Girl Scouts: Awesome job!

Hi everyone!

What a great meeting.  I know Officer Vlaj was impressed by the girl's professionalism and the results will definitely be amazing, so here's the recap:

We started off running, dividing up quickly into several groups:

Set design,(Evie and Katie)

Camerawork (Quinn)

Interview prep (Colette and Carrie)

Direction (Eva and Teagan)

Cue Cards (Ellen and Eirlan)

The girls got right to work, and super fast they were ready with a nice set, cue cards, excellent camera placement, and a well prepped interviewee and interviewers.  

Once we were ready we taped the interview with Officer Vlaj, and did a pretty good take on the first try (nice!)   Since there was still some light, the girls also got some establishing shots of Officer Vlaj and his squad car to use in framing the interview segment or segments.

I'll get the raw footage of the interview up on Youtube tomorrow, so the girls can figure out edit points on the timeline and you can see how it looks uncut and unedited.

After we were done taping, we reviewed our footage, and did a late warm up activity that will carry through the week. Every girl randomly picked a stone with a word on it (Hope, Dream, Imagine, Strength, or Courage) and shared a personal story that connected them to that word.  Their job for next week is to hold onto that stone, bring it back, and have a new experience connecting them to their word to share with the group next Wednesday.  

(Somewhere in there we also had cuties for a snack.)

I told the girls that I'd forward the list of scenes yet to be filmed, so they could pick what we want to do next week, so here it is:

Take a look at the scenes and mini-scenes left to tape, and see if there are one or two that we should try to tackle next week.  I've bolded ones we probably can't do on a 6 day turnaround, so ignore 2, 3, 5. Also the first "Do's and Don'ts mini scene is half done already, so finishing it might be a good choice. (4 was the "interview a police officer" segment, and that's wrapped up, not counting editing.)

Here are the scenes:

1)  Montage including important statistics, such as how many kids walk to school, how many drivers don't obey stop signs, how many drivers don't yield the right of way to pedestrians at marked and unmarked crosswalks, pedestrian injuries/accidents/fatalities/etc., ages of people involved in pedestrian incidents, how many pedestrians generally use the sidewalks and street crossings in Greendale, etc.

2)  Interview Health Department, School, or Civil Engineering professionals or other government agent/agencies from Greendale or Milwaukee County

3)  Interview the family of the girl with the memorial statue in downtown Greendale (if possible.)

5)  Interview a person who was involved in a vehicle/pedestrian accident

6)  "Do's and Don'ts" of pedestrian/driver safety

Mini Scene 1)  Script a scene re: "Look both ways before crossing the street." (Kendra P.)

Mini Scene 2)  Script a scene re:  "Pedestrians have the right of way/cars need to stop if there's a person ready to cross." (Colette B.)

Mini Scene 3)  Script a scene re:    "Cross at crosswalks" (Katie B.)

Mini Scene 4)  Script a scene re: "Follow speed limits" (Quinn S.)

Mini Scene 5)  Keep control of young children at crossings (Eirlan A.)

7)  Monitoring a popular street crossing and tape/record cars stopping for pedestrians/not stopping for pedestrians.

8)  Interview a crossing guard

9)  Recap of pedestrian laws in WI/Greendale (Where do pedestrians have the right of way? What are drivers' oblgations? What are pedestrian obligations?)

10)  Follow a kid's walk to school with a focus on street crossings and safety.

11)  Blooper reel!

Aleks