Teaching video production is never boring

I am a Digital Media Instructor at The Center for Advanced Learning, a charter high school in Gresham, OR. My focus is video production, a media where anything can happen. My curriculum is modeled after the American Film Institute’s production process for moviemaking, so students get a real-life experience from pre- to post-production. If you’re not sure what that means, watch the above video I created that describes what students must do to create their movies.

Pre-production is a time where I hear lots of initial complaining from students, but then they realize the importance of planning in the end. Once students move to production, they have the great opportunity to use equipment from MetroEast Community Media, an organization that became our partner in September 2009.

During post-production, students learn to edit using Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express. They learn that video has so many variables that can go wrong, and troubleshooting is a valuable skill to have.