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Participation Of Production Equipment As Mediated By ProgramsThe participation of the cameras and accessories offers a more complex story and acts most clearly in relation to course ideologies and project assignments. Boarding High, in the provision of camcorders rather than larger cameras, no accessories, and little access, promoted more exploratory searches for images. The other school at which the Digital Studio had led courses had produced projects with more planning—each having a plot of sorts. This perhaps reflected a greater cultural engagement with video or a different approach taken by the interns. They also had greater access to the camcorders, which afforded more involved work. The lack of audio equipment and time prevented an involved engagement with sound, usually addressed at both schools with the use of music. Only one group at Boarding High was observed to assert structure on their recording activities, showing students escaping the school, but they never did the editing. For the rest of the projects, no goals were expressed or visible in their unedited work. During the first course, the director’s attempts at the class level to stimulate planning were unsuccessful and the few attempts observed by interns yielded only ideas too grand for the time allotted. Video art was not part of students’ experiences. The students’ lack of familiarity with camcorders and video art plus the ease of taking camcorders around the campus encouraged projects that consisted of images composed into artistic music videos. At Suburban High, the large cameras as well as the ideological preference for images produced with tripods, led to a different use of the camera. When students did more exploratory projects, there was less movement with the camera. One interesting exception to this was a student who borrowed a camera to take home: He carried the camera on his bicycle and recorded in a manner that undoubtedly would have been viewed as too risky to the camera if the teacher had known. The inverse concern about having images that did not shake received greater attention at Suburban High and was less of a problem with the big cameras. The cameras’ greatest affordances—remaining still while it passively recorded the action around it—dominated camera activity. Urban High also had small camcorders, but fitting the ideology of using scripts, the control of the equipment in the advanced classes was so great—after a lot of damage to equipment had already occurred—that the cameras usually remained atop a tripod. They also used external microphones and sometimes lights, which forced a different use of the camera. The beginning class on the other hand was given a great deal more freedom with the cameras and did not have access to many of the accessories. The way the cameras were used depended mostly on location. Some projects—such as the cooking videos—were shot in the classroom and always used a tripod with few if any zooms, pans, or other movements. Those who left the classroom rarely used tripods and tended to use more locations. In these projects, camera operators sometimes interacted with the activity in front of the camera, while they never did when the camera was on a tripod. At all schools, regardless of the type of camera used, the camera afforded greater freedom and some degree of increased power. Students used the cameras to move around the building, which frequently was without a specific goal. Once at Suburban High, a student asked if he needed a hallpass, and the teacher answered that having one of his cameras should be sufficient; the camera was a universal hallpass. Similarly, the excuse of conducting interviews mediated how students related to one another and with staff. The degree to which the camera participated in social relations is, however, best considered by looking at their recordings of their activity. In observations, the amount of equipment used was meaningful: As students used more equipment, such as tripods, microphones, and lights, they were less able to engage with people; the camera operators became recorders of events rather than participants in events because the technology dominated. The equipment available was largely consistent with the ideologies being promoted. The result was that the most interesting video projects—in terms of research—were the ones with the least planning and least equipment. Of course, these project tend to be the least acceptable in typical high school video production programs. |
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