Point and Shoot
Module 2, Activity 3.4 - Shooting and Editing Tape
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Introduction:

In the previous lesson, students reviewed audience appeal, story ideas and ethics. Each student has an idea for a news story and has begun focussing and researching that idea. They are now ready to continue researching. This research must include a taped interview and will require students to begin writing and recording their news script.

Resources:

- access to a video camera
- access to video editing software
- access to computers
- CTV newscript (.doc) or (.rtf)
- key to the script (.doc) or (.rtf)

Activities:

Task One - Laying it all Out
Students have spent some time determining the focus of their stories. They have created central questions and begun generating a list of potential sources.

Students should be given more time to research. Once they have completed their research, they will follow the steps on the student version of this page.

Before the students conduct their interviews, you may want to review the Art of Interviewing to prepare them to have a successful interview. It is also a good idea to suggest that students have you or a partner review their interview questions. This will give them a chance to see if their questions make sense and to make necessary changes.

Remind students to ask open-ended questions as they are often the key to a successful interview.

This is an excellent time to give students an example of a television news script. In partners, have students look at this CTV news script and try to determine the following:

1. What is the writing in black for?
2. What is the writing in red for?
3. What is the writing in blue for?

Once the students have had a chance to interpret the news script, give them the key to the script to see if they were able to determine the purpose of each print colour.

Use the script and its key, to discuss with the students the numerous pieces that must be considered when putting together a news segment.

Making direct comparisons between an actual news script and the script the students will produce will help to reaffirm the steps they must go through.

Task Two - Continued . . .
Example: Students will be video journalists, and therefore, they will be taping their own footage. This means their script will not need to signal other individuals, such as the anchor, the way the CTV script did, but they will still need to include cues regarding sound, voice over narration, and on-camera reporting.

Students must now write their script and tape all necessary footage. They should use the CTV news script as their guide and adapt the format to suit the needs for this project. Their script will allow them to make creative decisions regarding sounds and video footage. Each decision that students make is a choice about their stories. They will have a great deal of research from which to draw. Just as a journalist would, they must prioritize the information and determine what the public should know.

Task Three - Weeding it Out
Once students have taped all of their footage, they must begin the editing process. As schools will have either Macintosh or machines that use the Windows, there are a variety of different programs that may be used to edit videotape. Below are tutorials on the most commonly used editing software:

Macintosh
IMovie

Windows
MovieMaker
Pinnacle Studio

Spend some time experimenting with the software so that you are familiar with it and can answer questions. Alternately, ask a support person to give you and the students instruction so that you can learn together.

Remind students as they are editing, they are still making decisions about their story. Each piece that they take out or leave in is a decision regarding the slant or angle of their story.