Tiktok Challenge

So here're some of the examples from TikTik.  We'll seeing if we can make some of this in the workshop.

The jokes

The bison joke: https://vm.tiktok.com/xDXTNC/
Two birds: https://vm.tiktok.com/xDhBhx/

Collective challenge

Eg. https://vm.tiktok.com/xkGxgM/

Eg: https://vm.tiktok.com/xknWMW/

Variations:  https://vm.tiktok.com/xknWMW/

Individual challenge

Someone like you... 

Eg:  https://vm.tiktok.com/xr748Y/

Eg: https://vm.tiktok.com/xhNPQN/

Eg: https://vm.tiktok.com/xD5BKL/

Variations:  https://vm.tiktok.com/xh626b/

Walk on challenge

Eg: https://www.tiktok.com/@djbravo47/video/6766440692777536770
Eg : https://vm.tiktok.com/xrmkty/

Eg : https://vm.tiktok.com/xrUQJ7/

Variations: https://vm.tiktok.com/xhN5Gp/

Hands Challenge

Eg: https://vm.tiktok.com/xhFcME/

Variations: https://vm.tiktok.com/xrn2WQ/

Tutorial: https://vm.tiktok.com/xrxwpK/

Ever been in the back of a cop car

Variations https://vm.tiktok.com/xk3rKT/

Ready..Steady...

Almost there now.  There're still things to line up and the running order to check, but we're in the workshop space now with a couple of hours until everyone's here.  The last few days has been full of preparation.  Talking through sessions, trying things out and seeing if the kit works.  There's also the small matter of jet lag and Gusztav waking up at 4.30am, ready for dinner.  It's just as important to prepare ourselves and get in the right frame of mind for doing workshops.

My preparation started last week with a three day stopover in Hong Kong and a day at the spa while I waited for my friend to come home from work and let me in.  That and the extra time here last week for a conference has taken the edge of the jetlag and given me some space away from work to sort things out and potter a bit. 
This morning the game was a bit of stretching and meditation, breakfast and coffee, and then walking over to Yourtown with all the kit.  We're setting up the tables, making sure the projectors and the wifi works and so on.  I've just remembered that I need to link the ipads up to Box so we can share media easily.  It's quite calming, and soon it'll be time to talk through the schedule one more time, and then print it out, and that's what we're doing.

Pre-workshop Meeting Media

We're holding a pre-workshop meeting online today, and one of the things I want to sound out is what people are particularly interested in getting experience of.  Everyone will get a chance to experience a taste of everything, but in terms of making media, we're going to split participants into 2 groups.  One focusing on participatory video (PV), and one on digital storytelling.  It's going to have to be a negotiation, because we need the groups to be balanced in terms of numbers and capacity.  To give an idea of the choices involved, here's a selection of examples of different kinds of films.

Araby Youth Matters:  Student Project Video Documentation.
Omid's story Digital Story about an asylum seeker in Sweden.
Saada's story - Digital story about an immigrant in Sweden.
Social Innovation - Short film made in 20 minutes in a PV workshop.
We are Teachers: PV project film in Malawi, short excerpt.  Took 3 weeks to do.
Sumeg behind the scenes - Video documentation about a PV pilot project.

Social Media and the Tik-Tok Film School

One the really interesting impacts of social media is how it's changing us as an audience.  YouTube now has an incredible 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, which doesn't even count what goes on other platforms (Facebook, Vimeo and so on).  This has worked as a distribution channel for media in shapes that we're used to: drama, comedy, news, documentaries, music videos and so on, but it has also created new genres and reshaped what we perceive as acceptable.

Like what Chris?  Well, like jump cuts. When two successive clips have the same camera angle and shot, we usually see a sudden transition.  In traditional video editing,  jump cuts are usually avoided by switching camera angles and covering the transitions with other images - known as cutaways.  Vlogging, on the other hand has embraced jump cuts, and it's become much more normal, building an audience tolerance and even expectation for something that used to be quite weird because we hardly ever saw it.

About a year ago I signed up to new social media platform Tik Tok, after deciding it was time to explore something new.   I missed out on Vine, which also focused on short form videos, so it's been a real education.  Tik Tok films are generally around 10 seconds or so, and can be shot and edited directly from the mobile app.  There're a bunch of filters and special effects, and a host of existing audio tracks - earlier versions platform focused on lip syncing.  The result is kind of nuts, and with plenty of song and dance and a bunch of memes that spread really easily because one the things that people on the platform do is make their own versions of each others films, as well as a really nice response feature which shows the original and a response together side by side.It's literally a young platform as most users are teenagers - though that's changing fast and there're definitely more adults visible than a year ago.   Like any social media, there's content that makes me uncomfortable, but in general I like the spirit.  There's a nice mix of popular stars and total beginners, with work ranging from totally professional to first tries. 

All of which makes it a really good site to look at lots of films in a short time, and see how different film elements (action, photos, text, soundtrack etc) are used to tell stories and show off talents.  It's like a very high speed film school. Here's a small selection from my favourite's list:

Memes

Door banging 1

Door banging 2

Jokes

Tuna sandwich
Every girl's purse

Dances

Danca

You can really dance

Advocacy

Dying earth

How to make..

Play soccer with your phone

Gravity is working

Using text on screen

Cutest person in the world

Soccer girls

Pianists and racists

Beautiful person detector

As for anything else, there's a bunch of YouTube videos that demonstrate how to do particular things.  For example this tutorial on how to add text when making a Tik Tok video.