Piece of news is certainly one of the most simple television forms. Voice over tells the story described by pictures, which do not require complicated cutting. In professional TV channels preparation of a single piece of news takes only a few hours. Children from Gozdowo secondary school needed a few days, but under our guidance they managed to make such TV materials.
This was the idea – children were supposed to create pieces of information interesting for the local community as if there was a local tv channel, which could broadcast the info. Thus children’s first task was to invent the topic. After long discussions we decided to make two materials – one group concentrated on elderly inhabitants of Gozdowo, the other on people with interesting and remarkable passions.
Each group – equipped with a digital camera and a microphone – had to find people to interview and take shots necessary to illustrate their topic. Participants of the workshop who wanted to find out what the perspectives for elderly people in Gozdowo were interviewed a retired teacher and some elderly people in the streets and confronted their opinions with the local authorities (precisely a town mayor). They also took shots of Gozdowo everyday life (e.g. elderly men soaking beer in front of the shop or a retired lady working in the garden).
The other group had to find characters for their story. Eventually they chose people of different age to present that no matter what moment of life you are in it is possible to devote to a creative activity. The newsreel was about two ten-year-old boys drawing cartoons, a local sculptor in his thirties and an elderly horse breeder from Warsaw who settled down near Gozdowo after retiring. In the newsreel they were not only describing their passions but we could also see them at work doing the things they love.
When the shots were ready each group had to write the text of the voice over. After a few discussions and many corrections the texts were ready and one girl from each group had to read it so that we could record it in an “on-air” quality.
The final stage was cutting. The girls (all children who took part in the workshop were girls) knew how their newsreels should look like. For technical reasons and lack of time (it is not possible to teach how to use a complicated cutting programme in one day) girls could not take a big part in the cutting process. But when it was finished the news items were ready to be officially presented in the church’s presbytery. The children invited their families and some other inhabitants of the town. Apart from the two works described above the audience could also watch a short documentary about a boy from local secondary school who specializes in quick completing of the Rubik’s Cube. This film was also made during Gozdowo summer action.
All the works were also shown the next day, during the final presentation of all Gozdowo workshops. Everybody was surprised with the quality of the materials presented and the children could have been really proud.
