The Media Spot

On July 25th we wrapped up our 6th straight year of collaborative video production at The Generation Connection! TGC is a summer camp that connects kids aged 8-13 with inspirational members of older generations as they travel around central Florida engaging community-building and environmentally-oriented activities, and creating a documentary video with TMS tutelage.

We missed Andy's participation this year on the traveling video production team, but in his absence two campers, who have each been thriving in the video program for four years, stepped in and created clips that captured the camp through their perspective like no campers had before them.

As usual, we discussed the editing process and objectives of our videos at the beginning of the week, and campers got to discuss and make decisions about how their experiences would be communicated to their audience through video editing & filming the "Clips of the Day". What was special this year, was how these particular campers were driven to work independently, importing and organizing raw, camper-shot video through pre-editing, and demonstrated critical thinking skills in crafting effective "Clips" with a distinct tone in mind. Talking with them about their editing decisions, I was impressed with how they committed to particular shots and music, and defended their choices when alternatives were suggested. They were aware of how their decisions as producers would affect their audience -- connecting that knowledge with their analysis of any media message puts these campers on the road to media literacy. Check out the clip they produced for Monday that got the camp audience choked up at the screening of the videos at the end of the week.

If their experiences at TGC over the years have contributed to that, we'd be really happy campers over here at TMS!