PECOS ENTERPRISE

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OPINION


September 23, 1996

CRITIC'S CORNER

Kids can create

their own videos

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"Videomaking for Kids" ( a primer for children ages 8 -13 ) and its
Kids Eye View Video Club cast of eight multicultural elementary school
children is designed as an in-school textbook and/or for the child
hobbyist to teach professional videomaking skills.

Although cable-ready schools and video production classes are not new in
elementary and secondary education, no elementary school textbooks or
programs are available for this emerging educational skill area.
Instructors and teachers have `pieced' together their lesson plans from
adult texts, magazines and fellow instructors. Children who watch 4 - 6
hours of television a day, numerous in-theater movies and movie videos
have yet to discover their own video camera talents.

Why? Because they and their teachers are illiterate in basic video
production skills. Broadcast quality video production requires knowledge
and skills. A beginner takes a look at his or her videotape and compares
it to the broadcast quality video productions available every hour on
television. Their reaction to the comparison is very negative.

Most amateur video camera users remain at that level. Those who attempt
to learn professional videomaking techniques meet technical barriers
ofthe jargon, structure and equipment information involved in video
production. Interest evaporates. But the need to learn video production
skills for school projects, computer-augmented instruction/projects and
future employment settings continues to burgeon.

"Videomaking for Kids" helps meet these needs in several ways. The book
is a fun, easy-to-understand, hands-on approach that: a) demystifies
basic video production and b) engages the reader in the Kids Eye Video
Club's efforts to make the Bay School video production. We present these
concepts in an exciting and informative way in a fast-paced short lesson
format that allows the reader to get the most out of their video
equipment, time and effort.

In using these methods, the student is guided through all the major
steps in video production: planning, preproduction, production and
postproduction PLUS there are 11 video know-how chapters that teach the
student how to use their projects closer to broadcast quality
productions!

IN MARI'S
CORNER
By Mari Maldonado

Band performance

calls for editorial

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I'm sorry, but the Monahans Band performance Friday night definitely
deserves a spot in today's editorial page.

In my four years of traveling to football games with the Pecos High
School Band, I can't recall a single time when we marched on to another
school's field and played with our backs to the home crowd.

If a fellow band student that served in the PHS Band during the Fall of
1983 through the Fall of 1986 remembers differently, please let me know.

Don't get me wrong, the Monahans Band performed spectacularly, from what
I could tell and hear. But I think that the Pecos crowd would have
appreciated the show much more had they played to the Pecos audience.

It's not the students' faults, but when adults set that sort of example,
what sort of deductions are the kids expected to make.

Now I know that there have been some harsh feelings in the past between
the two schools; I can understand that kids will be kids...but adults
acting like juveniles? And not just adults, but school officials, who
set forth daily examples for the Monahans youth?

Now whether or not there was some sort of logical reason for them
playing to their home crowd as visitors on the Pecos field was never
known, or announced.

As the back north portion of the visiting band marched in front of the
south general admission section of the audience, Pecos youth, most
sitting there without any parental care or adult supervision, began to
boo at the Monahans band students and one went to so far as to throw ice.

That child was quickly pointed out and dismissed from the game while I
and other adult members of the crowd asked the booing youth to cease
their snide remarks and noises.

Anyhow, after I saw the band's performance, I too was opted to boo.

Mari Maldonado is an Enterprise reporter whose column appears each
Monday.
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Copyright 1996 by Pecos Enterprise
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
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