workshops

[unjulation]

couldnt think ware this should go but i've been a bit of a lerker/leach recently so thought i'd post this up as a beta of what ive been up to recently -

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[RayV]

good stuff unj, good start. i shall translate mine & upload it too

[bass]

yeah, i would love to attend such a workshop..

just out of curiousity... when and where would it be? or is it decided to be done yet?

[Scratchpole]

Good work.
Can not see mention on the cloth cat site though.
Has this happened already?
What age group are they aimed at?

Particularly noting the continuous assesment, that will satisfy the funders.
Have you considered feedback forms for your own research/publicity?
Photos of happy students at work, consent forms?

Hope you enjoy/ed it, I always find myself inspired and burning to make new work after seeing the enthusiasm that can be generated in begginers.

Just delivered a workshop menu/plan to a local community youth group yesterday, giving the participants a choice of skills/techniques to choose from. Very similar proposed outcomes.

Planning some Realtime High Definition workshops for a few months time, funding pending. Will post more info when I can.

[USE]

that is excellent unj, im starting a workshop for young people at a youth centre, and you have a great structure to work from. i only have half the kit and im teaching arkaos (theyre only little kids and its easier to understand, plus im on macs) i hope you dont mind me using your work, it is for the youth service, so im not getting paid much.

[unjulation]

feel free to use as you see fit it was part of the idea to share it cos i havent been doing that much of it hear on the forums of late i have about 3 or 4 others that i'll post up at somepoint

the actual workshops will be happaning some time this spring hear in sunny leeds yorkshire uk. were just waiting on funding checks to tern up :up:

link for clothcat which will have more info as and when - http://www.clothcatleeds.org.uk/index.htm

as you can see they are mainly a music based group so it will be nice to run some visual stuf alongside there music - maybe get some A/V stuf up and runing

[PilotX]

Hi Unj,

thats nice, good to hear from you as well :)
good plan I reckon - similar to one that we are hopefully doing this summer(only we are going to spend time filming, rather than making a dvd).
not that it's important (and I know you are dyslexic), on the last page, in session 10, in the line 6pm - 8pm Brake for Food - Brake should be Break.

One thing we've been doing recently that young people realy like is making short bits of video of them, and putting it on their phone.. been doing this for a few months, and everyone has a phone with a camera and bluetooth.. convert the video to 3gp format and it seems to work everywhere..
bluetooth adaptor on the computer means a quick simple transfer.. have had a few problems with bluetooth with some phones but mostly it works fine.
they like taking it away on their phone basically - they can send it to friends easily..

it's good for a single session workshop where you're not realyl going to have the time to get deeply into vjing..

[unjulation]

good points re bluetooth mate - and chears for bringing the typo up - spell checker is a life saver for me but if you get words that are the same sound but spelt difrantly is a bit of a pain

[moonbase]

Nice thread Unj. I have been running workshops both as myself and with a partner as See-Sound (http://moongold.me.uk/see-sound/) using vj and av tools for a couple of years now for all ages and I reckon your lesson plan looks very workable but hard work for you; depending on the folks age you will find hugely variable attention spans.
Writing that first line I realise that the workshops I run and the way I run them has changed dramatically over the last couple of years. I use video and still cameras, a mixer, a laptop, Modul8, Grid, projectors, screens, in fact all recognisable vj gear but the workshops have broadened out considerably and change to suit my audience, they are rarely as narrow as just VJ'ing but include using video cameras, making clips, looping clips, making music, telling stories and more.

Random workshop thoughts:
Keeping momentum going is one of the biggest challenges.
Bear in mind that you will probably find this twice as tiring as the folk taking part and twice as tiring as just doing a gig of the same length; think about time in relation to you as well as to the participants.

Think about other staff you may need in case the folks attention starts wandering or in case you have any problems although Cloth Cat look great and should be able to offer support - but mobile phone arguments, girlfriend arguments and other craziness can conspire to derail even the best lesson plan, although it sounds like your group will all elect to be there which is in your favour.
We have had problems with groups of students from exclusion units where the staffing wasn't up to scratch; but also one of our most inspirational groups were all fantastic and 'excluded', lucky them. (And what bureaucrat thought being called excluded would help?!)

Your pairing idea is a great one. Watch who chooses to pair up and be prepared to change members of pairs around as soon as they don't work out.

Depending on the age of your group you may well need a CRB (http://www.crb.gov.uk/) check and certificate. If you are working through an agency, group or funder, Cloth Cat, they should be able to sort this, costs around ?30 if I remember rightly.

You will probably need third party insurance for most groups that involve councils, schools..... most groups at all. in fact even if it's not a requirement you would be silly not to have 3rd party insurance.

Think about not 'hitting' them with all the gear at once. You have 10 sessions spread it out, otherwise by session 7 or 8 you will wish you had kept something back! Spread info thinner than you think.
If your group are computer, audio & gig savvy people like they look they will probably 'get it' quite quickly, but not everybody will and you may come across people who take a while to get the full concept of even a 'loop' in visual terms. Different people have different starting points.
You probably know a huge amount more than you think you do, to start with you will probably be teaching things you have almost forgotten.

Getting them to make a short loop each is a good warm up and introduction.
I have done a number of 'taster' drop-in evenings for all comers along with a dj, a beat boxer, a break dancer and a music tech guy - we have to get folks interest in our discipline in just 15 minutes - the three of us they like best get asked back 1 eve a week for 6 weeks. I've got all the pretty flashing lights so that's a shoe-in!
From zero to VJ'ing in 15 mins with their own lumakeyable loops is a good trick, let me know if you want more on that.
Good plan PilotX about bluetooth & phones, I've only worked the other way round in order for people to capture clips to use in workshops. I had one guy who drove deliveries to south Wales every week & came back with some great clips of crossing the severn bridge, close-ups of bright yellow forklifts wheeling around etc on his phone that looked brilliant speeded up.

VJ'ing is just one of many many new concepts you are about to introduce people to.
Your lesson plan may be a little too narrow and you might be well to broaden it out from Resolume (they won't care what software you use to start with) and pure VJ'ing as I mentioned at the top. Getting people to make their own clips to work with is always a winner and gives a feel of the flow of things. I definitely wouldn't hand out a copy of the manual, that's what you are there for. One or two people will stay interested and will ask you for more info, give them a copy. Or a cd with a couple of application demo programmes and five or ten of your own clips, a text file of your knowledge + some tips and hints - this works really well.
Same as with the gear, don't introduce all the concepts of the Resolume interface or capabilities at once, you will only confuse. Keep something back for yourself in session 9 or 10.
You will find that people will ask in their own time when they want to add an effect, rotate a layer, change its coulour etc - work at the pace of the individual to avoid frustration all round. Small groups work best.

I find having a very loose 'storyboard' idea is a good plan - giving a simple narrative to their piece will give you smaller intermediate targets to aim for - intro, action, chorus, ending or whatever. For really small kids this is everything and they come up with great stories, "The Bird who stole all the Chocolate and was rescued by a Flying Hat" springs to mind :-)
You may find one person more interested in creating this storyboard and 'directing' what happens & when. There may be one person for the camera, 1 on keyboard, 1 on computer etc which will help you get everything going but can lead to control chaos. They can move round at a later date when they feel more comfortable. Some of them may settle on one area, camera say, and not want to try anything else.
Anyone thinking of doing workshops for young kids need be aware that you will need parental consent forms signing if you intend to use video cameras in workshops. We had one series of sessions where we could only use clips of the kids hands and feet because of this. Turned out very interesting.
The Magic Lantern (http://moongold.me.uk/magic-lantern/) workshops and installation was my last brilliant success last year - we had over 300 people visit the installation each night.

If they are musicians then for sure try and integrate some of their own sounds into the workshops in preference to asking them to pick something else.
I am closely involved in a series of workshops in march just like that which we are calling the DIY Tour, website coming soon, there should be a thumbnail somewhere here of the poster proof - we have integrated the vj, dj, tech workshops into band workshops and then organised a series of Finales, pay on the door 'show' evenings in large local venues for everybody to play live including the musicians, funds to go back into the workshops. This is an extension of the last year or so of workshops and is a formula which works really well. We will be offering audio and video clips for people to download off the web site on the same day.

phew -
Hope that was constructive and some of it is relevant to your plans, interesting or whatever :-)
- looks like a really good group & I'm sure it will be a blast, enjoy.
Get back to me any time. Great post by the way.

:sun:

'It's the lighting of the fire, not the filling of the bucket.'
(WB Yeats, a good quote to have in mind on education.)

[unjulation]

chears for the advice, i to have been runing workshops of one kind or another for years (sorry my ego wouldnt let me not say that ;) )

so this is actualy a tested set of sessions that have worked well in the past -like i said it was more to give something back to the forums and anyone who was considering doing anything of similler ilk

the breif from cloth cat being intro to vj'ing so i wanted to keep it simple and resolume based

as for showing all the kit initialy i have found that its a great way to get clients interested from the word go with what they will working with in the finell show and then work up from the basics, a bit of the wow factor - it seems to have worked for me

this one is particulay aimed at 18+ - hence haveing a club based event at the end of it

the one that im doing for these guys - http://www.breezeleeds.org/ will be a diferant matter far yonger age range and hopefully far more far reaching. but i've been doing film workshops with them for the last 3 or four years so know what the deal is with them

personaly i feel that "just" vj workshops is not the best way to go to show and inspire peeps but its what a lot of the groups have asked me to do. personaly i would rarther set up teaching sessions that encompase the whole shebang of event creation - ie doing and being involved within all the aspects that are involved within putting a "party" on -

i feel that that would give the ownership of the experiance a far better grounding in a real world seting

i have found that the use of the manuale gives individuals a very usefull referance point - and works with my style of teaching - i prefer to give an individual the means in which to find the information themselves - this i feel allows the individual to lern in there own particular fashion and claim the knowlage for themselves - wich i feel creates a far stronger internal link between the knowlage gaind and there own internal diolog

in the past i have run vj workshops that have had "creating loops" as one of the aspects of the course and have found that unless the clients are confident with computers then it can take over and detract from the actuale act of vj'ing so im experimenting with takeing that aspect out of the loop, as it were and focusing far more upon the act of playing live - (which to me is more important)

i would agree that you have to work at the level of each individual but organisations like clothcat and breeze and funding bodies want leason plans so what can you do - realy its for them and gives me a basic structure that can be used or thrown out the window as the situation dictates

anyways there is a lot of good and valid points there some which i agree with others that i dont but that still doesnt make them any less valid and its much apriciated that you took the time to write the long and detailed responce

[moonbase]

No that's brilliant Unj - I think what you are doing is magic and you have found a method and approach that works for you, your target groups and your funding clients. Nice one.
Yes for 18+ you are spot on I reckon, as if you didn't know- I seem to tend towards working with either younger or older groups, both of which can be equally satisfying.
personaly i feel that "just" vj workshops is not the best way to go to show and inspire peeps but its what a lot of the groups have asked me to do
Couldn't agree more, there are so many ways to take the information and interest available on a workshop and limiting it at the outset can be off putting to the very people who may benefit the most.
realy its for them and gives me a basic structure that can be used or thrown out the window as the situation dictates

Yes totally got that, it's always the way; zig zagging to go in a straight line! Really enjoyed hearing about someone elses experience and others doing a similar sort of workshop. Thanks for the post and your response, it inspired me to think more about what I do and the way I do it.

[unjulation]

Couldn't agree more, there are so many ways to take the information and interest available on a workshop and limiting it at the outset can be off putting to the very people who may benefit the most.

this was a thred that i started a while back 2005 in fact looking at the dates, lordy lumuks -

http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?t=11162

which started looking into the whole event based project/workshop idea that im playing with

[makemassair]

Nice one Unj, I've just been approached by my old uni lecturer (only graduated in June 06) about giving a VJ talk/lecture/demo to the 2nd and 3rd yrs. Bit dawnting but you've given me a bit of a grounds to start it.

Got so much on at the mo, it's hard to find time to sit down and plan stuff out. But loads of helpful info in here.