Last week the PLP 10 cohort went on a trip to Camp Capilano.

They advertised it as a retreat where we could hang out and bond as a class. We did that but we also did three projects!

During the class, before we left, we watched a quick video that Hughes had put together of different reality show intros. We did a couple activities talking about personalities and how they are shown in quick 10 second shots. We then left the school at 11:45ish and we went straight to the Cleveland Dam. There in the fields surrounding the dam we did our first project. We were assigned our groups based on the candy we grabbed and began.

We were given an hour to put together a video depicting ten different personalities in the format of a reality show.

I was with Ryan, Sam, Willa and Michael and we created “The Wilderness Games.” It was pretty much a hiking race where ten contestants hiked a long and strenuous trail that took about a week to complete. We spent the full hour making a story board/script. Filming, editing and making background music.

When we were done the first project our teachers ditched us and told us to walk to the camp while they drove. It wasn’t hard to map out which trails we had to take and we didn’t lose anybody which is good. When we reached the camp they gathered us to watch and critique the videos.

After a little break we were given our next project. We had to create an audio recording with the same group  depicting ten personalities and do it in one hour again. This was more of a challenge because you had to make sure that the words you said were meaningful and got the points across. In my mind I enjoyed this one more than the video because I was really excited to do something different than videos.

After we finished we listened to the recordings again and did a round of critique.

Then we were here given our last and longest project. We had until the end of the camp to put together a 4 minute audio segment on the topic of identity. We had to use a non-fiction story about someone’s experience and how their identity changed from it. I was with Calum and Ryan for this project. We decided to go with a story about a pivitol game from Ryan’s experience of a national baseball tournament from last year. It was a hard story to do but we couldn’t come up with any other ideas at the time. We pitched it to Hughes and Willemse and they said that we had to make sure to get the point across about identity and make sure it was super evident.

We began right of the bat by creating a summary of the key events of the game and the emotional roller coaster that the team went through. Then we put together an outline of what we wanted to say and practiced it a little bit. I wrote out an intro and outro and then we began to record. After recording Ryan began the editing process and he finished and handed it in on time.

The night we got the project breifing most people were up until 1:00ish just trying to get everything or almost everything done so they didn’t have to worry about it too much in the morning.

When everyone had handed in their projects we did a round of critique for every recording. They were all pretty good with a couple of things to work on and improve. When our project was on the chopping block everyone agreed that we made a bit of a sports commentary and less of a story but the technical elements were really good.

Before we left though we did a bunch of team building excerises, which I thought we would have done the entire camp. After that we left the lodge and went to the fish hatchery and explored around there for a little bit. We didn’t get home until around three. When I returned to my house I immediately fell onto my bed and rested for the rest of the day.

All in all it was a good camp and I definetly got excited for the upcoming year espically with the new theme of audio.