When this commercial came out during the Super Bowl earlier this year, it was a hit. Betty White was making a major comeback at the time–about a month after this ad release, over 480,000 Facebook fans campaigned for her to host “Saturday Night Live,” and they won. And the ad is funny, largely because it puts an older woman in the unlikely situation of trash-talking with the boys in the mud during a football game. However, it does rely on a few assumptions, like that women don’t play football and prefer to sit on the sidelines, like the sage and Snickered girlfriend of the real man behind the Betty White persona. And while a senior falling in mud might be funny in the eyes of a younger audience, the students are wise to do a reality check and point out that in real life, it’s not funny at all–in fact, it’s rather cheap humor. Plus, the choice to have Betty White in the commercial doesn’t revolve solely around the fact that she’s the famous Betty White; the older man at the end of the commercial adds no celebrity to the message but continues the joke about old people.

Laugh all you want at this commercial, but remember that it’s just that–a media construction trying to get you to associate Snickers with fun and energy. It’s not a guide for how people should be treated, or a representation of real life.

For more videos challenging stereotypes in media, check out our full LAMPlatoon library and follow LAMPlatoon on Twitter to find out when new videos are posted. You can also send us an email for more information about how to make and submit your own LAMPlatoon video.

LAMPcamp facilitator Lorenzo Tijerina

The LAMPers were excited to screen their commercials in the morning. It was great to see them enthusiastic and proud about their work. Furthermore, they have every reason to be proud. This batch of commercials was, I would say, the highest quality first-time work I’ve seen among LAMPcampers.

For one commercial, Kristen’s group created a product called a “Bag Buddy,” which is basically a backpack with a paper cut-out of an animal taped to it. They worked out dance routines and a song to go with the commercial–which turned out to be hilariously creepy. They shot on different locations, including a playground, to better highlight how a Bag Buddy could be a child’s best friend, while also showing that the child would have real friends by having the latest coolest thing.

My group did some wonderful editing work, and used both action and humor to sell their product, “Gatorage.”

Julianna and Olivia’s group did an amazing job creating an infomercial for their “iPlunger.” The infomercial has so much going on it that it simply needs to be seen.

After discussing the commercials, and the techniques the commercials used to sell products, we fell into a discussion about texting, cyber-stalking and actual stalking. I was surprised to learn that many of the teens felt the new problems that come with a cell phone almost make them not worth the trouble. We discussed flame wars and drama caused by Facebook. It was an informative discussion.

We broke up again into three groups and set out to break commercials, like in LAMPlatoon. Olivia and Julianna’s group was able to break two commercials. My group actually had the innovative idea to use footage from their own commercial to break the Larry Bird vs Michael Jordan commercial. The results were very funny and really brought their point across.

Everyone is once again excited to watch their work.

The broken commercials will be posted here, so watch this space and follow us on Twitter for the latest updates!

Jules Beesley

One of your earliest and most-recognized projects is Radio Free Steve, an independent sci-fi comedy which you wrote, directed and co-produced in 2000 about the FCC taking over the United States after World War III. How did you come to be involved in the movie, and what drew you to working on it?
The star of the film and hometown friend, Ryan Junell, and I were excited by the possibility of shooting a low-budget guerrilla feature on the road from Austin to LA (via Marfa and Burning Man) with the freedom afforded by the inexpensive digital video tools just becoming available. We conceived of Radio Free Steve on the eve of the new millennium amidst the exuberance of the dotcom boom and the apocalyptic fears of Y2K. We synthesized these into the comedic story of a mullet-haired 1980s radio pirate rebel who drives his customized van across a post-apocalyptic wasteland on his way to audition to become a Music Video Veejay in “New Los Angeles.” Pursuing him is the FCC: the sworn enemy of anti-commercial radio and unregulated free-speech. The story gets rather tricky, but basically it’s Smokey and the Bandit meets The Road Warrior.

On the one hand, we were interested in connecting the democratic and disruptive potential of the internet to grassroots pirate radio activism and pre-cellphone CB culture of the 70s and 80s. We were in a sense mapping the migration from Old Media to New Media. On the other
hand, we wanted to make light of our childhood fears growing up in the shadow of nuclear annihilation by relegating the anticipation of that horror to the past, along with Trans Ams and hair-sprayed glam bands.

Though we shot the movie in only a few weeks it took almost a year post-production to finish. That led directly my to my career as an editor. In the end, making Radio Free Steve taught me to value the creative collaborative process itself without worrying too much about the outcome.

You were also an editor on Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars series. What was that experience like?
Working at Lucasfilm Animation at Skywalker Ranch was a joy. I was a huge Star Wars fan and so thrilled by the opportunity. Never had I worked with such talent. The quality of the animation, especially for a television show, was impressive. The overall artistry, from concept art, to modeling, to lighting, really inspired me. I have come to love and respect the art of animation. What’s more, I learned quite a lot working for George Lucas, who is certainly a master of classical
film-making.

Editing with computer animated footage was a challenge at first, but ultimately I found it liberating. If you needed a shot for a particular scene, you just asked one of the layout artists to generate it and a few hours later it would arrive. The editor also has the freedom to recompose and re-time shots, a creative luxury you simply do not have working with live action footage. I was also privileged to work with the entire Star Wars sound effects library from Skywalker Sound, everything from Jawas and Wookies, to epic space battles and lightsaber duels.

Perhaps what I appreciate most about my experience working on The Clone Wars was how it has connected me to a younger generation of Star Wars fans. I love talking about episodes with my little cousins, giving them the inside scoop of how the show was made. I hope such encounters inspire youth to tell their own stories, and so I encourage them to do just that.

You recently moved from San Francisco and are now living and working here in New York City. What are you working on now?
I am freelance editing on commercial works, the demands of which are admittedly new to me. It has been gratifying, however, to see how all I have learned in narrative editing still applies. I continue to tell stories, only without dialogue and condensed into a few minutes or seconds.

I am also using my free time to flesh out a book I have been working on set in a parallel universe and within a kilometer-wide domed school revolving around the cultivation and celebration of the individual human imagination. It serves as a story-filled sandbox where I can explore unrealized possibilities within education.

How and why were you drawn to media literacy, and working with The LAMP in particular?
My interest in media literacy began as a Radio/TV/Film major at Northwestern University. I wrote a paper exploring the reasons why media literacy curricula encountered resistance in schools. I learned that it often came down to the fact that parents did not want their kids watching TV at school when they already watched too much of it at home. That research led to my writing a proposal for a children’s show produced by children themselves, to be aired on a local station in my hometown in Texas. I understood from my own experience making movies that best way to understand how media are formed by sets of choices was to empower students to make similar choices themselves, in this case by creating a TV show of their own. What better way to overcome media’s passive consumption than through its active creation?

When I discovered the LAMP shortly after moving to New York, I was excited to learn that one way it teaches students how media is made is to encourage youth to make media themselves. Learning how to tell a news story or make a documentary video leads students to ask questions and make decisions in the same manner as media professionals. They might then connect their own experiences making media to those seen on television or online. What had been a media artifact taken as given, might now be questioned and interpreted. In a time when all our information arrives heavily mediated, edited, packaged, and targeted – often from dubious or anonymous sources – the ability to parse, analyze, criticize, and comprehend media and its messaging is critical.

What were some of the most gratifying moments exploring news and media literacy with students at P.S. 107 in Brooklyn?
I had a blast working with the fourth graders at PS 107. We often think of children at that age as sponges, soaking up great gobs of information at incredible speeds, but what surprised me was how much imagination and ingenuity they employed to accomplish their tasks. Most had never shot video on a camcorder before or spliced together clips in iMovie. Yet, they dove into their projects with energy, enthusiasm, and an abundance of humor, surmounting technical hurdles quickly while grasping entirely new concepts.

Some struggled at times to stay on task. Yet once students understood they were in charge of making their projects happen, they felt empowered and became engaged. They were the ones making all the decisions, choosing the topic of their stories, coming up with questions, figuring out who would hold the camera and who would question the interviewees. They had fun playing the role of “real reporters,” often mimicking things they had gleaned from TV and movie reporters, and really enjoyed interviewing friends, teachers, and passers-by on the street to help tell their neighborhood story. When it came time to edit their footage on the computer, they seemed to know exactly what they wanted, and all I had to do was help them figure out how to do it. At the end each group had a cool news story they could show off and proudly call their own.

It is my hope that the students will build upon these experiences in the future, engaging media with a better insight into its construction, whether it is a news article or blog post, a TV news story or viral video, a Twitter feed or Facebook post.

What are you most looking forward to doing this summer?
I am really looking forward to volunteering at the LAMP camp in July!

Click for more photos!

As LAMPcamp wraps up its first full week, LAMPers have explored media in their own neighborhood, looked at how gender is portrayed in media, explored how narratives are used to construct a message, got into the basics of podcasting and began their own short-form documentary video projects. Click here for the first pictures available from LAMPcamp in Brooklyn, and read on for Brooklyn facilitator Lorenzo Tijerino’s account of Day 4:

“Today went well. We began with a screening of three documentaries;  two were student-produced documentaries and one was from Rooftop Films. The students responded strongly to the documentary featuring Merlin, the boy in the pink scarf. The LAMPers discussed their feelings and impressions regarding gender roles and stereotypes. The third film was about a female fan of hip hop and her response to the objectification of woman in music videos. This led into a discussion about the responsibility of the viewer and the role that we all play in propagating negative imagery.

Before long, LAMPers were out on the street asking the hard-hitting questions. They returned to base just in time for lunch. Tomorrow they’ll get started on the editing process armed with technical skills they picked up over the course of the week.”

Click here for the video!

Yesterday marked the first day of LAMPcamp 2010, running concurrently in the Bronx with the Mount Hope Housing Company and in Brooklyn at the Park Slope Armory with the Prospect Park YMCA!

In The Bronx, News 12 stopped by to interview LAMP students and teachers for a video segment on LAMPcamp. Click here to check it out!

Brooklyn LAMPcamp also got off to a fantastic start. In the words of lead facilitator Lorenzo Tijerina:

“The group was, as expected, very boisterous and lively and eager to get started. We began with the entrance survey, which everyone filled out. We moved on to to viewing commercials and got to use the fancy new projector, which I love by the way. We got the kids talking by showing them a few sensational videos involving BP and the World Cup, asking them to describe the purpose of these commercials in their own words. They had a great understanding of the intent and techniques used by the advertisers. We also showed them a re-cut BP commercial on YouTube and they were very excited about the idea of expressing opinion through satire and video.

We introduced the class to some of the vocabulary of persuasion, and with the help of the facilitators they really seemed to get it. By the halfway point we moved into the first exercise, the Media Scavenger Hunt. We ended up with about 16 kids, which allowed us to divide them up pretty evenly into four groups. I stayed behind while the kids hit the streets with the YMCA staff and the other facilitators. Katherine, Chrissy, Scott and Mike all agreed that the children were calm and well-behaved outside, but still excited about the exercise.

The children videotaped their findings, paying particular attention to ads that are not supposed to be directed at them, such as alcohol and cigarette advertisements. They did describe many of these ads as being very colorful and attention grabbing. This led into a discussion about their interest in these products, peer pressure and the glamorization of adulthood.

Finally, at the end of the class I went around with a Flip camera and got to know everyone. Then, everyone signed my cast and we called it a day.”

Stay tuned for more LAMPcamp news!

Kristin Trethewey

This month, we interview video artist and LAMPcamp volunteer Kristin Trethewey. Read on to learn why media literacy and art are tied together…

Favorite Blogs: Thinkthinkthinkwhywhywhy (because a little self promotion never hurts) Cakewrecks (because I’m a bit of a foodie) and Kitschykoomag (this is a friend from Calgary who is a great advocate of young hip art and culture)