The Project
Charged with making short documentaries, each year one team of 11th and 12th grade students at The Workshop School rise to the challenge of the Studentcam Contest.
This year's prompt: “THE CONSTITUTION & YOU” Choose a provision of the U.S. Constitution and create a video illustrating why it's important to you. |
Comments from the 2017 Crew:
"We did the C-SPAN project to gain a better understanding of the world around us, and to push us to put forward our best work."
"We would do this project so that we can win the contest and to learn about our topic through the process of the project."
"In this project, we created a short film for a C-SPAN competition answering the prompt, "What is the most urgent issue for the new president and Congress to address in 2017?" We started by watching past winning films and analyzing what made them high quality. We then picked what we felt was the most important issue, and tried to narrow it down and refine it until it was as specific as possible. Then we started doing research and created a research brief explaining the ins and outs of our issue. We used the research brief to write a script/storyboard for the film. Then we developed a plan to shoot/edit the film, and then we executed that plan." --KM
"We looked for a problem within ourselves, in our communities and families. When we found the problem we researched more about the problem. We became experts on our problem. Then wrote all our information down into a research brief. Then we started to come up with situations for our problem. Next we create a script for our videos and a shooting plan. Finally record the videos and edit them."
--HG
"In the beginning, we started off learning about what C-SPAN was. This was entirely new to us so when we learned what the project was about, we started watching some of the other students videos. The purpose of each video was to show and or explain the issue that next president and congress has to address. All of the films on the website were winning films. If CSPAN chose your film as a winner, than you would win a cash prize, of different amounts. But the grand prize was $5000. In the middle, we started to do research briefs where we did research on the issue of our choice. Along with research brief came the script. The purpose of the research brief was to learn about our issue and the scripts main and only purpose was to write what we were going to say in our video. In the end, which is now is process of making our videos. This includes filming, voice recording, and much more. For me this has been the most hardest part of the whole project because I've never had to make a film like this. Or a film period for that matter. The films are due midnight 01/20/17, which is two days from now. Despite my challenges I think that I have made great progress." --DW