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The Director in the Classroom
 This dynamic presentation examines how filmmaking in the classroom engages learners.
It looks at how today’s digital cameras and software based editing systems are revolutionizing filmmaking and explores the opportunities for enhancing education with these same tools.
It explores the filmmaking process itself and investigates how brainstorming, research, pitching, storyboarding, script writing, planning, production, postproduction, presentation and distribution foster the development of personal, social and higher order thinking skills.
Video projects enrich learning, build community, bring social issues alive and create experiences that promote self-esteem and creativity.
The presentation investigates opportunities to develop context based, video projects that span curriculum by providing examples of successful video projects from K-12 and beyond. Curriculum connections are demonstrated; strategies for meeting state standards are explained and SCANS goals are addressed.
The Director in the Classroom encourages educators to explore video production as a tool to make the learning process personal, engaging, creative and fun. Attendees of all levels of video experience will benefit by the ideas and methods presented and will leave this presentation with the handout materials necessary to begin implementing video learning adventures in their own classrooms.
 Read the outline for The Director in the Classroom Presentation.
The Popcorn Paradigm
Cinema is changing. The introduction of digital technologies is reshaping at an accelerating pace how movies are produced, edited and distributed. Digital filmmaking around the world is unleashing professional filmmakers from the conventional demands of large crews, long shooting schedules and most importantly excessive and expensive budgets.
At the same time and for the first time in cinema’s history, high school students are working with similar and sometimes the same tools as are Hollywood filmmakers.
Concurrently, we are witnessing young people re-inventing culture and commerce through their inventive use of the Internet. The sharing of music, software and other digital files may raise copyright issues for adults, but for young people who have grown up in this new digital world, it is simply how things are done.
So what happens when young people in our schools start producing films that rival the mainstream industry for their technical virtuosity? And what happens when young people use the Internet to share their films with others around their community and around the world?
And what happens when passion replaces profits as the motivation for the creation of films. Perhaps nothing less than the beginnings of the re-invention of cinema as we know it.
But given the tools and given the power to re-invent storytelling in the 21st century, the most important question remains. “What stories are being told?
And this is where the incredible role of the educator comes into the picture. This is where educators of all interests, backgrounds and technical know how can shape the future by helping students explore their ideas and decisions through a contribution of experience, mentoring and wisdom.
KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS
The Teacher as Film Director
What exactly do film directors do? When you mention the word film-director, what comes to mind? Do you see a tyrannical figure marching around the film set yelling “Action!” “Cut” and “One more time with feeling!!!” Hollywood has perpetuated this myth about film directors for decades. But even though there are film directors who do believe they are rulers of third world countries and they expect results by shouting, commanding and pointing at things with their baton, most great directors do not.
The best directors don’t direct at all. They observe.
They don’t tell they actors how to say their lines. They help actors discover why the lines are said at all.
They don’t encourage memorization, they encourage exploration.
They don’t tell the actors to be “Afraid”, they investigate together what fear is, how they have known fear themselves, and how people react to fear. In other words, they go beyond just expecting the repetition of the words on the script, and strive to help the actor find truth and relevancy in the actor’s life that will give those words personal meaning.
I have had the pleasure of having had teachers who have been these great directors in the classroom, who have invited exploration and discovery and who listened and ignited my own personal passions. But I have also had the one with the baton, the one that pointed, commanded, ordered and expected the material to be memorized and repeated verbatim.
In this new era of 21st century learning, where memorized facts have a shelf life, and content is fluid, and where skills like problem solving, critical thinking and discovery are becoming essential tools for survival, how can I assure that my own children and others around the world get that opportunity to make learning relevant to their own lives. I believe it’s time to say “Action!”
To find out more about The Director in the Classroom series of Presentations and Keynote Addresses, contact Nikos Theodosakis at nikos@thedirectorintheclassroom.com.
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