Lights, Camera, Learn!

I am beyond excited to announce that I'll be offering a 3-course 7-unit Special Study Program on Mobile Digital Storytelling for Educators with UC Riverside Extension , 100% online starting Summer 2020!  Year over year, students are becoming more native tech users, providing a new opportunity to reach them directly by integrating it into classroom teaching. Digital storytelling can be that connection point, especially with the commonality of mobile devices. In order to bring this approach into your classroom, though, you first need a basic understanding of video production, let alone knowledge of how to use it to meet Common Core Standards. Go behind-the-scenes into a digital storytelling introduction as designed for education. Bring video production into your classroom as a tool for rooting students’ most functional skills. Learn how video production can be used to hone critical thinking and analytical skills, time and resource management, problem solving, and more. U...

Oh Happy Day!!  Apple just added green screen support to the mobile versions of iMovie which is great news for anyone frustrated on their Apple mobile devices that they couldn't use green screen without a third-party app like Do Ink or Vectorscope now you can do it all in iMovie I'm going to show you how to do it on my iPhone and I’m going to do it in  under three minutes!   The update also has 80 new soundtracks and a bunch of other features and changes as listed in the patch notes: Add photos as overlays to create picture-in-picture and split-screen effects. Choose to hide the border that surrounds picture-in-picture and split-screen effects. Instantly return to the edit screen of your project when switching back to iMovie from other applications. ClassKit support lets students deliver video assignments to teachers using the Schoolwork app. For users with videos in iMovie Theater, the Theater window is now accessible from the ••• m...

I'll be leading Media Arts Workshops for the Mobile Film Classroom as part of LAUSD's Arts Ed Branch Community Arts Partnership! "The Curriculum Project":  In this six-week workshop, students will be challenged to make movies about what they're learning. Mobile Film Classroom instructors will work collaboratively with teachers to design and integrate media arts-based digital storytelling process that connects directly main-stream standards-based instruction while building critical media & visual literacy skills. Digital storytelling is the writing process in action.  From brainstorming and conceptualizing, to writing and analyzing the clarity of the message, communication is key.   Students work in teams to write, shoot and edit their films as evidence of learning and in the process will gain critical 21st century skills of cooperation, collaboration, communication and creativity. MFC instructors will guide students and t...

The fundamentals of film and video production are fast becoming a core language for L.A. Unified's learners.   By  Samuel Gilstrap  | Nov. 26, 2018 HOLLYWOOD – When educators speak of language arts, the words  video production  aren’t usually the first to come to mind. But, that may be changing in the years to come. Melrose Avenue Elementary School is taking a fresh look at video and film production as a way of teaching students the fundamentals of storytelling — through media that are increasingly commonplace in the 21 st  century world. “A major part of elementary education is language development,” said Melrose principal Mathew Needleman. “While we still teach the principles of writing and storytelling with pencil and paper, we are expanding the media at students’ disposal and building their expertise in an increasingly important skill area.” With a background in film production himself, Needleman helped introduced the medium...

For the past three summers and winter breaks, the DIGICOM Learning Institute has provided week-long digital storytelling training to Palm Springs Unified teachers and students. Last week, a cadre of educators from several Riverside County school districts had the opportunity to participate in the same training, so that they can begin to infuse digital storytelling into their classroom instruction. Alexandria DeHate, who teaches video production and sixth grade English language arts and social studies at a Beaumont Unified School District middle school, said the workshop was a great opportunity to enhance her skills and learn new strategies. “It’s great to attend workshops like DIGICOM to collaborate, connect, build and learn skill sets and refresh my knowledge on this subject,” DeHate said. Palm Desert High’s assistant principal of Career Technical Education commented that the course would assist him and his team to “create a media program and embed digital storytelling into t...

What a difference a year makes. My residency with the Palm Springs Unified School District last year has turned into something all together different, DIGICOM Different. My residency with DIGICOM, culminating in a celebration in May at the DIGICOM Film Festival and an unforgettable week of Professional Development training with PSUSD teachers in June. Now I find myself spending much more time in Palm Springs, now as Director of Curriculum & Professional Development, responsible for continuing the outreach to teachers following the training institutes. Also there are very exciting prospects for expanding the reach of video empowered teachers beyond the valley and at local universities. I'm still just awestruck by some of the educators I get to work with like Nancy Blair an English Teacher, DATA Academy Cathedral City High School. Many teachers leave a DIGICOM training excited and energized to apply the new skills & ideas they learned into their classrooms. The thrill...

"Our eyes have been opened. We can never view movies in the same way after working with Frank Guttler. We all agree that we cannot watch a film without counting shots, looking at transitions, or noticing camera angles. The students laughed as one student joked, “Mr. Guttler has ruined movie watching for me forever!” - Julie Barda, Raymond Cree Middle School, Palm Springs Fostering the development of good digital storytellers means building their production skills so that every bit of imagination and magic on the page of their script makes it to the screen. I've been spending a lot of time during this residency working with teachers like Julie Barda and their students on developing a working appreciation of the complex language and grammar of the screen. It's a language most of us 'read' intuitively "leaning back" during a night of TV at home with the family or at the local cineplex. What happens to these students when they are challenged to ...