Growing Video in the Garden

growing video in the garden summer 2014
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Director’s cut: Growing Video in the Garden

As the days grow short and dark and winter stalks us like a hungry polar bear, it’s comforting to channel bright memories of summer.

Some of our sunniest moments this year were spent at the Urban Farm at Lafayette, teaching middle school kids the basics of video storytelling.

Growing Video in the Garden, as we dubbed the project, was a program we ran jointly with Grow It Green Morristown that was underwritten by the Verizon Foundation.

 

growing video in the garden summer 2014

 

Grow It Green is all about fostering community, and the idea here was to empower kids to communicate this spirit from their own perspectives, in their own voices.

The project itself became an exercise in community, with help coming from many directions.  The most exciting part was seeing how the students’ productions —  Growing Volunteers and What’s an Urban Farm? — embodied the community ideals that they set out to document.

“We were so excited to create this partnership with Kevin and MorristownGreen.com.  The videos were amazing and a fantastic outward expression of all that the children learned through this program,” said Grow It Green co-founder Samantha Rothman.

Students were asked to create a pair of short movies about life at the Urban Farm, a teaching farm started by Grow It Green behind Morristown’s Lafayette Learning Center.

There were challenges for all of us: Family vacations, summer distractions, transportation to weekly classes, and so forth. Nine kids volunteered for the program.

Some pupils had video cameras, computers and editing experience. Others did not. Everyone owned smartphones or iPods, however. So these were our video cameras of choice.

Much of the editing occurred in the “cloud,”  using a free service called WeVideo that was recommended by Mairen Flanagan, a rising freshman at Morristown High School.

Computers and Internet access were courtesy of the Morristown & Morris Township Library, and the Morristown Neighborhood House.  The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation provided classroom space and a great video practice area in its rooftop garden.

Sandy Mintor of the Neighborhood House made sure her contingent of students got to classes. Farmer Shaun Ananko of the Urban Farm patiently fielded dozens of interview questions from our young documentary makers.

Grow It Green co-founders Samantha Rothman and Carolle Huber, office manager Lauren McTigue, farm assistant David Oberstein and board members Dave Walters and Gail Lowry-Davis were generous with their time, too.

Parents juggled busy schedules to accommodate these classes.

Ruby Huber — the very first winner of the MorristownGreen.com Film Festival and now a cinema student at Emerson College — was an invaluable assistant.

And now — DRUM ROLL! — the videos:

Growing Volunteers, by rising ninth-graders Melody Ding and Lucy Anderson of Madison, is artistic and heartfelt. The girls actually volunteer at the Urban Farm. And their movie wound up winning awards from the Girl Scouts. Those are pretty good community credentials!

“I learned how to use perspective to your advantage,” Melody said of the course. “And how to use lighting. And the one-thirds rule. I also learned the different types of shots– closeups and wide shots. We also had to come up with a question for the the beginning, and through the video, we answered the question.”

Growing Volunteers

What’s an Urban Farm? is an impressive team effort. As rising sixth-grader Kimberly Quiceno’s family prepared for a month-long vacation, she despaired that her own documentary would go unfinished.

But hours before boarding the plane, Kimberly off-loaded her smartphone footage to Ruby. Mairen edited it. And Joel Torres, another rising sixth-grader, incorporated Kimberly’s material into his video, which he made with buddies Sebastian Flamenco and Miguel Mayorga.

Joel truly went the extra mile for this project, hoofing to the library after school, and after football practice, to complete the editing in September. He takes pride in his work, and wanted to make sure everyone’s efforts were showcased.

Thanks, kids. Hope you learned as much from us and we learned from you.

What’s an Urban Farm?

 

 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Awesome – love it when all our Town institutions get together to work on something so worth-while. Good work, kids!
    Great job, Morristowngreen.com and Grow It Green!

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