The Video Design Workshop

Age Population:  10-Adults 

Introduction:  

Understanding media is a necessary part of everyday life. Media is the presentation of culture. It is an overlapping display of ideas used to influence viewers. But who decides what ideas will be presented? Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint stated, “From the beginning of human civilization, the media- presented in cave drawings, ancient art, and literary works- have culturally shaped how humans view themselves and the world.  Today, the abundance of books, newspapers, radio and television programming, movies, and the Internet has made the media so powerful and ubiquitous that they have become our primary source of information about the world and its inhabitants.  Whether one is conscious of it or not, media both reflects and shapes the cultural perspective of every one of us.  It is impossible for any one person to escape the media’s influence on their attitudes, practices, and habits.”  For African Americans and other ethnic minorities, perceptions of self have extended from unflattering stereotypes to images of cultural and ethnic dignity in America. 

Henry Louis Gates, in Facing History, emphasizes the importance of African-Americans to control and understand the influence that their visual representation has on their conceptual identities and their perception by others. He said, “ The central task of African-Americans, in the face of their negative or diminished depictions in art and literature, is to transform themselves from objects to subjects, and that this process is essential to effect before they could assume the prerogatives of full American citizenship.” 

In this new age of visual technology and mass media, the stereotyping of African-Americans is more prevalent than ever.  It is camouflaged in pop and hip-hop culture, projected in print media and public advertisement, and made legitimate in news broadcast through selective focus (crime) and/or exemption (showing no images of Black soldiers as heroes / black children kidnapped). 

But even more disturbing is the number of young African-Americans that have become desensitized to compromising images of people of color in mainstream American culture. Rather than questioning how they are depicted in mainstream American media, they are more likely to dissemble and appropriate it. They understand the power of imagery in popular culture, but lack an understanding of its influence within their own culture. It was only two generations ago that images and objects like “Mamie” and “Sambo” were used to reinforce racist social attitudes toward people of Africa descent.  Imagery, real or conceptual, was essential to segregation and cultural oppression. Michael Harris explains, in Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation, “During the nineteenth century, art and popular culture imagery served to both reflect and establish racist ideas and to reiterate the social order even when the intentions behind them were not sinister.”

He goes on to say, “This imagery was the prism through which African Americans saw themselves up to and including the mid-twentieth century.” Although African Americans imagery is used in mainstream media most often to address sectors of the cultural population in marketing or to reference multiculturalism, the rage of characters and personalities presented still reflect the controlled distribution of imagery in the past. 

The Video Project is a one-week project and introduces participants to the process of creating quality video artistry. This workshop is designed to develop an understanding of media though production. Participants will create a commercial or music video on topics related to race and representation.

Methodology:

Creating a commercial or music video 

• Prior to Day One: The participants will be required to write a few ideas they would like to explore and describe how these concepts will translate into a commercial or music video format.

• If you select music video production, all steps apply after the song is chosen.

• Day One: The participants will share their concepts with the class, and choose one idea to produce as a commercial or music video.  Examples of commercials (music videos) will be shown to the class.  Techniques will be discussed using one commercial (music videos) as a model.  An outline will be developed and written.  Outline: What product/service are we advertising? Is there a social or cultural issue being addressed in this video project? What is the solution? And how will they execute the solution? Setting?

• Prior to Day Two: Participants will develop a brand name for the product or service, a logo and a slogan.

• Day Two: Ideas about different brand names/logos and slogans will be shared. Following the outline, a script will be written.  After the script is completed, storyboard techniques and elements will be discussed, including camera shots, dialogue, sound effects, and the action of people. Scene options and casting will be decided upon using participants as the actors, narrators, camerapersons and set designers.

• Before Day Three: Each person must storyboard a panel (or two) of their assigned part of the script.  For scenes, bring in pictures or magazine clippings to create backgrounds, and bring in props. Start to memorize lines.

• Day Three:  Post storyboard panels. Actors/narrator will memorize lines. Camera operators and set designers will work on creating sets. We will practice shooting with the camera and talk about editing.

• Before Day Four: Bring in costumes. Memorize lines. Bring in a CD with music on it.

• Day Four: Continue shooting.

Work Shop Hours: 2hours a day for 4 days with instructor. This workshop requires an equal amount of independent work time. There is a 2-week gap from production to finished video. Viewing must be scheduled after the editing period. 

Supportive Reading and Information

Video Editing Software: Premier and Photoshop

Overton, Bill.  The Media: Shaping the Image of a People, Lighthouse Press: Annapolis, MD, 2001.

McElroy, Guy C. Facing History, The Black Image in American Art 1710-1940, ed. French, Christopher C.: Bedford Arts, CA, 1990.

Lott, Eric. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, Oxford UP: New York, 1993.

Stromberg, Fredrik. Black Images in the Comics: A Visual History, Fantagraphics Books: Sweden, 2003.

Harris, Michael D. Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation, University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, NC, 2003.