School Video News Edit Exercise

By Phil Harris, Author, Television Production

What kinds of clips teachers use for editing exercises.

Every year at the beginning of the year, I had my advanced students script a story that was an instructional "process." For example, one year it was a student leaving the school building, going to the car, opening door, sitting, closing door, buckling seat belt, putting key in ignition, and eventually driving off.

The script wouldn't take even one class period. Then they went out and shot it. Slating every take, shot at least 3 good takes, long shot, medium shots, close-ups, and at least one take that would not match up in the editing room without creating a jump cut. All the raw footage was on one tape and I duplicated that for each editing station. The first year students would edit the sequence together as an editing exercise/test.

Actually, the advanced students relished this first video task of the year and toward the end of their beginner year would often talk about what they wanted to do when it was their turn to create the editing video the next fall. This was much more fun for the students to both make and edit than using footage from the 70's(???) of the bank robbery video. It was also much more interesting for me to see a new exercise each year instead of the same one year after year after year.

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Phillip L. Harris taught Television Production for 34 years in Northern Virginia, before retiring in June ‘06. As a consultant, he helps to design curricula and build production facilities throughout the country. In 2006, his high school textbook Television Production (http://g-w.com/products/detail.asp?id=253) was published by Goodheart-Willcox, Co., Inc. Also, that year, his class received an “Exemplary” rating by the National Dissemination Center for CTE at The Ohio State University. Phil is passionate about sharing his successful curriculum and facility design tips with fellow TV broadcasting instructors and, to that end, is a session presenter and contest judge at many conferences (SIPA, JEA, STN, ITEA, VENE, FETC and ACTE, TSA, SkillsUSA to name a few). Phil works closely with the Radio and Television News Director’s Foundation (www.highschooljournalism.org/broadcast). He also manages the RTNDF Tips and Tricks column. He can be reached in Northern Virginia at 703-975-7038 or at PhilHarrisVideo@verizon.net.