Students will learn film-making for the next few months with BCMD.
This year, 46 students from Motithang Higher Secondary School are attending multimedia training in Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy (BCMD) Media Lab at Nazhoen Pelri Complex in Thimphu every Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
BCMD trained another batch of students from the same school last year, who produced a number of short documentaries on the subject of their choice. Similar training on multimedia has been undertaken since it has enabled students to learn skills usually unavailable in a school curriculum. Students who came upon the recommendation from their seniors said that they found the learning environment in the training completely different from the classroom teaching.
“Our seniors told us that the media classes here would be different but I didn’t believe it. When I came to the classes it really was different. There was more interaction among ourselves and had more practical sessions which kept me engaged all the time. I hope other schools take the opportunity too,” a class XI arts student from Motithang Higher Secondary School, Rinzin Dorji said.
During the training spanning at least for a few months, students are taught storyboard, script writing, photography, interview, research, and editing, among others. At the end of the training, students will produce a short film while working in a group. As part of their introduction to the training, students were introduced to the Filmmakers Without Borders’ (FWB) curriculum. The volunteer from FWB Jade Donaldson taught the students — different types of animation.
Following their introduction to FWB, students are in the process of making a flipbook. The students also had a discussion on what they know about Democracy and what it meant to be an active citizen. One of the students said, “taking care of public properties is how I can contribute to the nation and be an active citizen”.