Thursday, November 22, 2007

Script writing

Six scripts have now been completed in written form. Rabbi Estrin's grade five class are making a decision as to which of the scripts will be taped first, but some costumes have already been chosen. Meanwhile, Morah Acoca, one of our Judaic teachers, is currently visiting our sister school in Israel. She has taken a video camera with her and will bring back footage from the school that we hope to incorporate in our movies. Technical expertise is ready to assist with editing when footage has been filmed for the first movie. We must admit that this is all a steep learning curve for us as several of us are new to iMacs and editing software.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Setting up the Studio

The last few weeks have been very busy as we have located our studio in a new space in the school. The equipment is purchased and the cameras are ready to roll! The grade five class was selected as a pilot group to write a script and produce the first Hebrew language video. The first steps included selecting a topic, planning a script, storyboarding and shooting each of the scenes required to make the video. We have almost reached the point of starting to take rough videos of each of the scenes. A normal part of our school is to produce short plays depicting various events in the Torah, so writing a script, developing characters, finding a wardrobe, making a set and practicing the play is a normal part of the school year. The students in grade five are going to be working in small groups to take video footage as the whole class together presents a logistical problem.

There is no doubt, however, that we are all on a steep learning curve with respect to producing a quality video. We would like to make this a learning tool for other Jewish day schools, so there is a desire on the part of participants to produce something that is interesting for children to watch and hopefully learn something new.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Getting Started

We are very excited about the work we hope to accomplish over the next few months. Our aim is to develop scripts with a grade 5 class, then create videos in Hebrew language that can be shared in a variety of ways. Our first steps are to find a small space for our studio. (We plan to call this the world headquarters of Studio 613 but really it is going to be a small part of a portable attached to the school). We are lucky to have a rabbi on staff who was trained as a script writer so straight after the summer break, we hope to have the "Studio" functioning, a portable placed on site, and a class working with Rabbi Estrin on the development of scripts.