From Chennai to Hong Kong - Thank you!

Another kickstarter backer video with behind the scenes preview of what you'll see and hear on the DVD. Thanks for all your support.

From Chennai to Hong Kong - Thank You! from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

H is for Henry

As promised, several kickstarter backers receive a video message from India dedicated to the person of their choice. From Ann Anderson, is "H is for Henry". Enjoy Henry!

H is for Henry from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

Blooper Reel from Eureka Child's English DVD Series

Last Day of DVD Shoot: June 25th, 2010

Eureka Child DVD Series Behind the Scenes

Eureka Child English DVD Shoot Behind the Scenes from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

A quick update from the production. Four more days of shooting...lots of bloopers coming soon! :) Stay tuned.

DVD Update #11 Rehearsals

Day 1: All the teachers, volunteers and recently arrived interns meet the students

We've completed 1 full week of rehearsals and while we are trying desperately to stay on schedule, the kids are getting a little antsy. They want to get out there and get in front of the camera. But we've also had less than perfect attendance. This is in part due to last week's Cyclone Laila and 1 resulting fever. And this week both boys have had stomach problems and have been out for 1-2 days. Because of the background of the kids, it can be hard to track them down when they don't show up and while the parents have been supportive, they are not always communicative or responsive.

Due to attendance issues we decided to take on 1 more girl from Chennai. We first met her at the annual day of the school both boys attend. Their English teacher wrote a very cute drama for the kids to act out to show off their English talent. Our new actress played a teacher and played it very well. It was extremely hard to track her down considering it is summer holidays. However, it turns out her grandmother and uncle both work for a house (as domestic help and a construction worker) 1 block from our office. We were able to talk with the family and while they didn't seemed disinterested, said she could participate. We gave them a copy of the pilot episode in hopes that they realize what a great opportunity it will be for her.

We start each morning with some light yoga stretching. My goal is to get them to eventually do 5 minutes of meditation. Currently 30 seconds is a struggle. (Note: the boy on the left had to remove all his clothes because he walked in the cyclone to the office for rehearsals and was drenched)

Students spend 45 minutes reviewing vocabulary and practice speaking
English with each other and their teacher.

The students spend one hour reviewing phonics and doing reading related activities.

Before lunch students spend 15-20 minutes writing in their workbooks practicing words and sounds they have learned in reading class.

After lunch students work on their lines with on the volunteer English teachers.

Follow us on twitter: sistaKAA

It's official, you can now follow what's happening with the DVD production, rehearsals, and the shoot on twitter. Visit my twitter feed or follow us to get instant updates @sistaKAA

DVD Update #10 Cyclone Hit Chennai

Nothing like an off-season cyclone, flooding, and power outages to delay a project. Luckily, we only lost one day of our intended schedule, but were still able to rehearse and work with the kids. Unfortunately with the temperature drop and being out in the rain, one came down with a fever. Hopefully it is short lived and she'll be back on her feet again soon. We don't exactly have under studies.

One of our students is picked up on her uncle's motorbike after rehearsal.

The road in front of our office was entirely flooded. We all had to walk through it up to mid-calf...don't think about it. Really, it's best not to think about all the micro organisms that thrive in such conditions. It's been almost a week and I'm still standing. Although now we have three kids out.

DVD Update #7 Restructuring

Staff Script Writing Workshop

Originally we had hoped to do a lot more fund raising to help us secure funds for this project and kickstarter was just one avenue we were using. Sadly, with the economy, our other attempts have been fruitless. However, that isn't stopping us from moving foward, we've just had to rethink our approach and strategy...like good creative development educationists that we are.

So, we have restructured and rethought the project. We will be outsourcing the creative fun bits: songs and animation to our previous directors. The educational bits, we will produce ourselves.

Thanks to the help of volunteers in the US and India, we have 20 scripts that we are editing and finalizing. We will begin rehearsals with the students next week while we finalize the schedules, scout the locations and continue making props. We hope to start shooting the first week of June. It's a lot to get done, but since I'll be on a flight to the US on July 12th, it's gotta get done!

We have also identified a great set of interns that will be helping us put it all together, everything from writing, editing, prop making, filming and post-production editing. It is going to be an exciting team and I am really looking forward to working with everyone on this project.

Teachers making props

Taken on the first day of prop making. Five of the teachers working on our program in Chennai have agreed to help us with prop-making and rehearsals this month. The props will all be cardboard and paper mache. It's a long process and lots of cutting, sticking and painting required but its a cheap option!

'English made easy' in The Hindu

The Ready to Read program and the DVD initiative was featured in The Hindu this week. Clink on the link below to read the article.


The Hindu: English Made Easy, April 5th 2010
by Seem Sanghi

An Video Introduction to Ready to Read

An Introduction to Ready to Read from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

The Ready to Read program is designed to be an innovative intervention by teaching English reading and writing through a phonetic and whole language approach. In addition to introducing basic phonics through Total Physical Response (TPR), it also introduces students to common sight words, writing practice, group play activities and reading time. This dynamic reading program, specifically designed for Tamil-medium students, fits in a bag and can be easily transported. The need for this program is heightened by the fact that there is no comparable alternative, which uses culturally appropriate and relevant content. This balanced program supplements the primary school curriculum, enabling students to read words and simple sentences within a few weeks. In 2009-2010 it was piloted in 36 schools with about 2000 fourth and fifth standard students in eight districts across the state. The results to date have been encouraging and we have received an overwhelming response from teachers and students.

If you want more information regarding the Ready to Read program, please leave a comment, or email: info@aidindia.in.

Check out our Kickstarter page and make a pledge

Wow! What's that sound? - A 5 Minute Teaser

Wow! What's that sound? - A 5 minute teaser from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

Behind the making of "Wow! What's that sound?"

In addition to interviews with the child artists, entertaining video snippets, bloopers and behind the scenes outtakes, this short documentary provides context into the reasons behind why we made "Wow! What's that sound?". And why we are hoping to turn it into a 12 episode educational DVD series as soon as we secure additional funding.

You can also view the documentary on vimeo in full screen.

DVD Update #6: Pilot Episode Release & Screening

DVD Update #6 Release & Screening Event

Aid India’s DVD Release and Screening of

“Wow! What’s that sound?”

Please join us for the official release of the first episode of our new educational English DVD series for the children of Tamil Nadu!

Date: Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Time: 7pm-9pm
Place: Madras Terrace House
15, Sri Puram 2nd Street,
Off R.K. Salai, Near Deccan Plaza Hotel,
Royapettah, Chennai 600 014
Ph: 044-4503-8391

Initial Evaluation Results

Initial evaluation has been completed for methodology-applied classes in almost all 36 schools consisting of approximately 2000 students, however evaluation data has only been received from 27 schools consisting of 1,351 students (10% were absent) and 12 control group schools with 334 students (3% were absent). We are still waiting the evaluation results for approximately 600 students in schools who have recently started the program.

As indicated by the results of the evaluation (see Table below), 87% of children are at least able to read letters whereas only 39% of children are able to read at least words, which appear in the third grade government textbooks. However, only 15% of students were able to read at the sentence level. Even more shocking, only 3% of the control group students could manage at the sentence level. This discrepancy may be because the control group evaluations were completed in different districts in the state. These numbers are much lower than we estimated at the time of writing our grant proposal. Therefore, ensuring 80% of children attending our methodology-applied classes will be able to read sentences may prove challenging, as only 11-39% can read individual words. This goal needs to be re-evaluated. Perhaps achieving 80% at the word level and 65% at the sentence level will be a more realistic intended outcome.

DVD Update #5: Filming!

Going to the first day of the shoot
Uma Rani, Kirstne, Sumangali (back row), Swetha, January, Vignesh, Chandru (front row)

Day 1, Audio Recording 2pm-7pm

We picked up the students at noon and brought them to the office. The Koovathur kids had also arrived. I asked Swetha and Chandru to come and help me get lunch from a nearby hotel. Upon leaving the office I realized that Swetha didn’t have chappals. Apparently her chappals broke at the bus stand when she reached Chennai and so she was barefoot. So after putting in our order for lunch we went to a small chappal stall and bought her new chappals for 40Rs. For lunch we ate parrota and meals together in the office with all the staff. For most of the students it is their first time being around computers and in an office. They wanted to see everything and explore, but we had to keep an eye on them so they didn’t disturb the office too much. We finally left for the hall in two cars at about 2pm. The kids and their teacher all piled into the ambassador with Parvathy. Sumangali, Priya, Kalai and I all went in Suman’s car and followed the ambassador to the Goethe Institute, Max Mueller Bhavan. Walking into the studio for the first time was a little exciting for everyone. They had never been in a big studio space before. It is like big concrete hall, that had a a vinyl floor rolled out in the middle. The production crew had put up a backdrop for the set and blacked out the windows. For the first day on the set, the students mostly sat with the music technician and the actors and practiced the jingle and other tunes that will be used in the episode. They recorded their voices for the music--wearing big headphones and talking into a mic. Even though it was their first time performing, they didn't seem to have any stage fright. They all warmed up to it very quickly. Although it did take them some time to get all the tunes down...and the music technician will need to have to edit a lot to make some of their recordings useable, but they were very cute!

On the set waiting for the directors to say "Rolling, Action!"

Day 2, Shoot 7am to 7pm

I was up and at Brinda school by 6:30am to meet the two boys. Vignesh was there right on time and came alone, at least a 15 minute walk requiring crossing a very busy street. Chandru was 30 minutes late but came by his father’s auto. We went to the office and picked up the Koovathur girls, got in the taxi and went to Max Mueller Bhavan.

Today the students got to put on their costumes, make-up and stand on the set in front of the lights for the first time. Very exciting, but they soon realized it was also very exhausting and hot. We were able to run the air conditioning unit for the room when we weren't shooting, but it was too loud to use all the time, so the room got very warm after awhile. We were constantly rushing up on set with water bottles and biscuits to keep the kids energized. Nobody knew what to expect the first day of the shooting, but we all figured out very quickly that this was going to be a slow long process that involved a lot of waiting around. The production crew had to shift and adjust lights. The camera men had to find the right angles and the directors had to set the stage. And then we had to manage the kids and make sure they weren't going to tear down the sets.

A long day on the set in front of the lights. They did an amazing job staying energetic and enthusiastic all the way through.

Day 3, Shoot 7am-10pm

I had another sleepless night singing “A kite cap, a cone cap” and “Tommy is a tall tiger” in my fitfull sleep. These songs and the jingle are going to drive me crazy. I guess its good that they are catchy, but if I can't get them out of my head soon, I might go mad.

Vignesh met me at Brinda at 6:25. The car picked us all up at the office at 6:50. We arrived at MMB by 7am and had tea and biscuits. As soon as Sumangali and Parvathy arrived we started getting the kids ready—makeup and ironing costumes. The kids were on the set by 8am doing some filler shots of them playing near the caravan while the other actors got ready. Chandru had the best part—playing the drum attached to the caravan. Yesterday we only got about 25 minutes on film and needed much more, so today was going to be a LONG day...lots of scenes to cover in a very short time. We had had high hopes of finishing early, but ended up barely dragging the kids out of the studio at 10pm. Lots of lessons learned about time management! We will need to adjust our planning and schedules a lot for the rest of the episodes.

A week after the initial shoot, we went to the Koovathur school and shot some scenes outside.

Some hilarious moments on set:

• One student can NOT pronounce tub and it comes out as ‘dub’
• When the kids met the creature they were totally freaked out. But even before he put on his costume, they picked out who he was in the room without having any clues. He has long hair and hadn’t shaved. He kinda already looked like a creature.
  
• Watching kids record for the first time—big head phones on listening to the music without being able to hear their own voice. They were mumbling and off tune.
  
• One student kept adding “ing” to every phrase in the song. It took many many tries to get it right. She was saying things like: “Read booking” “Play gamesing”
• Street/folk dancing during cap song...the boys love it. This may be a hit song. They went wild when they heard it and couldn't stop dancing to it.
  
• Cultural bathroom issues. The kids had perhaps never been in a bathroom with toilets and no squat toilet before. The girls were squatting on a marble floor bathroom with a toilet. Luckily there was a drain in the floor and they were washing it with water, but still--inappropriate. We found an outside toilet behind the studio that was squat style so that we could avoid the issue.
  
• Chandru saying “cut” “take” and “action” before the directors. We had to remind him many times that it was not his job.
  
• Chandru using friendly verb forms with adults which is actually viewed as being very impolite. We had to have a talk with him about how and when to use polite forms of Tamil.
• Chandru needs a minder to sit with him, remind him every 2 minutes to be quiet. We may need to hire an assistant just to monitor him in the future.
  
• “Vignesh is a always a good boy” said by Vignesh after Gilli Gilli Valli said he was a good boy. He only talks in the third person.
  

The kids have become very serious actors very quickly. They remember their lines, know when and where to be and can change their personalities as soon as they hear the word "Rolling, Action!" But they have also started demaning A/c cars and will need to start wearing sunglasses to hide from the papparazzi. What have we created?

DVD Update #4: Photos on Flickr

An update regarding the DVD shoot will be posted soon, but in the meantime, you can view lots of pictures on flickr: Eureka Child.

DVD Update #3: Article in The Hindu

To see the complete article in The Hindu on October 7th, 2009, visit this link:
English fairy tale for students of Tamil-medium primary schools