I hope everyone had a safe and relaxed July 4th weekend. Aside from dinner with family, it was a low key weekend for me as I was preparing for a video production workshop that took place in the last 5 days. The workshop was organized by The Art Institute of California – Orange County as part of their Beijing Connection program, headed by Alan Burner, and I got to meet with many willing students from Kede College, Beijing.

It was a packed week full of informative and fun activities. Monday morning we met and greeted them at AI before heading to our classroom where I gave them an overview of the class and informed them of what to expect in the next 4 days. I had 20 Mandarin speaking students and we spent most of Monday afternoon to prep for the next day. Communication with students was important and thanks to my awesome interpreter, Julie, it wasn’t much of an issue.

Tuesday morning was beach day and the weather was ideal. Cloudy with no chance of meatballs…uh, rain. Two oversized buses dropped 140 students off at Huntington Beach and the day began. Scot A. Trodick, one of my colleagues, had set up 2 big red umbrellas and a couple of blankets at the bottom of the pier as a main station. Once the students laid down their belongings, they dispersed to their respective class and instructor. After a quick powwow with my students, I released them to do what they were here to do. Within seconds, selfie sticks were coming out in full swing. For 2 hours straight, they totally forgot they were here to shoot footage for their video project. Fortunately, once they got the beach and selfie part out of the way, they were ready to work. A few of my students took it quite seriously and were willing to give up shopping on Main Street to complete their filming. We head back to AI around 3pm and students spent the rest of the afternoon offloading and viewing footage on their computers.

We spent all day Wednesday to edit the footage using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015. Their task was to complete a 3-5 minute video using their cellphones to tell a story involving a skimboard. By the end of Wednesday, each group completed their first cut in which I broke down what they did great and what they needed to improve. Two groups realized they didn’t shoot enough footage and though reluctant at first, they collectively agreed they needed to shoot more footage that night.

Thursday was another full day of editing and revising the cuts and by the end of the day, they were all very confident and had the final cuts ready. I backed up their projects and congratulated their effort before they headed to their buses.

Friday morning was a light day. I showcased the final cut of each group to the entire class and asked everyone to provide their peer to peer feedback. Some gratuitously accepted the constructive criticism and some respectably disagreed. All in all, I am very proud of my students. They came here to learn and they did it with a great attitude. That afternoon, they headed to South Coast Plaza to shop and came back to AI in the evening to join the school and all instructors in a warmth and festive closing ceremony. After many hugs, handshakes, and selfies together, I waved goodbye to my students as they headed to their buses for the last time before returning to China.

One day and I already know I’m going to miss them. I will miss their laughters when I told them not to forget to thank me when they are on stage receiving their first Oscar. I will miss their complaints for not having enough skimboard for each group forcing them to wait for their turn to play. I will miss their dazed eyes when I told them they have Vertical Video Syndrome. And above all, I will miss their aptitude for learning. I hope the class kickstarted their creativity and they continue on the path to become great storytellers. And that one day we will meet again. Guess it’s time to take a second look at WeChat…