WHo: Tom frencH’s sevenTH-grAde clAss
WHAT: public service videos
WHy: To rAise AWAreness of cyber-bullying And encourAge recycling
Just as passionate video pros like Travis
Mathews (see p30) use Mac gear
to produce video pieces that help bring
about positive change, Tom French and his
seventh-grade English students at J. William
Leary Junior High in Massena, New York,
are helping spread the word about issues
such as cyber-bullying and the importance
of recycling via public-service ads that
the kids write and act in. French filmed
the commercials with a high-definition
good idea—we had two or three—and we
had to choose two.”
Kormanyos, whose aim is to help the
teenage students a JW Leary deal with a
range of social and emotional issues, says
that she’s all for finding a way to do it that
speaks to the kids using video, a medium
they’re familiar with. “If we can find a way
to get through to them by using technology,
having them understand certain things
happening in their teenage world, that’s the
acting—and seeing herself on TV wasn’t
bad, either. “It made me feel accomplished
knowing I actually did it; the word was out
now, warning people and trying to stop
[cyber-bullying],” she says.
Besides spreading the word that “
cyber-bullying can hurt anyone, not just the person
being bullied,” says 13-year-old Stephen
David, participating in the PSA project
gave the students a newfound awareness
of the process of writing and filming TV
Zachary Fregoe as the bully.
Stephen David pulls the plug.
French and his students film the cyber-bullying PSA. French says he wishes the students used Macs, but the school’s computer lab is PC-only.
video camera he purchased last year using
grant money and edited them on a Mac Pro
obtained with the same funding. Though he
does most of his editing in iMovie, French
says, he plans to step up to Final Cut Pro
soon and has dabbled in Final Cut Express.
French and his students have entered a
variety of video-production contests aimed
at schoolkids, and the PSA they produced
last year has been aired on Massena’s local
Fox News and CBS affiliates.
“I was shocked at how quickly they came
up with really good ideas,” French says.
“When school counselor Julie Kormanyos
and I were talking about it, we knew it would
be a lot of work, but we said, if we come up
with one good idea we’ll run with it, and if we
don’t come up with anything that’s do-able,
we won’t do anything. We had more than one
555*) M|L FEB•09 www.maclife.com
way we want to do it—through technology.”
For their part, three of French’s former
students who worked on the cyber-bullying PSA in 2007, say they enjoyed
the experience, even if they weren’t in the
spotlight.
Michael Stenlake 13, who’s in eighth-grade this year, says that his role as an
on-camera extra was more than just a seat-warmer. Since the class came up with their
commercial story line concepts in small
groups, they couldn’t really sit by and let
their classmates do all the work. “It was kind
of easy and kind of hard at the same time,”
Stenlake remembers. “It was hard to think
of something like, out of nothing, but once
we got an idea it was easy to put it together
because we were all working together.”
Sarah Tyo, also 13, says she loved the
commercials. David’s least favorite aspect of
the project was, he says, “having to do the
same scene over and over again.”
“They had lots of takes,” says Kormanyos.
For his part, French says a Mac lab with seven
computers and a widescreen display attached
to the Mac is all he needs to continue doing
these projects. Kormanyos and French
are already scouting other topics to cover
in 2009. They’re thinking of starting with
bullying—the old-school, non-Internet-based
kind (think stolen lunch money). French has a
keen sense of the influence of technology in
his students’ lives, especially compared to a
decade ago.
Back then, he says, “I felt I was ahead of
the kids in terms of the technology curve,
but as I’ve gotten older, I can definitely tell
they’re probably ahead of me.”
