Serious Play: Kids and Machinima
Photo courtesy of Beth Kanter.
There is a lot of talk about gaming and education, but it's hard to find examples that are truly compelling. That being said, after reading Hugh's post, I was blown away by was the presence at the European Machinima Festival of a Global Kids project. They have been doing an amazing job in Second Life for almost 2 years now and they have the machinima and blogs to prove it! You can watch the machinima submission for yourself on youtube. Keep in mind this is a student production before you judge too harshly. The video was, above all, a neat exercise in storytelling.
I am sure I am not the only one seeing the implications of training young people to create movies inside games/online platforms. It's a good teaching tool for teaching writing, design/art, and becoming tech savvy. However, it also means that this initiative (and others like it) create a generation much more aware of machinima as a serious technique for self-expression and sharing ideas.
Along those lines, another interesting story emerges from Asia. Kids Movie Creator is a 3D content creation platform targeted at helping students of ages 7 through 12 design sets and produce movies in them. From what I see, the work posted on the site so far is limited to still photos, but I am looking forward to seeing their progress over time.
Labels: Education, GlobalKids, Kids Movie Creator, Machinima Europe, Serious Play
posted by rodica
at 11:34 PM
2 Comments:
I'm with you all the way, Rodica. For me, the single most exciting thing about machinima is the ease with which it enables one to tell stories. It takes out a potential barrier between the imagination and the rendered product, effectively "taking out the middle man" in the creative process.
That's true to a greater extent with some engines than others, of course, and it's also true that the unique requirements of the machinima process often introduce new problems, which aren't a big factor in other mediums; but the potential of machinima as a tool to be used in this way is still vast.
Kids and young adults are, in my experience, far more likely to take machinima in their stride. I love teaching kids how to use machinima, because they pick it up so much quicker than adults, and they seem to approach it with an attitude of "Wow, machinima lets me do this, that and the other", rather than immediately listing all the things that machinima isn't suited for.
At Strange Company, we were staggered by the creative talent, and willingness to adapt, of the teenagers that we worked with on the Fair Game Project. They were the best clients we've had for years. When we look back at how apprehensive we were about the project at the start, we feel a little stupid.
New machinima tools such as Moviestorm are lowering the barriers to entry-level machinima creation even further. This is the first time that I've been able to sit my techno-phobic mom down at a PC, and be confident that she'll have a simple movie constructed an hour later. That's pretty huge. I'm just waiting for the first school assignment involving Moviestorm. The core package is completely free to download, install and use, so it's only a matter of time.
There are several tutorial workshops being run at Machinima Europe, incidentally, which are strictly for students, so if you're a student and you'll be attending the Festival, I believe there may still be places left.
I loved reading about the Fair Game Project, Johnnie. That looks like an awesome idea. I also agree with you on Moviestorm (thanks for reminding me about it!). I played with it a bit as I was reading Machinima for Dummies and it was indeed very simple/easy to use.
The only caveat I can see with Moviestorm is its power to get kids motivated and excited to make movies or give them quick story ideas. Since it is a movie-making package and not an online experience, it lacks the social aspect that games and virtual worlds have. At least with my limited experience, I haven't figured out if there is a way to get a remote character/actor to play inside the set. Is there a way?
Other than that, I suppose it could create motivation on its own through the ease of use. It's really a great tool to use in the classroom. Can't wait until someone develops a lesson plan for it :)
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