Assignment Ideas

I. Post Screening/Guest Lecture/ Event Interviews- cross discipline classes of students prepare and agree upon a set of audience interview questions in advance of a campus event that target a theme or potentially controversial aspect. As audience members leave the event, each student interviews 1-2 people using the agreed upon interview questions and video or digital audio recorders to collect responses. Later the responses will be reviewed, categorized, key themes developed (if possible), compared to existing article/journal/news sources and synthesized with these other information sources in the form of:

• A digital response paper/powerpoint including sample audio files Video clips, images, etc. too if available and appropriate.
• An NPR style podcast with images that incorporates audio interview files with additional expert interviews and journalistic commentary. Possibly a point counterpoint style.
• A moving image project/presentation that is stand alone or given in conjunction with a larger talk, or used as a basis for a panel discussion, etc. Or, this type of project as a web page with viewer response/comment ability. Example might be a scaled down version of http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/intro.html
  

• Example class combinations:
  Invited Talk by a Stem Cell researcher government students collaborate with biology/psychology students to develop interview questions that gauge audience understanding of the scientific and legislative issues around stem cell research. The people on the street responses would be synthesized with discipline based scholarly material and then recombined to create on of the above assignment variations.
• Film screening of a film involving gender roles that was created during the feminist movement film/media studies students collaborating with women studies/history/literature students create discipline specific interview questions and then
  analyze the responses. The analysis would be synthesized with discipline based scholarly material and then recombined to create on of the above assignment variations.

II. Comparative Moving Issues Utilizing existing film clip archives - Library of Congress, Prelinger Archives, Youtube cross discipline classes of students would explore a topic through comparison of how it was and currently is portrayed. Is it portrayed differently over time? Is the method of portrayal consistent over time? Are the issues the same or different? Are societal responses similar etc., and these comparisons could take the form of:

• Comparative News Newsreel clip from archives compared to a current news clip in a stand alone video clip presentation, as an item for discussion, debate etc.
• Or, have students locate an archive clip and attempt to recreate it in an original video, as close to shot for shot as possible.
• Multiple video clips as a montage of statements targeting an issue from the disciplinary perspective of each student. Montage shown as the basis for a discussion led by the multidisciplinary student panel. Responses by audience could be collected through clicker questions for further analysis of issue.
• A series of movie clips to which students respond with their disciplinary audio commentary, similar to commercial directors comments. Students would record their audio commentary as a voice over in sync with the video clip and the commentary would focus on how they perceive the video from the standpoint of their discipline. These commentary clips would then be posted to a CMS discussion board for review and discussion by students with other disciplinary perspectives. Ultimately, the multidiscipline perspectives should be synthesized into a presentation that illustrates how the same clip, has multiple disciplinary meanings.


• Example Class combinations:
  Film/media studies students collaborating with history/political science/biology/sociology students to locate clips along the same topic theme but representing discipline based perspectives.
  Film/video production students collaborating with anthropology/education/psychology/womens studies students to locate historical clips and compare them to current clips or attempt to video a current similar situation town hall meeting, playground behavior by children, citizen response to _______, parental perspective of education .
  Womens studies students collaborate with sociology/psychology/media studies students to create commentary clips on how family is portrayed in media.

III. Service Learning students document interactions & perspectives they encounter in a service learning opportunity. These documents would then be used to create a video interpretation of the experience that portrays multiple perspectives.

• Documentary video as research and presentation of issues. Coding and Indexing of original Video for use by current and future researchers.


• Example class combination:
  Economic/government/sociology students collaborating with video/education students or community groups to document the avenues & obstacles some populations face trying to get jobs, get better paying jobs, find quality education, work on community reform, etc. Project example- Inner city documentary (video/photograph) the travel route/time necessary for a lower income wage earner to get to their job. Document the travel route/time for that same individual to get to a higher paying job for which they are qualified, in more urban areas from their current residence. Collect data on the relative locations of both types of jobs relative to city populations and use GIS to illustrate this information in the documentary.

IV. Collaborative Digital Art - have students from different art emphasis areas collaborate with film/media studies students to create video projects. Once a project is completed, forward it to another student and build upon each others work over time and perhaps distance as in the production of the Exquisite Corpse works, culminating in a virtual world exhibition (Second Life?) with review/critique by students/faculty at other campuses.

• Video Tennis similar to the popular Photoshop Tennis
  <http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,47132-0.html> but with video and among students at different institutions.