Berendo Middle School

Starting October 1st of 2010, I had the grand privilege to teach at Berendo Middle School as part of Woodcraft Ranger's after school program (under the banner of Nvision). There, I taught the Video Production Club for about three hours twice a week for about two weeks, then I was there for three days there on. Unfortunately, I had to move away, and the distance was too much so my last day with the kids was Friday, November the 19th of 2010.

The students there were amazing and full of potential. I expect great things to come in the future from them. The site coordinator, David, was a very kind and helpful guy. He did absolutely everything he could to help keep kids off the streets and join free fun/educational programs with Woodcraft. Oscar, who taught the physical education club, was an awesome friend that showed me the ropes of the school and occasionally we would share our classes and create some cool videos with the kids. The staff workers from Woodcraft were all amazing as well as those from the campus.

In the end, the kids had a great time and learned a lot from the video production club. The following are a few videos that we had done in the class.

"Making Of" Berendo Video Production Club
 This is a "Making of" Video about my video production club at Berendo Middle School. This is a product of about a month at only 2-3 days a week for only a few hours. These kids are amazing and have a bright future ahead of them!

Training Obstacle Course Video
This is a video about Middle School kids from Berendo, going through an obstacle course they made.

Zombie Out Break

 This is the longest lasting project that my students and I put together. Originally, the idea came from a type of "tag" game created by one of the students in which humans and zombies are trying to conquer over one another. Thus, they wanted to bring this game to a reality in a short film. Naturally, the students wanted a zombie infection to take over the Berendo Middle School campus. Now it was a question of how one would survive and deal with such a travesty. Refer to the "making of" video to see how the plane crash was filmed.

Berendo Middle School Video Production Club- Woodcraft Rangers "Nvision"
~Oscar, Yonel, William, Irvin, Jesse, Joseph, Aaron, Cristian, Anthony G., Roland, Jonathan, Alex, Francisco, Luis, Mr. Romero~
Additional students not on photograph: Keila, Ronaldo, Ruben, Anthony V., Ricardo 

The Commercial

Commercials have a single purpose, SELL. Very creative and clever, those involved in creating commercials must use every technique possible to get people to buy their product. Many methods apply when creating a commercial, though in the end, the goal is the same. Usually, commercials have some sort of "hook" to bring in interest in the product or idea. Next, it's about what the product does and how it is useful or worth purchasing. In this step, commercials use several different techniques to prove the worthiness of the product, by: comparing itself to other competitors, using testimonies, vague visual expressions, associations to well-known foundations, approvals, awards, polls, examples, and many others. Finally, the details of contact for the product is given at the end, via: store, ordering information, product name, etc.