Hands-on learning on Sask Scene Team

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Ten students from the First Nations University of Canada's Indian Communication Arts (INCA) program took part in a unique project over the summer that allowed them to put the skills gained through their studies to work in the real world.

The students made up the Sask Scene team, which travelled to festivals across the province to talk to young people and record their views about the province now and in the future. The results of their efforts can be seen online at www.saskscene.ca.

The team was contracted to complete the project by the Saskatchewan department of Industry and Resources as part of the provincial government's Our Future is Wide Open marketing campaign. It was that campaign that provided the inspiration for the Sask Scene project, explained Shannon Avison, director of INCA.

"We started thinking about marketing Saskatchewan to its own people, and particularly to its own youth. Because that's kind of the big group that we work with, mostly young people. And so we approached the Saskatchewan department of Industry and Resources with a proposal to use our facility in the Indian Communication Arts department, which includes digital video cameras and non-linear video editing suites and sound equipment and lighting and so on, to make use of that equipment. And at the same time to hire students from all levels of our program to go out and talk to youth in Saskatchewan about what it means to be a youth in Saskatchewan. They used the slogan why they want to live, work and play in Saskatchewan, to encourage people to think about why they would stay in Saskatchewan," she said.

"So we went through all the regular negotiations and so on, and the project was approved. And it was approved very quickly. I was actually surprised at how quickly it was approved. I think they were really keen right away, the idea of youth talking to youth was really important. The fact that we were a First Nations institution wasn't really important to start with at all. It was just that we had capacity and sort of a real keen interest in doing this project," Avison said.

An INCA graduate, Tom Jordens, was hired as the project's senior producer, and the rest of the team was made up of current INCA students.

"INCA students tend to double major, because at this point, INCA's a certificate. So we had INCA students who are also film students, and they tended to be more senior and they did a lot of the editing. But people really crossed over. People would shoot and script and edit, and then do the running around and do the office management as well," Avison said.

While the Sask Scene project gave students a chance to polish their technical skills out in the field, they gained something else through the project as well, Avison explained.

"There's lots of skills that are technical or work-related, but the most important one is probably team building. Being able to communicate very well, where you've got somebody going out and doing things and keeping those documents, and then the people who log, and then the people who edit, and the people who take them to get vetted by Industry Resources. We had to schedule carefully, they had to be responsible and meet their deadlines to each other. Not just to the project, but to each other. So teamwork and team building. And really good communication in the professional environment were critical to all that we did," she said.

"And the nice thing too is that the students, they're teaching each other. It's very much a peer teaching/peer learning kind of environment. A university environment where you have sort of the authority figure teacher is all fine and good, but people learn well from their friends. From their peers they learn well, and they learn well also from hands-on and practical experience."

According to Jordens, not only did the Sask Scene project benefit the students participating, but it gave some added attention to INCA as well.

"It was a great opportunity to sowcase not only the tlents of the students, but also the capabilities of the program, and trying to attract new students to the program," Tom Jordens said.

It also provided the government with a look into what Saskatchewan's young people think about their home province.

"This was kind of a way for them to find out the views of young people in the province," he said. "They wanted to find out what young people thought about the province, and give young people a say in the province."

While the Web site features interviews filmed at 33 events from across the province, Jordens estimated the Sask Scene team visited closer to 50 events.

"We probably interviewed about 200 people on camera. And almost to the person, they were all positive about the province, about their homes, what they saw their futures as, that type of thing. Our target audience was kind of the 16-to-30 -year-old crowd, and probably the majority of them were in their early 20s. And like I said, they all had positive futures. They all want to stay in Saskatchewan," Jordens said.

"It was quite an eye-opener because going into it, you know, I expected to talk to people who liked the province, but I didn't expect to talk to that many people. And I expected to hear a few more complaints or gripes. And in the events I went to, I never heard anyone complaining."

While the project was completed by INCA students using INCA facilities, this was in no way a run-of-the-mill student project. This project was real, with real deadlines and real expectations.

"This was a professional gig. We had a contract with a government department. There was no latitude because we were students. We took it on as a production company, and we had deadlines ... this wasn't like a student make-up project. This was a real contract. And if we didn't carry out our end of the contract, then we wouldn't be paid," Shannon Avison said.

That isn't to say that working on the project was all work and no play. After all, th biggest part of the project involvd spending the summer at festivals right across Saskatchewan.

"It was incredible," Jordens said of the experience."First of all, to be able to go to a festival each weekend was really amazing. And our festivals that we attended, we went to powwows, we went to Back to Batoche. We went to Mosaic here in Regina, so those types of cultural events. Musical events, the Flatland Music Festival and the folk festival here in the city, Beethoven at Buffalo Pound. We had a real diverse mixture of music. We went to the Ahtahkakoop sports day, those type of things. So it was just such a broad range of festivals and events that every day was a fun day to come to work, really," he said.

Another project INCA would like to take on is more or less a continuation of the Sask Scene project, this time concentrating of winter festivals. But in the meantime, the Sask Scene Web site has given the program with a valuable tool for marketing their services, providing a concrete example of what INCA students can do.