Tonight there was a great turnout for the first of 4 workshops at Casa Monarca. I will be working with this group of 12 adults to produce short videos that will premiere April 30th as part of the De Pueblo a Pueblo festival.

I started out by sharing a few videos to give a sense of different approaches and visual strategies. We watched a few clips from the Habla Ya series, which I highly recommend (although most are in Spanish)

(this one talks about the confusion around the ‘double’ last name. In Mexico, you take 2 last names, one from your mother and one from your father. This causes a lot of confusion when trying to translate that practice into our custom of ‘middle name’ and ‘last name.’

This video talks about the difficulty/contradictions of pronouncing English words and  Spanish words with an English accent.

We discussed the simplicity of these shots, the directness of the stories, the way humor was used to draw people in and allow them to identify with the situation.

Next, I was excited to show ‘Tocate’ the PSA I helped produce with a group of women in Camden last year.

They enjoyed the ‘doble sentido’ double meaning of this video, and we used it to start to talk about shot types and composition. From there we divided into 3 groups and each one produced a short in camera sequence. We watched and reviewed the videos and reflected on the session, which everyone really seemed to enjoy.

Next week,  we will start developing our ideas and making it happen!