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Aspiring Journalists Learn About Environment Using Ulead VideoStudio
The Crissy Field Community Environmental Center (www.crissyfield.org) works with the National Park Service to develop educational programs that address the convergence of natural and urban environments. Based in San Francisco's 75,000-acre Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the center used Ulead's VideoStudio 6 during its first week of Summer Camp for elementary-age children.
In the "On Location in the Park" program, fourteen 8-to-10 year olds divided up into "TV Networks" and held onsite press conferences with people in the park who hold unique jobs.
CNN, ESPN3, The Bad Guys Network, Crissy Field Animal Network, and World Comedy Network interviewed a mounted park police patrolman, the park archeologist, the Native Plant Nursery's composting specialist, and the cinematographer who produced the "We Hold the Rock" Indian occupation documentary on Alcatraz Island.
Campers Edit Interview Footage with VideoStudio 6
Each day the children returned to Crissy Field's Computer Media Lab with new interview footage on their digital camcorders. After a few hours of practice they became adept at using Ulead's VideoStudio 6 to capture and edit their work.
"The course of instruction mirrored VideoStudio's built-in step-based interface - they learned to start a new project in the first dialog, then to capture their footage in the second, to arrange their captures in a storyboard in the third, and so on," says Rob Weinberg, Crissy Field Environmental Technology Specialist.
After each day's field trip, the kids would capture and integrate their new video into their projects, showing each other newly discovered transitions and adding their favorite music, titles, credits, and video effects.
A Lab Manager's Perspective
From the lab manager's perspective, the week went very smoothly partly because VideoStudio makes excellent use of Windows network management features. VideoStudio enables users to set up a single login that specifies all the features needed by all participants. It defines the appropriate local space for large preview files and the network location for project files.
"All the children had to do was to each save one project file. VideoStudio and the login managed all the files needed for building and previewing their documentaries," says Rob. "We encountered exceptionally few software problems over a week in which children explored VideoStudio from every imaginable angle. It just worked."
Video Souvenir
On Friday the children finished their editing, and by that afternoon the lab manager had produced a VHS tape for each child's parents to view and take home. The children were proud of their work, as were their parents and the staff at Crissy Field Center. Parents and children repeatedly asked about the Ulead software. It became clear that in a week-long program with many exciting aspects in the center of the country's largest urban National Park, the software itself had become a major item of interest. |
