Resources/Tips From a Teacher

The following are tips from Roger Smith, 2007 Courageous Leader Award Winner and teacher at Lake Orion High School, Lake Orion, Michigan.  Roger found ways to integrate Courageous Persuaders® into his teaching program to motivate his students, without compromising the program philosophy or its goals.  As he put it, “The Courageous Persuaders® program gives my students a chance to truly apply their knowledge towards a project that has a positive, real outcome.”

• Keep your idea simple. You only have 30 seconds, so convey your idea clearly and don't try to do too much.

• If you decide to include text/graphics, make sure the graphics are easy to read. Cursive fonts are often hard to read on TV so make sure they're posted large enough for the audience to read.

• Good camera work! You don't have to be professional, but you probably don't want it to look like home video either. So, try for steady shots (use a tripod), and make sure all the action/information is within the frame. Remember that your audience can't see what's outside the viewfinder, so make sure you show everything you want them to see.

• Good sound! If someone is talking, make sure we can hear them without background noise. Don't setup a camera/mic 30-feet away from the action and still expect to have good audio. You don't need fancy microphones either. Simple solutions include moving the camera/mic closer and/or recording the audio separately and editing it in later.

• Courageous Persuaders® is about the idea and about how you convey that idea. It doesn't matter how expensive your editing equipment or cameras are.  If you feel your equipment WILL hinder you, keep in mind there are inexpensive solutions. For example, instead of buying expensive lighting kits, borrow a couple of lamps from your living room! If you don't have a way to edit on a computer, free/trial downloads are available software; something simple like Windows MovieMaker is all you need.

• Ask YOUR middle schoolers if they like your video.  Since middle schoolers are your target audience, and since you have middle schoolers in your district, ask THEM to judge your video before you submit the final version to Courageous Persuaders®.  Don't just ask them if it's good, ask them to tell YOU what's happening in the video; this will give you great insight into their perception of your scenes. For example, you might think your video conveys a party scene at a club, but the middle schoolers could say it looks like a couple of friends hanging out in someone's basement.

• Don't wait until the last minute! This tip shouldn't be a newsflash. It's common sense. If you procrastinate, you're more likely to make mistakes and to skimp on the important content. Give yourself time to get feedback and to go back and redo something.  If you decide your first version is perfect and it's still three months before the deadline, that's okay too...send it in!

• Double-check your tape/DVD before you mail or upload it. Be 100% sure your contact information is complete before you send it. It's going to be hard for the judges to evaluate your piece if it was incorrectly recorded or incomplete.

• No regrets! Don't look for excuses as to why you won't have time to make a video. Get it done. The worst that can happen is that you don't "win."  Courageous Persuaders® doesn't publish a list of videos that didn't win. They don't call out your name and tell people to boo you. In the end, you'll still have won because you had the courage to produce a message.  Even if you don't win, show it on your local public access station, put it on the web and save a copy for later.  The scholarships are great, but this contest is about so much more.