THREE DAY PHOTOFILM STORYTELLING WORKSHOP
Objective:
To provide participants with the practical knowledge needed to produce photofilms to a high standard.
Skills Taught
How to hook an audience with a story
Recording audio for multimedia
New approaches to shooting for photofilms
Interview skills
Basic Audio editing
Basic photo editing
Soundslides/IMOVIE 09 software
Course Outline
The workshop is delivered by duckrabbit founder Benjamin Chesterton and is suitable for accomplished photographers. Our methodology is entirely participatory so over the duration of a course participants will produce their own two minute multimedia feature as part of a small team.
The workshop has a maximum of four people.
The course will focus on the complete chain of production, from identifying a suitable story to planning the steps needed to gather the audio and pictues, as well as the final completion of the project. The course will cover practical and technical aspects of recording and editing in the context of telling powerful stories.
Day One
Morning:
*Introductions/Icebreaker
*Explanation of training and the setting of the group task: to produce a multimedia featuring at least two voices and no less than fifteen photographs.
*Group discussion on how to approach task.
*Training in use of audio recorders.
Afternoon:
*On location recording supported by duckrabbit.
*Meet at the end of the day for a debrief.
Day Two
Morning:
*Introduction to audio editing for photofilms which should culminate in each group reaching a rough edit of the audio they recorded the previous day.
Afternoon:
*On location recording supported by duckrabbit.
Day Three
Morning:
*Introduction to picture editing for photofilms which will culminate in each group selecting an edit of the shots they want to use for the new media feature.
*Introduction to Soundslides (production software)
Afternoon:
*Teams produce their multimedia features supported by Benjamin.
*At the end of the day each team will present their features.
EQUIPMENT REQUIRED
*DLSR camera
*Digital recorder
*Overear headphones (if on a budget these will do the job)
*Laptop with Soundslides and Audacity software.
FEES:
£450 (students £400) £150 is to be paid in advance to reserve a place on the course. The remainder is to be paid no later than seven days before the workshop begins. This course is non-residential which means that you will need to find your own accommodation in Birmingham. Meals are not provided.
LOCATION AND WHERE TO STAY:
The training takes place at 73 Addison Rd, Kings Heath, B147EN (Benjamin’s house)
The house is close to the 50 bus route which is very regular. Birmingham has plenty of hotels in the city centre. There is a Travel Lodge in Maypole, which is closer to the house then the centre of town. Merton House has been recommended to us by a former trainee.
ADVANCE LEARNING
It is very difficult to teach all the skills needed to produce photofilms in just three days. A considerable amount of time is given over to discussing editorial approaches to creating photofilms.
A successful training is where our trainees go away inspired and thinking totally differently about the way they approach their work. This means a limited amount of time is spent teaching software, which can be easily learned in advance. Because of this we strongly advise students to teach themselves basic audio editing before attending the workshop.
WHAT THEY SAY:
“It may seem fanciful to suggest that one can learn multimedia story telling in just a couple of days, but Duckrabbit gave us everything we needed from skills in interviewing and audio editing to image selection techniques in that short time. And did in such a way that left us with a passion to develop further. A transformative experience.”
“Before doing this training I felt I could have a decent stab at recording audio in the Congo. I now know that it would have taken some sort of miracle for me to get really useful audio. I now have the tools to come back with something a bit special. Thank you.”
Robin Meldrum, publications officer MSF
