Today I made my first attempt at shooting A roll footage for my mini-documentary about my action research. I would love to make something funny or at least clever but usually my work is serious because that is what I know how to do. Learning to simply put pieces of footage together in a way that hopefully ends up making sense, is where my energies will have to go for now. I wrote out my serious storyline and serious questions and went over them a couple times. Then I proceded to record my serious interview. Despite the title of my last blog post for this class, I have actually been looking forward to the challenge of putting this project together. However, when it came time to actually record, my optimism started to wane. It was the perfect cloudy day for filming with natural light. Thank goodness I had begun cleaning my room prior to the weekend because even with the clean surfaces, I had to move plants and other items around multiple times before I finally got some kind of shot that seemed clean enough, though I'm still not sure. Next came positioning the cell phone and fixing it to the window frame with gobs of tape that ended up sticking more to itself than to anything else. It was a struggle. I filmed one interview with the reverse camera on so I got a long clip of the window frame. I got another interview in time-laps mode because somehow my finger switched the video settings on the touch screen before recording. That was a fun one to watch. I keep thinking I will do more takes and just use the best one. But at some point I need to realize, I've worked hard, this is new, and it's never going to be perfect. It reminds me of my students in the early stages of the year when I would have them record a simple response to a question on Seesaw with the microphone. Some of them, surprisingly even those that LOVED talking constantly in class, were completely paralyzed and would start the recording over multiple times (sounds familiar). I only realized this when I had to work one on one with one student in a Zoom breakout room. All I wanted was a simple quick voiced response but it was a big deal for students, something I hadn't anticipated. Oh the funny tricks our minds play on us when we encounter new challenges. I will try, I will be content, and I will grow.
5 Comments
Kathy Flynn
3/14/2021 08:42:16 pm
Minna,
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Laurie J. Gaynor
3/15/2021 09:18:24 pm
Oh my Minna, I feel you. I wanted something that would be entertaining and informative, sort of like a TED talk. I have had to be happy with straight forward and authentic. I enlisted my son and his friend to be my camera men. That was very helpful. Now I am hoping that editing will correct my fumbles. I have been watching everything with a videographers eye. Today while watching the Second Step videos, I was looking at camera angles and transitions! Film will never look the same.
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Lisa Gottfried
3/16/2021 10:10:05 am
You will never watch films or TV the same again. Bwahahah!
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Lynda Bergner
3/16/2021 07:07:01 pm
Ohhh Minna, The pain is REAL!!! I couldn't bring myself to even use the garbage that I created as Blooper rolls, I deleted and when on. I admire your frankness.
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3/18/2021 04:39:29 pm
I love that you were filming on a cloudy day! I kept finding that when I would go outside to film, the sun was shining long enough for me to set up. I've had meetings, parent meetings, appointments, and family life just taking up more time than I anticipated. This project is more challenging than I gave it credit.
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Minna NummelinLife-long learner and dual language 2nd grade teacher. Archives
April 2021
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