RJ Stangherlin

Keystone Technology Integrator and STAR Discovery Educator

This site is for Mrs. Stangherlin's classes at Salisbury High School.

Students Guest Blogging: Doktor Faust

Cross-posted on Changing Connections and Learning Curve

Dr. Faust from RJ Stangherlin on Vimeo.

Long before anyone was involved in technology integration, long before the herald of 21st century learning and teaching, back in the 20th century, Frau Clauser challenged her students to create German videos.  The following post and video was created by 5 very talented students.  Since they are guest bloggers, I’ll let them tell their story.

Throughout the year of level three German at Salisbury High School, various authentic German tales and stories are implemented to broaden vocabulary and increase reading comprehension levels.  After reading through a story and taking separate tests on vocabulary and content, a video assignment is assigned.  This quarter we read the story of Doktor Faust, which was made famous first by Marlowe and then by Goethe. Frau has been assigning German video projects for well over five years.  These projects test the creativity as well as the ability of several very different, busy individuals to come together and collaborate.  These videos are a good experience to combine not only knowledge of the German language but also skills with technology.

This video of Doctor Faust was created by Todd Anderson, Nick Fisher, Ryan Maron, Chris Costa, and Erin Lobach.  The video required over twenty man hours to complete and was a serious test of our skill and patience. We had numerous predetermined filming dates and, like most high school students, we struggled not to procrastinate. We worked tirelessly after school and on the weekends to finish this project. The days usually consisted of going to Todd’s house, planning the day’s filming, organizing costumes, and rehearsing scenes and lines. Rarely did we complete a scene on the first try. In fact, the average line took three to five takes to get right. All these takes caused numerous distractions and many laughs. We did learn from our mistakes and improved upon our shooting techniques. For the trickier scenes, there were hidden scripts the actor was reading from and in one scene the actor was reading off camera. Narration and the Devil’s voice are voice-overs done after editing with the use of a microphone. Editing, this time around, was extremely irksome and time-consuming but the utilization of the program Sony Vegas aided the process and made an amazing final product. The battle scene between the Devil and Doctor Faust was filmed first to guarantee we had ample time to edit in the light sabers (over 1400 had segments had to be drawn in) and other effects. Effect editing took about eighteen total hours, and was done after filming or when the group could not get together to film. We have raised the bar for film making for our fellow class mates and for ourselves. It will be a challenge to outdo ourselves on future videos for German class or any other class.

Click here to read an English translation by Erin Lobach.

Salisbury High School
Erin Lobach
Nick Fisher
Todd Anderson
Ryan Maron
Chris Costa
Turbo Tagger