You Tube / Low Bridge Videos

So far, this movie making process seems to be going in the right direction. I feel like a lot of us, the people in my group, have a lot of great ideas, but just need to organize them all together. Everyone in my group has been showing up everyday to work on our movie, so the time given in class is really helping us out. We finally got a script together, and began shooting film today. It was hard at first, just because there are so many ideas that we want to put into our 3 minute film. There are so many ideas flowing, but we haven't figured out how we are going to organize them to flow like a movie.

This process of movie making seems somewhat similar to the process of writing in a sense. There are so many ideas I come up with in my head, when I want to write a paper, but then have difficulty organizing all my thoughts into a paper that flows well. This is like the brainstorming step of writing. The next step is to get all the ideas down on paper, which I try to get as much as I can, and later edit what I don't need. This is like the process of shooting different scenes for the movie. We wanted to shoot as many takes and scenes as possible, so we can find the absolute best scene filmed. The last step for writing is proof reading and editing the paper. This step takes time, and help of others as well. Just like the editing of the movie. This step takes time, trying to figure out which scenes go best where, allowing the movie to naturally flow without looking awkward or unnatural.

As for me personally, I definitely see a lot of benefits of using YouTube for the writing classroom. I have named many similarities to writing and movie making above, but don't believe that a writing classroom should be limited to just this process. I feel like there are a lot of limitations with YouTube as well. YouTube has been used for entertainment purposes, and reasons other then writing processes. I feel like this can easily distract students, and doesn't allow them to see many good examples of what can be done on YouTube.

I wouldn't use YouTube for my classes, just because I feel like the writing process needs to be done in a classroom, as well as the use of technology. I feel like students need human contact, and input on the subject or topic of what they are writing about. Eye contact is needed from the students for a teacher to get an idea if the students are comprehending what is going on in the classroom. I like this idea of multimedia, but would prefer to teach my students the writing process in class, the old fashioned way!