can, teachers must communicate some sense of why it is important for students to learn a particular topic or lesson while they are learning it. But, there is not always time or opportunity to do this within the day-to-day milieu of school.
The principle of relevance is not too far afloat from a similarly in-built
aspect of the moviemaking process: suspension of disbelief (Schoonmaker, 2007). Suspension of disbelief is a term to describe the depth of involvement a viewer is willing to give to a fictional story. When they sit down
to watch a movie, audience members go through a superficial stage of
story engagement.
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First, they take in basic story information and consider whether the
story is worth experiencing or entering. Even though they have made a
preliminary decision to consider the story, there still is time to gather
information on whether it is the kind of story they might find interesting, or not. They can always walk out of the movie theater or change the
channel, depending on how well this preliminary stage of the process
goes.
In this stage they ask, “Is the story believable?” or “Is it a complete
blatantly sloppy fabrication?” Believable stories are preferred as a rule
because we usually prefer to surrender our imaginations to the story and
let it take us away as viewers.
Storytellers must therefore prepare their stories for such viewer de-
mands. Even though the suspension of belief factor is ancillary to the
story, effectively achieving it is vital to the overall success of the story.
This usually means we have to get to the point of the story quickly,
usually by beginning with some sort of action. Action encourages partici-
pa
tion in the story, because it moves like our lives. And our stories and
characters have to be believable and authentic if viewers are going to
relate to them as if they were real people.
If a story can maintain consistent plausibility throughout and viewers
are sufficiently engaged as they seek information and authenticity in it,
then we can expect that they will suspend their disbelief in the artificial act of, among other things, watching a story unfold on a clearly artificial screen and they will join in the story experience as if it was an event in
their lives.
The idea of relevance in educational environments is very similar. The
more realistically plausible a lesson is to the future of the learner—in
other words they see value and relevance as it relates to their future
lives—the more likely the lesson will be successful all-round.
Relevance in Practice
We saw the relevance factor in action in many different ways at all
levels of K-12: field trips, class behavior demonstrations, history lessons, and other challenging academic subjects like research and poetry. Regardless of the subject, the effect was the same: A video camera gave a
license of relevance to subject matters it was connected to. The question
we continue to wrestle with is why is this case?
Novelty.
To some degree, it might be the novelty of a camera in a
classroom environment. Though video cameras are not yet the rule in K-
12 environments, they are more common than they used to be given the
proliferation and democratization of the digital technology. For instance,
every child that has a phone has a video camera in his or her pocket. But
most teachers have not found regular, easy, or effective ways to involve
cameras in their lesson plans, opting for more familiar and comparatively
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“safe” traditional means of instruction. So when a camera is brought into
a classroom it still can be considered a novelty of sorts. Novelty breeds
curiosity, and curiosity breeds the opportunity for relevance: if I am curious, I want to know something and if that something is in the direction of
Unlocking the Moviemaking Mind Page 3