Bradog Regional Youth Service will host a series of Tabletop Moviemaking workshops targeted for youth workers.  Please check out this video to get a better of sense of Tabletop Moviemaking and how it is already being used across Dublin.

When

Between August 30th and September 3rd

Where

Bradog Regional Youth Service 34 Dominick Place, Granby Row, Dublin 1, Ireland

Workshop Overview:

The 3 [...]]]> What

Bradog Regional Youth Service will host a series of Tabletop Moviemaking workshops targeted for youth workers.  Please check out this video to get a better of sense of Tabletop Moviemaking and how it is already being used across Dublin.

When

Between August 30th and September 3rd

Where

Bradog Regional Youth Service
34 Dominick Place,
Granby Row,
Dublin 1, Ireland

Workshop Overview:

The 3 hour workshop takes youth workers through the entire production process of making a Tabletop movie. They will work in small groups to produce a short 1 minute movie to share with the whole group. Time will be dedicated to explaining all of the training materials developed to help support the the youth worker in his or her delivery.

Workshop Agenda:

• Introduction to method/ historical background
• Distribution and explanation of core kit materials
• Guided review of core training supports: DVD and guidebook
• Explanation of space setup for filming
• Guided practice with a small group of youth workers filming a short movie

Cost

The cost to attend the workshop is €65.  Every participant will receive a complete Tabletop Moviemaking Kit (pictured below).

click on image to zoom in

Contact: Shane Crossan at shane@bradog.com for more information

How did you integrate Tabletop with Language Arts?

When I learned about Tabletop Moviemaking, I was immediately excited to try it in the upcoming school year. Because I wanted to carefully plan and coordinate the project regarding communication with Brick, ordering supplies, requesting cameras [...]]]> Jennifer Hubbell
9th grade Language Arts
Marymount High School
Los Angeles, CA

How did you integrate Tabletop with Language Arts?

When I learned about Tabletop Moviemaking, I was immediately excited to try it in the upcoming school year. Because I wanted to carefully plan and coordinate the project regarding communication with Brick, ordering supplies, requesting cameras from our Technology department, and integrating the project meaningfully into my syllabus, I chose to do the Tabletop Moviemaking project late in the semester, giving me enough time to prepare.

I teach a course called Writing Workshop, and near the end of the semester the students read a murder mystery short story (Margaret Atwood’s “Death by Landscape”). I felt a Tabletop Movie would be a perfect pre-writing activity before the students wrote a formal persuasive essay based on the story. Filming a movie about what students thought happened at the end of the story would get their creative juices flowing; they would have to explore the short story for evidence, familiarizing themselves with the text in an intimate way.

I planned for the project to take 7.5 class hours, and we finished right on schedule! I took the opportunity to teach screenwriting skills, literary concepts like setting, characterization, and plot, and moviemaking skills such as over-the-shoulder shot, panning the camera, and film editing.

In what ways does Tabletop Moviemaking promote/facilitate collaborative group work?

Tabletop Moviemaking was born to be a groupwork project. It taught my students that “the group” is always more talented than any individual. Students discovered strengths in their classmates that they’d overlooked before.

What were some of the memorable parts of the process?

Most memorable was my surprise at the talent and dedication of my students.

* Students who habitually fail to complete homework miraculously remembered to fabricate set elements and props at home each night…and remembered to bring them to class too!
* When group members were absent, the full group met at lunch the next day to finish what they were unable to in class.
* A 5-minute lesson about editing in iMovie was enough to motivate students to fly high with their own ideas! Finished films included rich and dramatic sound effects, forays into flashback, impressive title slides, and efficient storytelling.
* My students were funny, great actresses, and clever.
* All inhibitions about acting or speaking in public vanished when students spoke for a tiny cardboard character.
* All scripts told a complete story, following Freytag’s pyramid.
* Students did not attack each other with scissors and glue, instead taking the project very seriously and working quietly and diligently in class.
* During the film festival, students were supportive of other group’s work, doling out compliments and noticing with a sharp eye how the filmmakers had created their intended effects.

What were some of the challenges?

The challenges were time management and keeping the classroom organized. I prepared for these challenges ahead of time by giving each group a dedicated folder for their scripts and props. I called out “Time Remaining” frequently during the class period.

On a personal note, it was a bit exhausting for me to facilitate the chaos of moviemaking. However, the classroom was enveloped in a wonderful sort of creative chaos that I grew to cherish. Once I let go of my neurotic tendency to want know the exact progress of each group, or my desire for all groups to be on the same step of the project at the same moment (not going to happen), I was able to trust the students to get the movie done in the best way they knew how. The results were breathtaking, and I will be much more relaxed and trusting from the start next time I assign this project.

Another fear I had was my lack of prowess in the moviemaking field. The tutorials on Brick’s DVD, however, were all the training my students needed to make wonderful, professional quality movie

Any recommendations to other interested teachers?

Do it! It was the highlight of the year for my students, and it taught them wonderful Language Arts skills, media/technology skills, group work skills….and gave them a sense of pride in themselves.

I recently had the opportunity to conduct 3 teacher training workshops with over 30 Italian primary school teachers in Turin, Italy. I was struck by the creativity these teachers brought into the [...]]]> Overview:

• 3 hour training workshop which took teachers through the entire process
• 30 Italian teachers trained in two days
• 7  Tabletop Movies produced by the teachers

I recently had the opportunity to conduct 3 teacher training workshops with over 30 Italian primary school teachers in Turin, Italy. I was struck by the creativity these teachers brought into the training workshop within minutes of starting to brainstorm a story.

Teachers crowding around to watch their finished movie

After a brief introduction to the method and its history, teachers worked in small groups to brainstorm, build, and perform their own Tabletop Movies. Next I went through a basic introduction to the editing process with the whole group. I defined key vocabulary and demonstrated the mouse movements necessary to perform an edit and sequence a story. Then each group took a separate laptop loaded with their pieces of video, and began editing their projects together.

30 minutes later each group came back with an edited movie ready for simple titles. Then we had a Tabletop film festival to end the training workshop.

Pictures from workshops:

Tabletop Moviemaking was recently used in a multi-lateral European media workshop that brought together young people from 7 countries across Europe. The goal of the workshop, called “Create and Share”, was [...]]]> Overview:

• 2  3 hour sessions with teenagers from Finland, Ireland, Italy, Norway and Poland
• 9 students
• 5  Tabletop Movies shot and edited separately, then combined together into one

Tabletop Moviemaking was recently used in a multi-lateral European media workshop that brought together young people from 7 countries across Europe. The goal of the workshop, called “Create and Share”, was to help explore identity and different cultures through producing various types of digital media pieces. The Tabletop Moviemaking workshop specifically looked at commonly held stereotypes of different countries.

Over the course of three sessions that were two hours long, 8 teenagers worked collaboratively to build customized Tabletop sets that visually reflected some of these stereo types. The movie was shot in both English and the first languages of each of the participants.