Introduction/overview

Video is increasingly used as a research project documentation strategy or to disseminate research findings. Smartphones are effective tools for producing video content to boost the impact of your research.

This course provides an accessible introduction to videomaking and a solid foundation of practical knowledge for social researchers who want to use their smartphone to collect and share video content on social media or in presentations.

Through hands-on practical exercises, attendees will gain a working understanding of smartphones, available accessories, sound recording, and interview techniques.

Participants will work in small groups, interviewing and filming elements for visual storytelling with their own phones (we can provide one if needed), cementing the new skills through ‘view & crit’ sessions.

Using free editing software, we will explain how to import, mark, log and analyse footage, and assemble short edits, to produce engaging videos.

Objectives

By the end of the workshop participants will have a sound foundation in videomaking and an understanding of smartphones and accessories that can be used to produce research related videos. Specifically, participants will be able to:

• Produce short video projects to share research
• Discern among available options the best technology for their needs
• Framing: industry conventions and types of shots
• Use microphones to get radio-quality sound recording
• Conduct and shoot a video interview
• Use video editing software to organise, analyse and assemble footage for social media or presentations

Topics

• Understanding smartphones as video cameras: potentials and limitations
• Apps
• Sound recording
• Additional accessories
• Video interview techniques (framing, mics, best practices)
• Video interview exercise
• Editing software: options Introduction to edit workflows: use of timelines and bins to organise, analyse and assemble footage

Who will benefit?

The course is for social researchers at any stage of their career who want to produce short videos for dissemination of results or to document research activities. The course is suitable for complete beginners and people with basic video skills.

Learning outcomes

• Collecting video interviews using smartphones
• Recording good sound
• Understanding how to collect visual elements for storytelling
• Using Lightworks editing software to organise footage and edit short videos

Course Tutors

Mark Saunders is an award-winning independent filmmaker, media activist and writer. His expertise in the field spans over three decades.

Mark's films have been broadcast internationally and exhibited at galleries, including Tate Britain, the National Film Theatre, and the ICA.. He founded the groundbreaking community access media co-operative Despite TV in 1982 and Spectacle Productions in 1990.

Mark has also been teaching for over 20 years, and has been a visiting lecturer at a number of institutions. He is currently Associate Lecturer in film at Birkbeck College.

Michele de Laurentiis is an anthropologist and filmmaker. He carried out long-term ethnographic research in Italy and Bolivia. He is a doctoral researcher on Participatory Filmmaking at Roehampton University and he is developing participatory documentary projects about extractive conflicts and indigenous groups in Latin America.