Spectacle Launches New Half-Day Training Course

Spectacle is launching a new online video training course! The Day/Night School will run half-day training courses designed for academics, researchers, journalists from all over the world!

The online classroom

Works in Any Time Zone 

Responding to demand ranging from Idaho to New Delhi, Spectacle has designed a video training course at times that work in almost any time zone, and so available to pretty much anyone around the globe – live! 

This course offers half-day training on Tuesdays and Fridays for 4 weeks – that’s 8 half-days total. The initial courses will run from 15:00-18:30 London Time, which means you can enjoy it as an early morning class in Los Angeles, or an evening class in Bangalore. Subsequent courses will shift in time for availability including Australia and Japan. 

Learn storyboarding

Designed for PhDs, Academics and Researchers

When it comes to making videos, the just ‘point and shoot’ method only works if you are extremely lucky. From inaudible audio, to interviewees that clam up as soon as they see a camera, to takes ruined by continuous autofocusing – the pitfalls are innumerable. 

This course is specifically designed for academics interested in incorporating video into their research. Whether you want to integrate visual methods into your research or produce videos to disseminate your outcomes, you will learn all you need to know to turn your research into a short film.

If you don’t have the budget for expensive filming equipment, won’t have a film crew, and need a surefire way to make a final project where the mistakes don’t distract from the message – you need our training course. Spectacle has been working with and training academics in filmmaking for decades so we know the unique needs of research filmmaking. From video techniques to editing and visual storytelling, this course will provide all the skills you’ll need. 

Camera techniques and settings

Skills You’ll Learn

The first 4 sessions are on videography, and the last 4 focus on visual storytelling and editing. You can do all 8, or just choose to do the first or second half.

  • How to operate a camera
  • How to get best results from smartphones 
  • Storyboarding and visual storytelling
  • Talking heads and interviewing  
  • Strategies from filming to editing 
  • The basics of editing using Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Learn about editing as a data analysis method 
  • How to produce engaging videos based on your findings
Learn professional standard editing in Adobe Premier Pro

In the Classroom 

All courses are taught live on Zoom. The course content is split into manageable 45-90 min modules. Each module builds on the last and will cover key concepts and offer practical exercises to develop your skills and confidence in technical and creative aspects of video making.

CONTENT 

The first 4 sessions will cover all aspects of filming, including sound recording and camera techniques. The last 4 sessions will focus on visual storytelling and editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. 

FLEXIBILITY

If you have to miss a session, you can access the recordings for 30 days through private links. You can choose to attend only the filming half or the editing half of the course, or buy the whole package and take a gap between the two halves. 

PRICE

£480 for 8 sessions 

£280 for 4 sessions

Previous Clients

Spectacle has delivered successful training workshops for numerous educational organisations, NGOs, and private companies including: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Anthropology Department, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Edinburgh University, Birkbeck College, UCL, LSE, Oxford COMPAS, University of Zurich, as well as hundreds of social researchers, journalists, scholars, and video marketers who have found our methods engaging and inspiring.

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Hanwell Big Local, getting the community involved

The Big Local Trust has awarded £1 million to Copley Close, Cuckoo estate and Gurnell Grove estate, in Hanwell, Ealing to help develop new community facilities over the next 10 years. The improvements will be decided by residents and implemented throughout the area.

This is a short participatory film made by Spectacle and shot by young people from the area about the changes the community would like to see on their estate. It is also a documentation of the estate as it is now. We hope to revisit in the future to document developments.

The Big Local is a Big Lottery funded project that is awarded each year to a Local Authority. Among the current projects based in London there is Clapham Junction/West Battersea, Peabody Avenue and Churchill Garden Estate, North Brixton, World’s End Estate and Lots Road Area, Wormholt and White City, South Bermondsey and Somers Town.

London Borough of Ealing was asked by the Lottery to put forward three areas within the borough that would benefit from the funding. The Big Local Trust eventually selected Hanwell because it felt it was in greatest need of new facilities, as stated by  Ealing Council. The area has approximately 9,611 residents. It covers Copley Close, the majority of Cuckoo estate and it goes along the Ruislip Road to include Gurnell Grove estate. Here ‘s a map shown by the Hanwell Big Local webpage.

Julian Bell, leader of Ealing Council, said: “I’m delighted that we’ve been able to secure this extra funding for Copley Close. There are some really excellent projects already established there and I’m sure this money will be well spent.“

Hanwell Big Local v09

Hanwell Community Centre at the heart of the Hanwell Big Local neighbourhood improvement scheme.

Among the upcoming changes, Copley Close Community Hall and The Base will be demolished and most activities relocated to an improved Hanwell Community Centre –now under Ealing Council control– with space and potential for new uses and facilities. Hanwell community group Empowering Action and Social Esteem (EASE), which works to improve the lives of people living on the Copley Close Estate, will also be moving temporarily to the centre with a hope of staying there. For the past few years, it has been located in The Base.

Jackie Sear, chief executive of EASE, said: “This is great news not just for Copley Close but for the surrounding areas too. The money will hopefully be used to enable existing services to be funded for years to come, but most of all to ensure the needs of the community are met. This has come at an important time in regards to regeneration for the area and will definitely engage the residents in decision making.”

EASE has been chosen to create the vision for the changing area and has been trying to get everyone involved in the process ever since. This film is part of their message to the people living in Copley Close, Cuckoo and Gurnell Grove estates. It offers a wide range of ideas which are hopefully just the beginning of the discussion.

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