This last year, my first year as a teacher, I did teach a bit of journalism. We discussed a few basic techniques, churned out a hand few of written stories and went out on at least two dozen shoots.
My background is more film and video production so we spent a lot of time working on those types of projects. We did do a lot of interviewing as part of our shooting. From time to time we composed questions in advance but a lot our approach was to let our curiosity guide us and we formulated our questions during the shoot and even while conducting the interview. I asked the students not to rely on notes and use more of their observational skills and base questions on what they observed.
I produced a long-form documentary in Mexico City in 1995. This was my first attempt at doing so. The event I covered was a cross cultural performance and installation art exhibit in Mexico City. I had my crew in place and was excited about this undertaking. The crew and I spent the first couple of days simply observing and getting to know the artists and talk abut how we are going to proceed.
For our final project I asked my students to take a similar approach, not to just rush in and make their film. The groups that did turned out projects that were incomplete and not well thought out. Those that took their time fared much better. During this project I stressed that the key to good writing is the in the rewriting. Film, being a visual medium it is best to show action not have your actors talk it out. Have them leave not say they are leaving, as an example.
The students story boarded, wrote their first draft and then did rewrites, some at least 2 times.
Even though we were writing short fictional pieces the "rules" of writing applied.
Mark Silverstein
Douglas High School
Douglas, Arizona
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