Fondazione Toscana Sostenibile, in collaboration with Vertigo APS (Livorno), has organized a workshop aimed at disseminating the resources developed during the Erasmus plus project 2VIP – Video & Virtual Reality For Successful Youth’s Participation In Democratic Life. During the project, teaching materials were developed to encourage the participation of young people in local, national and European democratic life. Specifically, 2VIP partners have developed non-formal teaching methodologies using video to stimulate and include young people in the social life of their community.
Sunday February 19th, at the headquarters of the Cultural Association Vertigo-APS, federated to the FEDIC, from 10 AM to 7 PM, five young people from the film acting course of Vertigo participated with passion in a challenging 2VIP workshop.
Conducted by Sergio Brunetti and Giovanni Golfarini, with the technical support of Francesco Carrieri, consisted in the creation of a participatory video on a social theme starting from the guide developed during the course of 2VIP.
The Introduction to Participatory Video for Social Action course is based on the Real Time’s Participatory Video approach, which has been widely used for more than 30 years in non-formal educational contexts. Real Time is a participatory media organization with an international reputation for its participatory approaches to video and digital media. The Real Time approach is based on group games and exercises to promote participatory learning and collaborative production methodologies. Participatory video is a key tool for individual and group learning and can be a powerful aid in the development and realization of people’s abilities and potential.
Moreover, as a group activity, it uses practical approaches to explore and express the needs, stories and values of the participants. This course explored alternative and innovative approaches to more traditional industrial video production models, and provided participants with new methodologies to explore ways in which video can be used to inspire young people to participate more actively in social life, including innovative and interactive non-formal educational approaches.
Participants were given a video kit consisting of camera, battery and charger, tripod, directional microphone, rod and headphones. The basic rules of participation were explained, and that everyone had to take turns in all the roles (camera, director, sound monitoring, microphone operator, interviewer, etc.).
The final exercise of the morning concerned the composition and creation of a narrative sequence (story board) divided into 5 scenes drawn on as many sheets. Participants were left free to interact with each other in the choral writing of a subject and a script. They chose a subject with the theme of racism, integrated with the theme of sexual harassment. Finally, the filming took place in the foyer and stage of the Enzina Conte Theatre, inside Vertigo’s structure (a large room composed of several rooms used for rehearsals of the Vertigo Company and theatre and cinema courses of theater, a theater-cinema room of 150 seats and dressing rooms).
Taking turns, participants shot 5 scenes, each time switching roles so that everyone could be actor, director, video recording technician, audio recording technician, sound engineer. Participatory videos work so that everyone must actively participate in order to fully develop their potential and contribute to the creative work of the group.
Once all the scenes were filmed, the film was immediately edited and screened.
Once the activity was completed, participants were asked about their experience: the feedback was extremely positive and they state the workshop was very formative.