Transition Culture

14 May 2007

YouTube for Transition Towns course – Totnes films go live on YouTube!

A couple of weeks ago in Totnes, as part of the [Great Reskilling programme](http://transitiontowns.org/Totnes/TheGreatReskillingProgramme/TheGreatReskillingProgramme”GRS”), we held a workshop with Keith Ellis from Transition Town Lewes called **A Hands-on Introduction to YouTube Video Activism**, which aimed to teach people how to make short films just using a digital camera and a laptop, and to transfer them onto sites such as YouTube and VideoGoogle, a cheap and very powerful way of communicating ideas of transition and energy descent. The course was a great success, with about 15 people with widely varying experience of making films spending the day filming and editing a number of short films.

The day was very much enjoyed by those who participated, and some of the results were great. Keith held the group really well, and was great at getting people working together on the film making process. Since the course he has uploaded the results onto YouTube, so you can get a taste of what people get up to in Totnes on a Saturday afternoon when you put a video camera in their hands.

There were four films made, of which 3 have so far been posted onto YouTube. The first is a [rather groovy beatbox hiphop painted hands kind of celebratory thing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R7Lby7002g), made by the group that Keith was in. The second was [made by my son Rowan (filming) and his friend Sam (presenting)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Pmn_LdlNo), and shows them going round Totnes asking people if they have heard about peak oil and Transition Town Totnes. The third [asks people in town for their thoughts on climate change](http://youtube.com/watch?v=uFMv8H72XDA”CC”). While they were just made as exercises for the course, they are rather good fun and worth a watch…

Thanks again to Keith for coming down, and we look forward to him running this workshop again….