Same courses – new format!

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Training

One and a half years ago life for everyone changed irrevocably. Some of those changes have been worse, but some have been better.

At Spectacle one of the better changes has been moving all our courses online, and this means they have opened up to students from all around the world. Our original scheduling made attendance difficult in some parts of the world. We were all astonished by our participant from the west of the US who woke up at 2am each day to join classes!

To make the scheduling more globally friendly, we are now running all our courses including: Participatory Video, Anthropology and Social Research, Filmmaking, Video Production, Marketing, Editing, and Smartphone Video in two different formats.

The content of the courses is the same in both formats – we encourage you to choose whichever suits your schedule!

Intensive

This programme is designed for those in or near the UK time zone. If you choose to take one of our courses in an intensive format, all your sessions will take place within a two week period. Some courses are only 1 day, while others are up to 7 days. These sessions all take place during full days running from around 9am- 5pm London time.

Day/Night School

This programme is designed for those in a more global range of time zones. If you choose to take one of our courses in a Day/Night School format, all your sessions will be two half-days a week within a four week period. The number of sessions you attend depends on the course you are taking. Some courses are taught in only 1 session, while others are up to 11. These sessions all take place during half days running from around 3pm- 6pm London time.

The dates of each course in both formats is listed on our website. Each format will be offered three times during the year. If you wish to spread your courses over several programs or times, just email us at training@spectacle.co.uk and we can arrange a schedule together.

Another option is to go bespoke…

Bespoke

We also offer bespoke training either one-on-one or to groups. These can be arranged to fulfil your specific needs. Bespoke training can be built around your project so you can book sessions at your convenience and get the advice you need.

Ecovisions in Malawi

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Training

In June 2021, Spectacle had the opportunity to work with Dr. Michelle Nicholson-Sanz and provide video training for the participants in her innovative Young Ecovisions project.

Dr. Nicholson-Sanz is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London .

During the pandemic she launched a call for young people around the world to share their ecovision – an idea for how to improve their environment and engender greater sustainability in their community. Four finalists were selected, two from India, one from Malawi, and one from England.

Fanny Chidoola from Lilongwe, Malawi whose Ecovision was selected

Dr. Nicholson-Sanz reached out to Spectacle as the second half of this ambitious project began: developing the ecovision of the finalist from Malawi, Fanny Chidoola. In order to realise Fanny’s ecovision, she partnered with Malawian forestry science student Khumbo Matemba. Fanny and Khumbo would be mentored by Dr Nicholson-Sanz to stage a theatrical performance to encourage the stakeholders in their area to realise the changes needed. The performance would be filmed and this material, as well as further footage collected by participants, would become a final short film detailing the ecovision and it’s progress.

As Dr. Nicholson-Sanz lives in Kent, England, the actual filming would need to be done by the participants on the ground in Malawi, and with a limited budget the participants would be making the most of the camera they already had in their hands in the form of a smartphone.

*Participants were able to upgrade the capacity of their smartphone with tripods and additional memory cards.*

Spectacle has been developing a training programme for just such remote smartphone based video research projects. Anyone who has tried knows, it can be difficult to achieve good quality videos on a smartphone, and even more difficult to record footage which can be easily edited. Through a series of participatory workshops, Spectacle worked to upgrade the capabilities of the participants’ smartphones affordably, and offered clear guidance on best practices and filming techniques.

*Participants such as Fanny Chidoola learned to film interviews*

*Demonstrating how to achieve good exposure using a smartphone*

By the end of the workshop series, the participants felt ready to use their smartphones to record the performances, instruct others on how to get the best results from their smartphones, and already had recorded a good bit of quality footage of self interviews, location footage, and interviews with other stakeholders on the ground.

*Khumbo Matemba reviews framing and technique of a self-shot interview*

We are very excited to see the final short film from Dr. Nicholson-Sanz’s Young Ecovisions project when it premiers.

If you are running or considering starting a participatory video project, consider the possibilities of Spectacle’s training workshops for your participants or yourself. We conduct our training remotely, in almost any timezone, and using any equipment available from smartphones to camcorders. We have worked with hundreds of academics, researchers, and community organisations and received very positive feedback on our approach and the results that our trainees can achieve with their cameras after just a few workshops.

*Participants such as learned to film location and action shots in their town*

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Greenwich Community Video Skills Workshops

Posted on June 28, 2021 by Training

In June, Spectacle began an online participatory video workshop series for a group of residents and community leaders in Greenwich.

This programme of 8 half day workshops was designed to build the skills and capacity of the diverse Greenwich communities to co-produce media. Through this training in smartphone video making, these individuals aim to produce content for and about their community of interest.

Over eight half day sessions this course is equipping the participants with core video production and editing skills. They are learning about cameras, framing, talking head interviews, filming locations, shooting action sequences, shooting to edit and editing.

Through practical exercises participants develop their technical skills and visual storytelling between sessions. The freedom of these exercises encourages participants to begin filming places and people for their projects. Topics of interest range from fashion to noise pollution to exercise and wellbeing. Some in the group are entrepreneurs running their own start ups and are excited to create content to showcase their enterprises.

Spectacle’s skill development workshops give participants a foundation in the skills required to produce engaging, good-quality video content. After only four sessions, feedback has been tremendously positive. One participant called the sessions, “eye opening.” Another spoke of how the practical exercises gave her the push and confidence to overcome her nervousness about filming.

Though the participants live locally within the same area, many do not know each other. These online sessions are also designed to encourage community cohesion and cooperation between diverse groups. Spectacle encourages resource sharing especially of equipment and skills and opens up opportunities to brainstorm about collaborations and future projects.

Spectacle’s participatory workshops are delivered live and are fully responsive to participants’ needs. These workshops assume no prior video knowledge and can be adapted to the available equipment of any group.

Participatory Workshops at Spectacle

Spectacle specialises in facilitating Participatory Video (PV) workshops aiming to give participants the tools to speak for and among themselves through video. You can read about our method here.

We approach filmmaking collaboratively and use workshops to share skills, responsibility, and authorship. Spectacle’s PV process is based on workshops in which group members build technical competence, gain confidence in their creative inputs, control the editorial process, and share ownership of the final film.

For over 40 years we have collaborated on participatory video projects with community groups, educational institutions including schools and universities, academics, researchers, NGOs, local councils, cultural institutions, and museums.

Our participatory video workshops can adapt to the nature and duration of any project. From research to outreach, from documenting to pure filmmaking strategy, working with existing groups or creating new ones, we can lead, facilitate, or just assist with your project.

If you are interested in learning more about Participatory Video consider our two week intensive course covering all aspects of our method and advice for planning your own workshops.

We absolutely love running participatory skill sharing workshops, and if you are interested in collaborating with us on a project or talking to us about facilitating workshops for your community or group, please get in touch by writing to training@spectacle.co.uk.

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Tag Archives: smartphone

Ecovisions in Malawi