Economics Of Media Content Creation In 2021*:
• Apple TV = 40,000 new jobs in US alone. Billions spent.
• Netflix = $17,000,000,000
• Prime = $8,000,000,000
• Disney = $8,000,000,000
• Youtube = Equals Netflix in Revenue In 2021
Above not including: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Etc.
In 2019, the total spending by Hollywood was $42 Billion.
Streaming services alone will eclipse this in 2021.
It transcends Hollywood.
Like it or not, producing media content is now the coin of the realm for all institutions, brands and companies.
It literally doesn’t matter what business you’re in, or what industry you operate in. If you’re not producing visuals with sound and motion, you basically don’t exist.
Sources tell us that a host of film school grads are being snatched-up by corporate, government, and non-profits as in-house media production specialists.
So where is the feeder system to meet the competition for media workers?
Colleges and high-schools are tooling up.
Middle school art teachers are trying their best.
Yet in early education, the skill of encoding and decoding visual media is qualified: ELA (English Language Arts), Media Arts, or Visual Literacy.
This is the 800lb gorilla in the room.
We start teaching reading and writing in Pre-K, why not video communication?
We are not training our trainers (teachers, instructors) how to be filmmakers, so they are not training our youngest media mavens.
It is a language with its own syntax, grammar, and nomenclature.
The arc of kindergarten through 6th grade literacy must include media literacy in the most basic sense: the learning of letters, the assembling of letters into words, the arranging of words into sentences, and the stringing of sentences into paragraphs.
Good News!
It can be taught!
That’s what Animating Kids offers.
We have broken down the entire film making process into bite-sized pieces.
The earliest ages can grasp this!
And beauty of motion and sound based media instruction, is that it includes all the things.
Introducing timing and spacing formulas to Kindergarteners.
Here are 43 combinatorial skills involved in stop motion animation projects.
Making meaning with sound and motion is academic, business, and cultural meta communication infrastructure, analogous to writing, reading, speaking, or listening for meaning.
All subject matter is…subject(!) to this delivery format.
Sound, visuals and moving media are the key to storytelling and meaning-making delivery system in the world. How do we ensure our kids are receiving this type of education?
Sound too complex?
Take editing for example, considered a complex facet of filmmaking.
Editing is a basic sequencing skill.
We've always taught sequencing in early grades, only with still pictures.
A child with an iPad can touch and sort clips in any order.
Editing is that simple.
It can be a basic literacy skill.
We don't teach kids to read and write so they can all grow up to be novelists!
We don't teach kids to be filmmakers because we want them all to grow up to be Tim Burton, Walt Disney, or Steven Spielberg!
We teach it because it will serve them in all professions, brands, vocations or avocations.
We are also confident that it will inoculate them for passive persuasion technics being foisted on by unethical media influences.
We teach it so they can discern and decode media culture from a behind-the-scenes point of view, witnessing it’s purposeful constructedness firsthand.
But you need to get with your schools, after-schools, and summer camps in person.
Parents and renegade educators need to lead the way, grass-roots style.
Until then, the 800lb gorilla sits there on the back row, at your children's peril.
Animating Kids is one place to begin.
We've tested how to teach "video production" step-by-step with our youngest learners.
Through the medium of stop motion, it can happen on a table top with paper and an app or two.
We’ve created 150 lessons any kid can do, demonstrated by the Animation Chefs in a simple cooking-show-style format.
We also train with over 90 minutes of P.D. for educators who've never tried or who need to up their game.
Get your kids climbing to new heights, thumping their ribs with primal media-making superpowers!
Yes, this rant is preaching to the choir, but please...if this resonates, forward this post to fence-sitters and get them singing the media-making gospel.
It's a start.
Bon Animate!
Joe
PS Here is a link to overview videos and content lists.