The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Flip the lens at VSCTV summer camp
WESTBROOK — There’s a lot more to filmmaking than making a TikTok video. That’s the idea behind a new summer program, a partnership between Valley Shore Community Television Inc. [VSCTV] and Flip the Lens.
Aimed at aspiring “filmmakers and storytellers,” Flip the Lens is presenting an intensive summer camp, “Making a Difference by Making a Video,” which encourages young people to make videos of the world around them and not just turn the camera on themselves, said cofounder Meg Pier.
“The idea was, ‘Why not literally flip the lens?’” Pier said. Flip the Lens is “about slowing down, be thoughtful, engage. Don’t just post.”
The goal is to “use your digital devices as a means of observing things about people, places and things … learning about things that are unfamiliar to you,” Piers said.
A veteran communications professional, Pier will present the course along with her husband, Tom Laws, a video filmmaker and editor with more than 40 years of experience. The couple lives in Moodus.
This idea is an offshoot of Pier’s “Flip the Lens” online channel, which features “positive videos celebrating humanity and culture,” showcasing her own videos and those made by students.
Pier created the channel “because young people and a lot of people like to create content … they’ve grown up with digital devices. They’re fun to use and why not?”
She also draws inspiration from her pet project, “People our Culture.” where she produced some 250 pieces that explore the “human condition” and different cultures around the world.
The program at VSCTV aims to show students how to make professional-quality videos, using
the TV station’s pro cameras and editing equipment, and is intended for rising juniors in high school up to master’s degree candidates.
The four-week camp will take place at the station three days a week, five hours each day, where they will “get a grounding” in using the equipment from Emily Miner, public access coordinator.
Laws, who produced medical and corporate videos for Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston as a directing videographer, will lend his expertise. He also did lighting, audio work and editing there.
Participants will get coaching on story development, interview techniques and filmmaking. Some filming will be done outside the studio on an independent basis, while post production will take place there.
While working with students for FTL, Piers learned about the influence social media had on them.
“They began sharing with me, the level of anxiety that it was creating for them, causing them to continually compare themselves with other people,” she said. “That’s kind of a losing proposition.”
“And so the idea became, let’s provide a platform where people can share their content in a way that is positive and upbeat ... and sees the good in people and in life,” she said. She noted this is also very different than typical broadcast journalism.
“I worked for many years in PR with journalists and there’s an old expression … that if it bleeds, it leads,” she said. “So the idea is just to create a platform that’s fun.”
“And by inviting someone to be interviewed and asking them to share a little bit about their lives and their experiences and their point of view,” she said, “you’re being of service to that person and then by sharing out what they share with you.”
Chuck Lewis, executive director at the station, said he “fell in love with her idea.”
“Because I live by that philosophy that everyone has a story and that I used to build that,” said Lewis said.
Lewis, who taught broadcast journalism at Middlesex Community College as an adjunct faculty member and also at Haddam-Killingworth High School, full time, explained, “That was my mantra in my journalism class.”
“I personally think like if I were a kid, I mean, I am still kind of a kid, but if I were a kid, I would be all over this,” he said.
The participants will create two films: an interview with a person of their choice and a minidocumentary that looks at an aspect of local culture or history.
The 10- to 15-minute documentaries could represent “a real cross section of Connecticut local culture or Valley Shore local culture,” Pier said. “It could be rap music, it could be stone walls, it could be the ballet.”
“And then the story will unfold from there,” she added.
In the interview, the subject will be asked to “describe and set the scene where they felt like they belonged.”
“People usually can immediately think of something. ‘You know, this was a time where I really, really felt like I belonged,’” Pier said.
The next question is a little trickier. Subjects are asked to describe a situation where they felt they didn’t belong.
“That’s the one that everybody gets. … They have a very vivid memory of a time when they really felt like they didn’t belong,” Pier said. “This notion of not belonging it’s very visceral, we really feel it. And it’s happened to everybody, but everybody has their own unique experience of it.
“So it’s a short interview, but it’s very powerful,” she said.
This topic has personal meaning for Pier. “I moved around a lot as a kid I went to a lot of schools, she said. “I was always the new kid, you know, always kind of felt on the outside looking in.”
At camp’s end she hopes to have many films.
“I have a vision of having a screening and inviting members of the community and use it as a springboard to talk about belonging and community,” she said. And she hopes to share them on the Flip the Lens channel and with the Valley Shore Community TV audience, “to greater world at large. To get people thinking.”
“That this is part of being human, and we all feel it,” she said.
The program will be held three days a week between July 11— Aug. 3. Enrollment is open untilJune 9. For more information and cost, visit flipthelens.com/filmmakersummer-camp. VSCTV is located at 1587 Boston Post Road, Westbrook. For information, call, 860399-1957.