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EVC: A Mission and a Methodology | ||
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Case study on EVC
By Ellen Wahl Ten people are squeezed into a small room in a high school on New York City’s Lower East Side. The six crew members from Youth Organizers TV (YO-TV) are working on two Media 100 digital editing systems, getting their rough-cut videos ready to show their clients from the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Computer crashes are frustrating the crew’s efforts on their documentary about sweat shops and why young people should care about them, but the video about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its efforts to gain redress for survivors of torture is coming along well. “This is like the seed from which it’s growing,” says nineteen-year-old Sam, one of the producers. “We still have some cutaways we want to shoot. We want more youth voices in it—we have a youth poet who wrote a piece around the ICC and torture survivors.” This is the second look for the clients, (full names needed) Bruni and Andrea, who had been concerned about some of the earlier directions the tape was taking. The nine-minute video is dominated by interviews with two survivors of Pinochet’s regime in Chile. Their stories are interspersed with dramatic chants and poems performed by the YO-TV producers and with interviews with advocates for the ICC and experts on human-rights violations and the regimes that perpetrate them. “It’s so different from the earlier version you showed us,” comments Bruni after several minutes of silence following the showing. “It’s gripping. Cutting back and forth between the man and the woman really works. I like that you see them before the experts. I like the way you’re using the photos—they’re in context.” Andrea adds his (her?) assessment: “It’s hard to take on this topic, especially in a short piece. It’s very clear. There’s a starkness to it. And I like the color backgrounds behind the man and the woman.” Sam gives credit for the changes to the clients: “We wouldn’t have come up with the colors if you hadn’t told us to get rid of the horrible stills of the holocaust survivors.”
YO-TV is one of the core programs of the Educational Video Center (EVC), a New York City-based media-arts
center that has been teaching social documentary production and media analysis to youth, educators, and
community organizers since 1984. In addition to YO-TV, EVC offers three other programs: Community Organizers
TV (CO-TV)—a workshop for adults who want to use the media to advocate for change essential to their
communities’ development and well-being; Teacher Development—summer institutes and in-school
consultation for public school teachers who want to incorporate video production and media analysis into their
classes; and the Documentary (Doc) Workshop—a twelve-hour-per-week, twenty-week, credit-bearing
course for high school students throughout New York City.
Over the past fifteen years, EVC students have produced more than seventy-five documentaries on issues
such as race relations, the HIV crisis, environmental pollution, and inequalities in education. Bill Tally, an
education researcher and longtime advisor from the Center for Children and Technology,
explains that “the documentaries rarely portray fully resolved issues, and nearly always
reflect the ambivalence that young people have in their lives.”
What makes EVC programs work is not just what they do, but why and how they do it—the mission
and method of our title. The organization’s melding of media arts, progressive education, and
community action can be glimpsed in the opening vignette, which reveals some of the critical elements
of the program: youth in professional and leadership roles; a process of continual reflection, exposure,
and critique; and a high level of technical skill. The quest for depth and rigor is a constant, and every step
in the EVC process presses participants to question, rethink, and reframe on the basis of newly acquired
information and insight.
Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the New York Community Trust Van
Lier Fund, YO-TV is designed as an advanced program for youth who have graduated from EVC’s
high-school workshop and want to pursue a career in the media arts. Each YO-TV team collaborates with
a professional media or cultural client to produce a documentary. Past YO-TV projects include programs
for Bill Moyers’s PBS series “Listening to America,” for the Whitney Museum of American
Art biennial exhibition, for the ITVS series “Signal to Noise,” and for the Brooklyn Museum of Art
exhibition “Hip Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes and Rage.”
The uncommon depth and rigor that permeate YO-TV are built into the program’s structure: six
youth participants supervised by a professional producer/teacher work over a ten-month period to
produce a documentary of high quality for a client institution and for public audiences. As an intensive
school-to-career-type paid internship, it is part school and part work. Throughout the program, a dual focus
is maintained on the process of the students’ skill development, learning, and work habits, and on
the quality of the product they create. While its purpose is to give these emerging youth producers a head
start in their careers, the program is more an intellectual and artistic apprenticeship than a technical one.
Mission
Underlying this carefully conceived process is a mission dedicated to the “creative use of video and
multi-media as a means to develop the artistic, intellectual, and social capacities of at-risk youth.”
Like most everything else in the program, the mission is a subject to be dissected, analyzed, and reconstructed.
In the YO-TV guide, written by students for students, the young people express it this way:
. . . Video is a powerful medium. It can be used for change. That power is not limited to a few. Whether
you’re young, old, African American, white, Latin, or Asian you all have the ability to create video.
We believe that when you pick up a camera you are arming yourself. Think of video as a weapon that
can do a lot of good instead of harm. Video can be a good way to express yourself, to entertain, to educate
or to motivate others to change. Video can give you the potential to bring people together, to make people
understand one another, or to kill whatever silence hovers over any issue(s) you are interested in.”
Method
The EVC method is a sequential but iterative process. The activities of video production follow in order,
but the habits of mind that students acquire along the way are all directed toward reflection and revision
based on new knowledge and on the experience of adding new lenses through which to view their subjects.
Young people work in groups that become the video crew. They rotate through the major project roles so
that everyone gets to be writer, cameraperson, editor, and director on at least one shoot. Adults guide the
process but are also participants. The method looks something like this:
Introducing the idea of media literacy. Students read and watch traditional news reporting and
documentary work and then analyze point of view, message, intent, audience, and the strategies the
works’ creators have used for getting their subject across. As the YO-TV guide explains to its audience:
One of the things TV does is to give us a pre-packaged version of the world from someone else’s
point of view. Lots of people make decisions that affect the version of reality that ends up on TV, including
reporters, camera operators, editors, producers, scriptwriters, business executives, and commercial
sponsors. One way of looking at TV is as a way to communicate, kind of like the telephone. It’s like a
few people (producers, networks, corporations) on one end of the line doing all the talking (through the programs)
while most people are on the other end of the line doing all the listening (that is, watching the programs).
Defining the problem and developing a statement of mission. Agreeing on the focus for the topic means
figuring out what’s wrong and why it needs to be changed. A statement of mission emerges from this
process, posted in the crew’s meeting room. The problem will be refined during the research and production stages.
Conducting research and gathering raw data. Once students define the problem they will address,
they draft questions and embark on a period of serious research with traditional source material from
libraries and newspapers. They use the Internet to gain access to additional news sources from across
the country and around the world and to primary source materials of historical value, such as those found
on the Library of Congress Web site. After analyzing the information they have collected, they ask themselves
how it changes the initial questions they have drafted.
The students then generate a list of people who can inform them further about their issue. They receive
training from adult staff on how to use the telephone to make contacts, interview sources, and make appointments
to conduct interviews in person. In preparing the International Criminal Court video, for example, YO-TV producers
interviewed ICC representatives and attended their planning meetings at the United Nations. They also consulted
with Teachers College faculty and students involved in developing a curriculum on human rights, and met with
experts and representatives from a variety of human-rights groups.
Students take video cameras out into the community to film and interview, gathering reams of raw footage.
They bring it back to the center, look at it, and log it. They then review the footage and ask one another,
“How does that change what she said?” or “How does that fit with what we thought?”
Creating an editing plan and doing the editing. Young people then develop the structure for the documentary—
the narration, the main piece, the images, the audio, the sequence. It’s a big job, and the refinement and
changes continue until the final version is ready. Then comes the editing itself, a part of the process that the
YO-TV guide writers describe as arduous and essential:
Editing can sometimes be a long and dragged out process. You and your group have to agree upon every
choice that is made about the tape. So don’t get frustrated when it takes thirty minutes to make one edit.
At this point, the young people write the narration and tape each other on screen (the students usually appear
in these documentaries). Because they are in front of the camera, they must work on self-presentation, reading,
and projecting. Some are naturals at it, and some need a lot of support and training.
Showing the work in progress to critical friends. Screenings are arranged as soon as the video has
begun to take shape. The earliest viewings are usually with those who know the program or subject well or,
in the case of YO-TV, with the clients. The program has multiple strategies for helping young people to elicit
feedback, to take a dispassionate view of the input, and to use it to make their work better. The YO-TV guide advises:
After a while, when you have been in the editing room days upon weeks, it’s hard to be critical about
your work. You and your group will become burnt out. This is a good time to show what you have been working
on to someone outside of the group. It is important to show a rough edit of your video to an audience because
they can be objective and give important feedback. They can tell you what they like and dislike and what works
and what doesn’t. Do not get discouraged if they are not thrilled about your work. Listening to other
people’s suggestions is how to learn to improve your own work.
The rough-cut screenings are public occasions to which members of the target audience, as well as those
who have been involved in the shaping and research, are invited. In the screening of the ICC tape at the
Human Rights Watch conference room, twenty-five people gathered. They were asked by YO-TV director
Torrance York to take a sheet of paper and, on the left side, to write down the parts they liked—the questions,
statements, images, edits they considered to be informative and strong. On the right side, they were to note
the places that were unclear, inaccurate, inappropriate, or in need of cutting or changing in some way, and
to suggest how these portions might be improved. Sam and Cesar, the YO-TV producers, then told the
audience about the parts they thought needed work, about the footage they were still planning to include,
and about the need for more youth voices. And they wanted to know if the audience liked the music.
The audience watched in rapt attention, jotting notes throughout. York then asked for the right-side
comments—the critical ones—first. “We really want to know,” she said. Responses ranged
from setting the historical context more effectively and clarifying how the idea of international responsibility
for bringing violators of human rights to justice gained credence (“You talk about the idea starting in the
nineteenth century, but then you fast forward to Nuremberg—it was confusing”); to explaining more
about why the United States opposes the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
establishment of an international criminal court (“Most high school students, who are one main
audiences for this tape, will not know that Allende was toppled by Pinochet or that the U.S. played a role
in that”); to presenting graphics explaining the numbers of people who were arrested, disappeared,
or victimized by torture “in the most murderous century” and images of the dictators “who
got away with it—Idi Amin, Pol Pot.” Suggestions flowed freely, contacts were shared, and ideas
were weighed, even though production deadlines were recognized as putting limits on some of the
suggestions. The critiques were offered in the context of glowing “left-side” comments
that confirmed this was “an amazing piece of work.”
Rough-cut screenings are an outpouring of the reactions of others. The challenge for the producers
is to find ways to pull themselves back to their own sense of mission and purpose, to ask what they really
think needs to be changed and what should be retained. And so this public moment of sharing the work
provokes another round of “private” thinking and reflection as the product moves to the
next stage of refinement.
Final screening and dissemination. The ICC tape was shown in June to a packed house at the
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. The YO-TV producers proudly mounted the stage
to field questions from the audience along with the professional documentary producers whose
works were also screened.
This was not the end of the process. Staff and students then began preparing teachers’ guides
to accompany the tape in its distribution to high schools and programs, where it would join a roster
of powerful products available for schools, community organizations, advocacy groups, and mainstream
media outlets. Often following a final screening, the young people will take the tapes and screen them
at such places as the local library or housing project, where they preside over a discussion of the tape
with yet another audience. Online technologies make it possible to continue these conversations.
Again, the production is not the end point, but a moment for making meaning.
Lessons from the EVC Experience
A number of themes emerge from the EVC experience that may be useful for others considering
similar efforts. Among the critical elements of the EVC mission and method are:
A clear philosophy about learning, teaching, and activism. EVC has a deeply considered
pedagogy. Allusions to and connections with the thinkers and artists whose work inspires EVC
efforts are frequent and explicit. Paolo Freire, Maxine Greene, and John Dewey express the intertwined
components of EVC’s approach: commitment to social transformation through a literacy of
awareness and action, nurturing of creativity and imagination, and an approach to inquiry in which
knowledge is constructed through experience and meaning made clear through reflection. While
others need not subscribe to EVC’s particular brand of pedagogy, what is important to retain is
that the key actors have strongly held beliefs about the why and the how of their endeavor and clarity
about the way they think learning occurs, about how art and media are created, and about what
young people most need. The following principles and practices EVC has codified help translate their
philosophy into the method we have described above:
An equivalent emphasis on product. This is not a program where the experience of doing the
work is sufficient. Product quality is as important as learning to cooperate and collaborate
successfully, absorbing appropriate research and interviewing techniques, and acquiring
the requisite technical skills. The notion that products stand on their own, without explanation,
is an understanding that students get from their immersion in arts and media-literacy training,
from the standards to which adults hold them and to which they hold one another, and from
the public screenings and continuous critique they are accustomed to expect as part of their creative work.
Adults who support, guide, and collaborate with young people. The roles of adults constantly
shift throughout the students’ documentary production process. “In some instances
we were in the position of the teacher or group leader, at other times we were part of the group
as co-workers. And sometimes we were silent observers,” Goodman notes.# Finding the
balance between youth leadership and adult guidance is rarely easy. Few teachers and youth-program
leaders are comfortable or practiced with sharing power and decision making with young people, and
even those who are may have a tough time with these moveable roles.
It is not just the program staff but the adults in partner institutions who must be able to work well with
young people. They need to give the YO-TV producers feedback in an honest, respectful, and
supportive way. They need to be open to the creative and possibly unconventional directions
in which the crew might move. And they must be aware that the young people may not yet be
fully mature in their habits of work. Bruni and Andrea from Human Rights Watch International
understood this well; they capitalized on the crew’s perspective and aesthetic, appreciated
that they were young people very much in the process of “becoming,” and demanded
the best from them.
Key Challenges
The benefits to the young people engaged in this program are abundant. Yet, for individuals and organizations
interested in establishing a program like YO-TV, the challenges are also plentiful. Goodman characterizes
them as follows:
Garnering institutional support. EVC is both an independent entity and a program that relies on
other institutions for everything from an equipped program location to ongoing operational support.
Productive partnerships with schools, other educational organizations, and cultural, media, and arts
groups are essential but require continuous effort.
Finding and retaining staff “who are committed, skilled, and able to survive on the salary levels you can provide.”
The intensity of the program can lead to staff burnout, so strategies are required to rejuvenate staff and
feed their intellectual curiosity and artistic needs. One approach that EVC has developed is the idea of a
study group, where all staff meet on a bi-weekly basis to discuss, read, and view tapes. This is a collaborative
way for the staff to support and mentor one another as they continue to learn more about the art of teaching the media arts.
Locating public venues for the use of the work. Youth need to know that there will be audiences for
their products, that their work is appreciated, and that there will be other places for them to continue their
video work beyond this one location.
Staying abreast of the technology changes and keeping the program current. With the digital revolution,
it is important that young people have access to new tools. The challenge, however, is to keep the process
of rigor and reflection paramount--not to be consumed by the allure of the new technologies.
Keeping the youth crew engaged in light of their adolescent life issues. Family and financial problems
have traditionally competed for the time and attention of YO-TV members. The attractiveness of higher-paying
work and recruiting by the military has drawn talented youth out of the program. Since YO-TV is only a
fifteen-hour-per-week commitment, the youth often will get other part time jobs. Then, when the crunch
time of editing arrives as the deadline nears, the demands of the YO-TV project come into conflict with the
demands of the other job or, in some cases, college classes.
Keeping the youth crew motivated to persevere through the intensive process of revision and meeting higher standards.
YO-TV is almost always the crew members’ first experience working on a long-term project. It is also the most
demanding. Because the documentaries are made for a client organization and will be screened for public
audiences, the program requires much more revision than have previous experiences, either at EVC or in school.
Finding work for YO-TV graduates appropriate to their interest, skill level, and financial needs. The participants’
extensive hands-on experience with broadcast-quality equipment creates the expectation they will continue at that level
after leaving YO-TV. But most entry-level work situations first require young staff to “put in their time” at
clerical or PA positions before graduating to audio, camera, or digital editing work.
Figuring out ways to evaluate the program’s progress and outcomes. Although EVC is constantly
reflecting on its efforts and uses portfolio assessment to help examine student progress, the challenge of evaluation
has grown over the years as the program has matured. To examine effects on students, their communities, educational
practice, and on mainstream and alternative media requires a systematic approach to evaluation that demands
resources in time and money—scarce commodities in a program such as EVC’s. Yet staff members agree
that it is essential to learn more about what’s working and why, and to gather empirical evidence about the
degree to which the program is making a difference in the lives of young people and their communities.
Developing relationships with funders who understand the value of the work and respect that it needs to be
supported over the long term. Funding is a constant challenge, especially when the demand is for new
models, new components, or expansion and replication rather than for sustenance and deepening of the experience.
Connecting to the education reform and youth development fields. EVC crosses disciplines, combines formal
and informal education, and doesn’t fall neatly into any given programmatic or educational category. It is
important to participate in the arenas that shape young people’s experience and opportunity,
yet it is a challenge to be part of those multiple conversations, to draw upon the knowledge, and to
feed back what is being learned. Keeping up with trends in the education and youth fields, though
demanding, also can be helpful in securing resources and crafting program rationales.
Mission Accomplished
Programs are dynamic creatures, and good ones arise from an acute understanding of the times, an
analysis of needs, and commitment to a cause. As Goodman first remarked when asked why he had started
EVC: “You don’t necessarily start something with a full blown idea of what it’s going to be
fifteen years later.” What he had known, however, was that he was very drawn to community documentary
production and to working with young people:
I found it really gratifying and inspiring and rewarding. And there was a need for it. At that time, in the
early 1980s, there were not as many media programs in schools and as many community youth video projects as
there are now. I saw the response from kids who were disaffected or alienated in other ways, how they became
very engaged. So, over the years, I have pursued it and tried to develop and cultivate it. This work has
always presented me with new creative possibilities, and so it’s never stopped being interesting and challenging.
Ellen Wahl is Director of Youth and Family Programs and Community Outreach at the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Sources: Educational Video Center, YO-TV Production Handbook: A Guide to Video by Students for Students , New York: 1994,
Educational Video Center, Video and Learning, Winter/Spring 1998,
Steve Goodman, “Talking Back: The Portrait of a Student Documentary on School Inequity,” in F. Pignatelli and
S. W. Pflaum, Experiencing Diversity: Toward Educational Equity, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 1994 |