Producing video for social media with smartphones



Producing video for social media with smartphones




When the autumn was changing into the long arctic night, I got a possibility to spend one month in the Namibian spring within the PARTY project (Participatory development with the youth). It took me about one second to consider the offer and say Yes, whether I would be interested to go for a month in Namibia to teach the youth how to make video stories with mobile phones.

Windhoek and the vast dry plain


The name Namibia is from the Nama language word Namib, meaning “vast dry plain”, for Windhoek there’s no one theory how it got its name, the most popular one is that it comes from Afrikaans word wind-hoek (wind corner); indigenous names are related to the hot springs that are located near today’s city centre (Wikipedia). During my stay in Namibia, I also had a possibility to drive around in the country on the endless gravel roads in sand deserts, mountains and bushes – there I understood how honest and descriptive the name Namibia is for the country; it also made my try to think as descriptive name for Finland.

Workshop on video in social media


One of the activities during my stay was giving a workshop on social media and video production with the students from the Collage Arts (Cota) in Katutura, Windhoek. We had seven Microsoft Lumia 650 smartphones donated by the ITC department of the University of Lapland, and the goal of the workshop was to teach how these phones can be used in shooting and editing videos targeted for social media channels. 

We were six PARTY people from the University of Lapland, and six participants with different backgrounds from the Cota. To start with, we had a round of introductions and discussion on the ways how each of us uses social media; Satu Miettinen and Mari Maasilta led the discussion on the ethics considering posting contents into social media channels.

The participants were already active, or very active within the social media; either for personal interests, or for promoting own business and artistic portfolio, nevertheless creating videos with smartphones was not familiar for them.


My part of the workshop was to teach how to use the MovieJax app to edit and create videos which can be uploaded into different social media channels. With MovieJax one can combine videos, photos and texts taken with the camera of the phone, it’s also possible to trim the videos from the beginning or the end. The app is quite easy to use, even for someone who has never done video editing before.
After a very short introduction to the app, the students were given tasks to work as pairs to shoot and edit an interview on how the climate change is visible in their everyday life; the theme came from the students. The participants didn’t spend time in floundering, instead in no-time they were discussing and planning on how to do the interview; in a less than one hour we had the first story edited and ready for a premier.

When the interviews were screened, we had a very lively end discussion, during which we also planned on ways and means how we could cooperate with Cota and University of Lapland in the future. Even though the technology and the tools were familiar to the participants, my impression was, that with the video editing app, and using the phone for the whole production, gave them new perspectives and skills. 

Arto Vitikka
System Analyst
Science Communications 
Arctic Centre
University of  Lapland

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Traveling in Cape Town

Image
When you arrive in the city as a foreigner, you always hear about two things: security issues and Uber taxis - if you go somewhere in the night, use a taxi. That is a good advice. I have followed it. Otherwise, my choice is public transport, with the exception of the Cape Town railways, its reliability did not convince me - the trains went if they went.  But the bus service of the city works fine. MyCITI buses are a great way to move around in a big city. I got to know the city bus service at first in the internet. There I got instructions, how to get a rechargeable card. The principle is that you pay for the for the distance you travel. You can move around the city, as the bus routes run to all direction and there are hubs where you can easily switch from one line to another. The use of buses is not...
Read more

The importance of cultural guides

Image
The importance of cultural guides Traveling to a new place is a step into the unknown: people living there are strangers, lifestyle is different and roads are strange. This is how it was when I first came to Kimberley. In advance, I had read some of the tourist information so I knew that the city was born as a result of the great diamond rush and that it had long been the center of diamond business in South Africa. But after spending a month there, I knew a lot more. The most I learned by talking with people. They were my guides to   a place and culture that was strange to me. Among the many interesting people, one of the most memorable persons was our taxi driver JJ, who gave us – me and my co-worker - a ride many times. He was the father of two children. His grandfather had emigrated to South Africa from the Netherlands. Sometimes he came ...
Read more

Poster Intervention at No access without consent – Arctic Railway and Future of Saami Youth Side Event at UNPFII

Image
PARTY (Participatory Development with Youth) was co-organizing a Side event with  Youth Council of the Sámi Parliament in Finland,  Sámi Youth in Finland Organisation and Suohpanterror Saami Artivist Collective  at the 17th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 16-27 April 2018. University of Lapland, Faculty of Art and Design is leading PARTY which is a Horizon 2020 MCSA RISE funded project developing service design methods to enable service development and stakeholder dialogue between indigenous San youth and local government.  The Side event was discussing concerns over loss of land, environmental impact, possible damage to culture and language, and how it might affect traditional reindeer herding, shape Saami response to Arctic railway plan. Suohpanterror, Saami artivist collective, group anonymous Saami artists, was giving a poster exhibition in the event. The Sidev event was responding to need to clearly intro...
Read more