This document provides guidance on how to make a short video with limited resources in 3 steps: 1) Create an outline or storyboard, 2) Take digital photos or video and put them together, 3) Use free and simple video editing programs like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. It encourages the reader not to be afraid to experiment and play, and provides tips on finding free images, sounds, and inspiration online.
21. You can’t break a computer. OK, you can, but it’s hard to do. Try things. Try other things. Ask for help, both digitally and in person. Do not be afraid. Play.
22. Save a tree! See these slides at www.slideshare.net
Beth asked me to present and I thought “Why?”. It wasn’t hard – but then I thought more about it and I wanted to share how & why it wasn’t hard. It’s about trying and playing and not being afraid.
Why did I make this tiny movie? Summer Reading! In 2003, I was new in town, and I got to visit all the middle schools and the high school. I was a novelty. But the novelty wore off.
4 years later, only 1/3 of the schools wanted visits. The rest still wanted to let the kids know about summer reading, but in some other way.
This year, all the schools wanted something else. There was no time for visits, but I still wanted to promote summer reading…
What else could I do? Traditional means of promotion, like fliers don’t work well with my teens. We’ve had some success with morning announcements at the schools, mainly by having one of the kids read something live. But it is hard to get volunteers for that. Then I remembered the morning shows – it’s a closed captioned tv show at the schools. The teens do stare at the screen - and if I made a video, it could have multiple uses – we could put it on our website. So video it is.
I don’t know how to make a video. There are also other obstacles.
That’s never stopped me before.
Tiffen – for my college senior project I used this machine to produce basically an elaborate slide show. (A precursor to power point). It synched two slide projectors together with music. It was simple but effective…music, words, and images. All that simplicity would be effective for teens – at least my Ridgefield teens. Your mileage may vary.
Keeping with simplicity, I made a simple plan to make a simple movie.
Took photos with the library’s digital camera and imported them into iPhoto. iPhoto is easy, it makes many choices for me. I like that. I can get more complex if I want to. There are choices. But I was working fast.
I looked at iMovie, it looked scary and also familiar. What’s Apple good at? Helping and simplicity.
I looked at the Help Menu and saw that they had video tutorials. I love video tutorials! Have you seen the ones on YouTube? So helpful! Personally, I’ve used ones for: Changing a laptop battery Doing eyeliner right Using a neti pot (gross, but very helpful!) The Apple ones are helpful and specific to the program, so I watched the one onw using iMovie (it was about 5 minutes long) and then started playing.
Rather than trying to show you how I used iMovie, I think we should make a tiny movie right now. But first, remember copyright! Your digital photos and sounds you record are of course safe. If you want to use other people’s images, Flickr’s Creative Commons collections are great. Some you need to give attribution for and that covers you. As far as sounds go – I used canned sounds from iMovie. Apple lets you use them for non-commercial things.
Remember, you can’t break your computer. Play. Try things.
![Do Not Be Afraid to Play ,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/yartmarch302011-110323132133-phpapp02/85/Book-Trailers-YA-Roundtable-33011-1-320.jpg)
