La petite lucarne
do•doc as an editing tool for writing and making videos.
A series of three week-long workshops held in the Drôme (France), in the single-class schools of Cobonne and Saint-Nazaire, between April and June 2019. In these workshops, pupils produced a TV show from A to Z. Each workshop starts with an editorial meeting that decides which reports to film, and ends with a live show in front of the villagers, produced entirely by the children.
Workshops run with the association Désert Numérique and video artist Sarah Brown.
On the first day, we work out together the vocabulary of TV shows and the different possible forms of video. We talk about the set, camera operators, reports, tutorials, documentaries and fiction. After this discussion, we list the pupils’ ideas for reports; each workshop produced very different topics (a report on the sewage treatment plant, an interview with the wood turner, cooking recipes, the weather forecast, princess stories, etc.). With the list of topics written on the board, we ask the children to vote with their eyes closed for the topic they want to work on. Voting with eyes closed avoids groups forming by friendship rather than interest in the topic. Each group then fills in a report sheet with the main information (topic, description, medium, equipment, etc.) and each child puts together a research folder (a sheet of A3 folded in half). Using the report sheet, we write a task list together for each group.
One of the goals of this first day is to make a storyboard to prepare the shoot. To understand how it works and why it is useful, we do a simple demonstration: we draw a three-shot sequence on the board and film it, following it to the letter. Then it is the pupils’ turn: make a 3-shot storyboard showing an everyday eco-friendly gesture, with a sentence to say. The pupils go off in groups to make their video. Once the videos are done, we watch them all together and discuss what works and what could be improved.
In the afternoon, the pupils work on the storyboard for their topic, and we follow them to list everything they will need for the shoot the next morning. At the end of the day, we review progress and vote on the title of the show.
On Tuesday morning, all the groups go out to film with an adult, tablet and storyboard in hand. They then trim the clips if needed, upload them to dodoc and start editing. On Tuesday afternoon, the pupils make a drawing that will be screen-printed onto the T-shirts they will wear on the day of the show. The drawings are photographed in dodoc using the shape mode, which vectorizes them. To show how the show will run at the end of the week, we set up the technical equipment of the set and give a demonstration, so that every role can be assigned: presenters, sound control, video control, camera operators, audience warm-up, make-up artists and lighting control.
Thursday morning is screen-printing time. Yohan, a screen printer from the Drôme, comes to lead this workshop. But first we take stock and decide together on the running order of the show (the order in which the reports will be shown) so that the presenters can prepare the text they will read. In groups, the pupils then try their hand at screen printing and print their T-shirts. Meanwhile, the other groups finish their reports, the stop-motion credits and the editing. In the afternoon, the pupils work on shared tasks: opening and closing credits for the show, making the set and the signs showing the different stations in the room.
On Friday morning, almost everything is ready for the live show, and the morning is taken up by a full dress rehearsal, as if it were the real thing. The pupils take their positions and, after a few instructions, the rehearsal begins. The presenters read their texts introducing the reports, the reports play, video control switches between reports and camera, sound control switches between the microphone and the video sound, lighting control lights up the presenters, the make-up artists touch up the presenters at key moments (at the start and in the middle of the show), and the warm-up team gives the audience instructions (quiet please, switch off your phones, applause). Everything goes well, with a few small details to fix, but the pupils are very focused. The rest of the day is set aside for quiet time (reading, games, origami, drawing) and for setting up the decor: screen-printed posters, children’s drawings, etc. At 4:30 pm everyone is in place on the set and the audience starts to arrive. The show begins, everything goes as planned, applause and snacks.
Credits
La petite lucarne is an arts and digital education project run by the association Désert Numérique in 2019, carried out with the single-class primary schools of Cobonne and Saint-Nazaire-le-Désert (Drôme), approved by the French Ministry of Education and supported by the Fondation de France, the DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the municipalities of the two villages involved.
For more information: desertnumerique.net
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