By: Sanna Pekkinen, lecturer, Humak

First-year cultural producer and community education students at Humak’s Jyväskylä campus have participated in the Diggiloo project by making videos about cultural youth work together with cultural youth work organisations in Central Finland. The video work fitted well with the objectives of the course and the project enabled the 80 participating students to master one of the communication tools.

Overall, the integration of the Diggiloo project into the studies by encouraging students to collaborate with youth groups, increased many skills. Teamwork skills, peer review, self-assessment, learning about cultural youth work, learning about international project work and working with the target group of young people were also important lessons learned in the Diggiloo project.

The Diggiloo video project was carried out over two springs. In both springs, there were about 40 students and they were divided independently into small groups. The work with both groups started by introducing the students to the objectives and actors of the Diggiloo project and explaining the objectives of the video work.

The Diggiloo video project consisted of the following elements:

• forming the project team
• a workshop on scriptwriting, editing and shooting the video
• “finding” and contacting a group of young people
• together with the young people, designing the content and shooting the video
• editing (accessibility, subtitling, etc.)
• recording and sharing
• viewing the video with the whole group of students, self-evaluation of the video by the group, peer and tutor feedback
• group evaluation of the whole project and group work

Video workshop
Lecturer Kari Keuru introduced the students to the practices of video work. In both springs, Kari held a two-day workshop for students on scriptwriting, videography and editing. In addition to theory, the workshop days included a lot of practical training and ended with a group viewing session of the videos made during the workshop. The workshop gave newcomers the basics of the subject and gave them the opportunity to practice at making videos, from the initial idea to watching the finished video. On the other hand, the more experienced ones gained new perspectives and ideas, shared them themselves and guided their course mates. The workshop days were inspiring, well organised and nicely executed for students of different skill levels.

Diggiloo video production workshop content
THEORY
Script

• Video productions, Videos
• Scriptwriting and the different stages
• Image scripting
• Story structure
• Filming
• Aspect ratio and resolution

Live picture

• Camera settings, white balance
• Image cropping (exercise)
• Image size (exercise)
• Camera movements (exercise)
• Lighting (exercise)

Editing

• First the sound – then the picture
• First image – then sound

PRACTICE
Workshop

• 12 seconds and four shots of film
• 12 shots or one minute film
• Switcher Studio and StreamLab
• OBS
• Youtube, Facebook (streaming)

Contacting youth groups
The students contacted cultural youth work organisations in Central Finland, with whom the students could start the video project.

In spring 2022, the Covid-19 pandemic situation still caused a number of problems. For example, the cooperation with the after-school activities of the Korpilahti Local School was cancelled completely because the school closed its doors to visitors in February 2022. Other cancellations of cooperation also came at short notice and we had to quickly improvise alternative ways to implement the project. In spring 2023, it was much easier to find collaborators.

Video productions with cultural youth work organisations in Central Finland
In 2022, the cooperation partners were the Veturitallit K-pop dance group, the Student Union HUMAKO tutors, the Jyvässeudun 4H Pro digital group, the Lumo Novelia gymnastics group, the Vesipool group, the Youth Finland Association and the Active and Wellbeing University project. In addition, two groups made so-called making-off videos, i.e. recorded the activities of other groups.

In 2023, the cooperation partners were Music Against Drugs, Youth Against Drugs, Kangasalan Pikkuteatteri ry, Jyväskylä Youth Council, Jyväskylä Dance Academy ballet group, HUMAKO tutors, Hopisto (Alkio University hip-hop line), Äänekoski work coaching, Jyväskylä Live Music Association and UMC dance studio.

Participation and inclusion of young people
The students were instructed to make the videos carefully listening to the young people and appreciating their wishes, visions and perspectives. The aim was to make videos that look and feel like young people, not so much by presenting the activities verbally, but by doing them. At best, that’s what the videos are. In the spring of 2023, the students were free to look for partners that interested them, keeping in mind the content of the Diggiloo project, cultural youth work.

As a community educator I have to know how to create a safe space for group conversations so people feel comfortable sharing possibly hard things or experiences. (Learning diary 5, spring 2022)

I think I learned mostly how to say my own ideas to others. To trust my ideas and skills more. It turned out very nicely, after all, it was my idea to show about students’ everyday life during the pandemic. So this was good moment for myself. Maybe even a little bit empowering moment. And I need to work more with that. More trust for myself and skills and ideas. It is for sure very important for my future profession. And not only to profession, it is important in everyday life. Whenever I go. The thought, I’m enough. (Learning diary 1, spring 2022)

The most stressful part was finding a group to work with. We had a plan with an elementary school, but they had to cancel it because of the pandemic. We had to ask about it from many people and I think it was good for me, since I’m often quite shy when I have to talk to new people. I can use these new skills like editing in my studies and in work life. Video making skills are good for communication and promotion purposes. (Learning diary 2, spring 2022)

The viewing experience
At the end of the project, the videos were watched together and projected on the big classroom wall.
Watching the videos together was a communal experience and at the same time the students got a lot of additional information about different youth hobby groups in Central Finland. Many of the partners were unknown to the students and this broadened their understanding of the field of cultural youth work. The target group of young people was also new for some of them, especially for students of cultural production. The videos show young people as active, opinion-making and aware actors.