Seventh grade art students at Brooks Middle School are busy putting the finishing touches on photography projects that, in the words of art teacher Josh Gunderlock, “will tell Brooks and the community about what they feel is wrong in the world.”

The unique still-photography projects focus on such topics as bullying, global warming, domestic abuse, recycling and improper behavior in school.
“I wanted them to talk about something they felt was an issue, something that bothered them or something they felt strongly about,” said Gunderlock. “They could tackle any subject as long as they did it responsibly.”

The projects began in September when each student was asked to give some personal thought to possible issues. They were split into teams of 3 to 5 students and each team discussed potential topics, eventually settling on their main theme.
Since then they have been busy making “storyboards” (a visual plan detailing each scene) and shooting hundreds of photos for what will eventually become a 2 to 4 minute video CD put to music.

“One of the groups has already shot around 2,500 pictures,” Gunderlock said, adding it will take a lot of student editing time and effort to produce their video. “Our goal was about 150 photos a day for each group which translates into about 20 seconds worth of video.”

When it’s all said and done, Gunderlock will have somewhere between eight and ten videos, the best of which he hopes to be able to show at school assemblies. Other possibilities include posting the videos to the Brooks website as well as the VVSD Wiki.

“This is stuff that’s usually done at the college level,” Gunderlock said, pointing out that the project has taught students about organization, cooperation and use of technology in addition to exposing them to possible future careers in computer-aided design, photography, acting and movie-making. “The students are doing a great job. Every student has been able to find at least one part of the process that they succeed at.”