1 May 2007
Learning to Use YouTube as a Tool for Localisation Initiatives.
YouTube and Video Google are becoming one of the most exciting ways that environmental projects (and lots of American teenagers falling down stairs) document themselves and communicate what they are doing. The price of the equipment is falling all the time, and the ease of editing and so on means that most people can now produce their own short films. As part of a bid to try and get some people in Totnes documenting the process in this way, we are holding a one day course this Saturday called **A Hands-On Introduction to YouTube Video Activism worldchanging with a digital camera and a laptop**.
It will be held on Saturday May 5th at Birdwood House, High Street, Totnes between 10am and 4pm. It will introduce the art of making short films and posting them on the internet. Video is becoming a powerful tool for raising awareness and making change on the local level – and becoming ever easier and cheaper. This workshop will be a hands-on experience of the tools you can use to communicate important issues in a creative way. It will look at ways to communicate ideas and start making videos for Transition Town Totnes, or for any other community group.
Participants are asked to bring any of the following:
digital camera (+leads!), video camera (+leads!), laptop, tripod, mirophone, ideas.
See the TransitionTownLewes video in You Tube as an example of what we might make.
The teacher for the day will be **Keith Ellis** of [movingsounds.org and Transition Town Lewes. He made the short film about Transition Town Lewes that is already on You Tube.
The charge for the day will be £20. For more information visit www.transitiontowns.org/Totnes. **Advanced booking is essential**, to book please call Tamzin on 01803 840926 or email: greatreskilling@googlemail.com .
By way of showing some of the things one can do using this medium, here is a great film I came across recently courtesy of Aaron at Powering Down, which uses the homemade format to make something that communicates the idea of peak oil and relocalisation in a dynamic and engaging way. The first half is better than the second, the survivalist guy at the end detracting slightly (for me, at least). I don’t personally think that knowing how to make a knife from a flint is going to be a skill I will need once world oil production peaks, there are other far more useful skills to learn, but I may be wrong.