Liverpool - Refill Workshop 3

Workshop 3 gave us an opportunity to introduce some new camera skills to the kids and also start our interactive multimedia/drama exercises. It was good to see the kids take over the exercise and really get into it, I spent most of the last 30 mins of the workshop trying to contain my laughter.

We tried out a few new games with the kids, zip game, bodyguard, then wink death which the kids were getting into, constantly trying to outsmart us and each other. Things got fun when we turned wink death into a media event, interviewing the dead people on the floor, the murderer, the survivors. This was demoed by us (Shakthi with his microphone, myself leaping around with the camera, Aimee conducting the madness) and made it an easy transition for the kids to conduct their own “media event” at the end of the workshop.

The gibberish interviews game was fun, but it was the “Train tick game” that took off. Three groups performed for the class, each with strange and hilarious ticks. All the kids got quite creative trying to outdo each other. At the end, the last group to perform were arrested and individually interviewed by their peers in a “media circus” where they asked their own questions of the demented commuters, filmed them, took photos, provoked them. The hilarious results are all on video, I can’t wait to see it.

Although not everything worked, by the end I felt like we’d made a lot of headway with the group. There were some great performances, and students who would normally be too shy to participate were actively conducting interviews and being excited about using the cameras and getting in on the madness.

This will most likely be the last drama and basic media skills workshop for a while, as we plan to focus on “tech” for the next 2 weeks, starting this Friday! Should be interesting.

The Miller Tech boys pose after one of the theatre games