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teaching FCP to kids

puckhead193

puckhead193

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 25, 2004
9,582
874
NY
So for the summer i'm working at a day camp and everyday for 45 minutes the kids go to club. Its basically an activity they choose to go to everyday for 2 weeks like hockey, soccer, softball, some forms of arts and crafts etc.
I was thinking of maybe running a video editing/production club. And teaching the kids how to shoot video properly and then editing it using FCP. (I hate the new imovie mostly because i'm not familiar with it all) So for the project would be the first week shooting the video. Then the second week editing it as a group. I thought the project would be a music video of going around camp getting shots of the kids playing sports/doing activities then putting it to music. Then burning the final project to DVD for them.
I would probably have to supply my own camera and of course bring my iMac in (which would be locked up in the office)
Do you think it would be to complicated for 5/6th graders to learn FCP?
Any ideas for music? What would be appropriate and the kids would actually like and would sorta go with the theme? (no miley crius or jones brothers :p)
Any other thoughts that i'm missing?
Thanks!
 
puckhead193 said:
So for the summer i'm working at a day camp and everyday for 45 minutes the kids go to club. Its basically an activity they choose to go to everyday for 2 weeks like hockey, soccer, softball, some forms of arts and crafts etc.
I was thinking of maybe running a video editing/production club. And teaching the kids how to shoot video properly and then editing it using FCP. (I hate the new imovie mostly because i'm not familiar with it all) So for the project would be the first week shooting the video. Then the second week editing it as a group. I thought the project would be a music video of going around camp getting shots of the kids playing sports/doing activities then putting it to music. Then burning the final project to DVD for them.
I would probably have to supply my own camera and of course bring my iMac in (which would be locked up in the office)
Do you think it would be to complicated for 5/6th graders to learn FCP?
Any ideas for music? What would be appropriate and the kids would actually like and would sorta go with the theme? (no miley crius or jones brothers :p)
Any other thoughts that i'm missing?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
For 5th and 6th graders it might be a little advanced. Just because their attention spans aren't fully developed and they probably wouldn't really listen to everything you're saying. I think its a good idea to get them started early and present the video world as a good opportunity, but maybe wait a couple of years.
 
GO with Imovie, not FCP

FCP is WAY too complicated to start someone off with their first moviemaking adventure.

At my community college, I took the beginning digital video production class and they used Imovie(the old one), it was more than enough to get your feet wet. If they had us use FCP, we would've had to focus on learning FCP, not MOVIEMAKING.

For a first project, you don't need anything complicated. Ours was a 1 minute short with very little, or no, dialogue and at least 15 secs of V/O. The focus was on telling a story in that short of a time. Don't teach fancy schmasy moviemaking material. Keep to the basics and the kids will do fine.

I'd think they'd be better off doing a 30sec movie, if possible, if not go for the 1 min max! Believe me it's more work than you think. You also may want to put a max of video that they can record to edit. Our teacher said we could only tape up to 8mins, NO MORE! This way we had to learn good tape and shooting management.

Also, we had to work on at least one other students production. This helps more than you know!

Hope this helps!
 
macrumorsMaster said:
FCP is WAY too complicated to start someone off with their first moviemaking adventure.

At my community college, I took the beginning digital video production class and they used Imovie(the old one), it was more than enough to get your feet wet. If they had us use FCP, we would've had to focus on learning FCP, not MOVIEMAKING.

For a first project, you don't need anything complicated. Ours was a 1 minute short with very little, or no, dialogue and at least 15 secs of V/O. The focus was on telling a story in that short of a time. Don't teach fancy schmasy moviemaking material. Keep to the basics and the kids will do fine.

I'd think they'd be better off doing a 30sec movie, if possible, if not go for the 1 min max! Believe me it's more work than you think. You also may want to put a max of video that they can record to edit. Our teacher said we could only tape up to 8mins, NO MORE! This way we had to learn good tape and shooting management.

Also, we had to work on at least one other students production. This helps more than you know!

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

I have to disagree, the basics of editing in FCP are pretty straight forward. Final Cut Pro is only as complicated as you make it, they won't be using all the crazy deep features of final cut, they'll probably just stick with the blade tool.

Anyway I would recommend hopping right into Final Cut as iMovie is a waste unless you're making a montage or something...
 
I'd say stick w/iMovie. The goal should be for the kids to have fun making a video not wrestling w/a strange GUI. iMovie is also much more "tamper proof" so the odds of an inquisitive kid mousing around and screwing up iMovie in ways unimaginable are much lower than a kid messing up settings in FCP.


Lethal
 
tuffluffjimmy said:
I have to disagree, the basics of editing in FCP are pretty straight forward. Final Cut Pro is only as complicated as you make it, they won't be using all the crazy deep features of final cut, they'll probably just stick with the blade tool.

Anyway I would recommend hopping right into Final Cut as iMovie is a waste unless you're making a montage or something...
Click to expand...


FCP is NOT easy. I just took a basic editing class that uses it and it takes some reading of book and/or help manual to really make use of it. Imovie is not a waste of time (at least the OLD version, not the new one). It lets you EASILY assemble a movie without having to grapple with SO many tools. I guess you'd recommended to start these kids with photoshop first rather than say Elements! :p

Which would make it easier for you to learn how to drive, if you've NEVER driven before:
a) an automatic car that you only have to put in P,R,and D
or
b) a manual car, where you have to think about WHEN to press the clutch, and remember where 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,and 5th gear are? Also you have to know WHEN to use each gear and at what speed to change to the other gears?

If you'd answer that question honestly, how can you say you'd throw a 10 or 11 year old that you have to assume has no video editing skill, into choice b?

They'd have to concentrate so much on the clutch and gear box, that they wouldn't learn as much about driving as the kid you'd put in choice a!

Believe me, at first using Imovie seemed silly to my classmates and I. But as our deadlines approached for our class projects(and looking back on it now), I'm glad we weren't throw into FCP and used the much simpler interface of Imovie!
 
At our school last year (8th grade year) we worked with FCP with two projects. We had to watch a big long movie of how fcp works and then we had a test over it. I was the only one that had ever used it before and i was constantly having to go around the room and help people with very simple things such as cutting the video, getting audio in, etc.

It sounds to me like using FCP you will constantly be answering questions and some kids might get frustrated. We had one group who were, well, not so smart with FCP at all. They didnt do very well on the project and now they hate macs because they don't know how to use FCP.

You don't want youngsters hating macs at a young age ;)

-Clay
 
I agree with LethalWolfe. Start with iMovie. I work with younger students studying video and photography on occasion and it is really important for them to understand that it is about the process and the final product (what they are communicating in their video, is the video easy to watch, good camera technique, etc.) Let them see enjoyment and success with video which will hopefully encouarge them to continue with video in the future.
 
How many kids would you be working with? 1 camera and 1 imac would obviously limit you, as it would be very awkward to have more than 5 or 6 students sitting around the computer.

If there's 10+, Perhaps you can make 1 group do some basic shooting, while 1 group does some basic editing?

I've actually been teaching this to high school students for 4 years (2 years with fcp, then 2 years with adobe premiere pro) and I decided that for my first editing project for students, I'm going to shoot some random footage (not sure what yet, but no dialogue) then I'll have the students edit it together to tell a story. It'll be interesting to see what students can do with the given footage, and it'll be a lot of fun for them with limited constraints. I'd let them choose their own music and get as creative as possible and it'll be great to see all the different stories that they can tell with the same footage.
 
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