Imagine that… Participatory Video, Inclusion & Movies

We created 4-6 people groups and assigned the first task: filming a introduction of the members of the group. Before that, we talked a little bit about audiovisual language: framing, script, sequences and takes… Also, we talked this day about genres and mainly about short-films. They were really interested in this topics as they have heard about that but didn’t know exactly what was it.

After that, each group started working on their script. They could write about anything they wanted but they had to include somewhere in the story the sentence “Imagine that…”. It took 45 minutes to have a brief plot and the characters.

At the end, we all watched together the group presentations they filmed at the beginning. We had a good time and also pointed the things we liked and those that could be improved. We learned and laugh during the showing and finally uploaded the videos to the blog.

During the week we (the facilitators) edited the raw material, so that we started this day watching a first edition of their short films.

After the showing all of them decided they have to repeat almost al the scenes because they were laughing in a dramatic scene, or talking behind the camera while filming… Before let them going back to film we gave them some advices to improve their filming.

Why we made it this way? Wouldn’t it be more efficient if we first give advice and then they film? Because we think it is much better to learn from your own experience.

Before leaving this day we watched their new shootings and create a new photo-audio story for the blog.

During this day we started finishing the scripts and drawing the storyboards because some of the groups had made homework (voluntarily) and some stories had important improvements. One of the groups, indeed, had everything ready to start filming, while another were still writing and a third one were stuck because they tried to make it very complex. After 1:½ hours they all were filming. Finally, we ended watching what they had filmed this day. It’s always a good idea ending this way as it is funny and also works as a collective evaluation.

Also, during this day two people were in charge of taking photos for the making of and writing a text to publish together on the blog, expressing how they lived this day. Nevertheless, one of the volunteers said she didn’t’ want to write as she felt she was not a good writer. So we decided to do this task in a different way: selecting the photos and recording with a smartphone a voiceover to go with this photos. That’s what they made.

The 3 short films are edited before this day. We left black spaces for those scenes they still have to film. Each group is at a different point:

• “Imagine that nothing is impossible” group just need to find the music they want to include and find some archive images they want to include. Once they have finished this task the decided to film their colleagues, interview them, shoot the making off.
• “Imagine that it was a dream” group films their chroma-key scenes as well as other scene. They also choose the music.
• “Imagine that life is beautiful” group shots the final scene, the arrival and the interview. We also wrote the Whatsapp conversation that will appear on screen and chose the music.

This day we didn’t have time to review the images as there was a lot to do and we ended late. Almosts ½ hour late but with everything finished.