Digital Still Photography and Digital Video Production

Daly City Peninsula Partnership is part of the city of Daly City. It provides free after school programming to students in elementary schools. I am a teacher with this program. My lesson plan is as follows.

This course is two 6-weeks programs. Digital Still Photography and Digital Video Production. Each class is 1 1/2 hours long.

Digital Still Photography will be taught the first six-weeks . The first week students will learn how to use the cameras. They will earn how to turn them on and off. How to turn the flash on or off. How to focus the camera on a given subject. How to hold the camera and their responsibility in keeping the camera from harm.

Weeks two, three and four will focus on taking photos. Each week will focus on a different kind of subject. These include portraits, landscapes, and macros (close ups) of small objects or subjects. How to frame a photo is the most basic and the most important aspect of being a good or excellent photographer. How a subject is placed in the frame can be the difference between an average snapshot or a photo that keeps you looking at the details.

Each class will be broken down into 15-minute blocks. The first 15 will be to introduce the subject and discuss what student know and understand. The next 15 students will learn how to frame for the subject. The third block will allow students to have fun with taking photos. The fourth block that ends the first hour of class, students will learn how to use lighting to change the mood of the photo and will again take more photos using what they learned. The last half hour students will take turns downloading photos to the laptop computers. They will choose a selection to be viewed. The class will then view and discuss the photos and talk about what they learned.

Lighting will be discussed each week in how it plays a role in changing the look of a photo. Although no special lighting will be used students will learn about how shadow and light both natural and artificial can come together to change the mood of a photo. As an example natural lighting on a sunny day is different than that of a cloudy day. A photo taken indoors under florescent lighting is different than incandescent lighting. Students will be encouraged to use their imagination to take photos in traditional as well as non-traditional ways.

Weeks five and six will focus on using downloaded photos. The basics of editing photos will be taught. These include changing or enhancing photos with software, cropping, and changing the size of photos. Photo printing and posting to web sites will be discussed.

Students will receive a CD of all photos they took in class.

Digital Video Production will be taught the second six-weeks. Student can take both classes consecutively or separately.

The first week students will learn the basic use of a digital video camera and an overview of the digital camera for those that did not take the first class. This will include turning the camera on and off. Use of the viewfinder and the flip out view screen, how to focus on a given subject and how to use the record and stop buttons.

As homework students will be asked to make a list of subject or idea they want to tell as a short story in video and still images. A list of ideas will be given to the student to use as a starting point. These will be discussed on the second day of class.

Classes two, three and four will focus on taking videos and still photos that align with the student ideas or those chosen from the teachers list. Students will also learn during this time how to recharge batteries and use the camera with batteries or with electricity and how to use a tripod. Basic camera techniques will be taught. These include pans, tilts, zoom in, zoom out, fade out, and fade in. Some of these techniques can also be use in the editing process.

Weeks five and six will focus on making a finish video from the downloaded video and still photos. If needed this class can be extended for several more weeks for students to finish the post-production portion (editing) of their videos. Students will add sound, music, and special effects. Students will receive a DVD all photos and finish materials from this class.