Voices of Children Update – April 2017
In January 2017, the VoC team hunkered down in Colorado, joined virtually by colleagues from Brazil and Singapore, and sifted through almost 2000 video clips. We selected about 200 clips as the starting point for the editing process and identified 11 themes that were emerging in the children’s expression of their rights – in words and action. We are currently intensively reviewing and debating the second ‘cut’ of the documentary and hope to have a third (although still not final) version for review shortly. The video will be premiered in one of the morning plenary sessions at the World Forum Foundation conference in Auckland, New Zealand in May 2017! We will also hold a workshop session at the conference and welcome all to participate.
The video will be almost entirely children’s voices and action and feature 4 different languages with subtitles from 8 diverse sites around the globe. No talking adult heads! We see the video as a provocation for dialogue about rights, listening to children, and the amazing capacity of young children – not a “teaching” tool about what adults think. Like a piece of art, we hope each person and community brings their history, culture, ideas, and questions to the video.
The process of creating a video is both exciting and heart-breaking as we realize there were so many incredible moments that just can’t make it into the final documentary. Sometimes this is because of technical issues (sound, light, etc), but also because of the coherency of the documentary itself. There are only so many stories we can tell. Each one of us has seen a favorite scene or memory get left on the editing floor.
Fortunately, we are working on a couple of different ways to share more of the video we have collected. First, we have started work on a Visual Essay Book that will include images organized around themes and stories. Second, we plan to have a website with clips organized for streaming. Finally, we envision another video project that would document the “making of” this project. Anyone know a good funder?
Our VoC team filmed in India, Singapore and Brazil in early 2016 – and most recently in November 2016 travelled to the USA and Kenya to film in 3 sites. We have also been delighted to receive both images and stories from our contributors in Scotland, New Zealand, Israel, USA, and Nepal.
The energy, ideas, and persistence of participants and contributors from these places and beyond have helped our team of volunteers to keep going since we came together in 2012. There is still much to do to get the final documentary completed – subtitles, color matching, audio work, music, credits and our May deadline is looming large! We’re delighted to be so close now to sharing our journey with the world!
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