Hey, it’s Millie, back again with another blog post! And this time it’s not actually part of the blogging challenge! This post is all about a Maker assignment called our Live Event Videos. As you may know, PLP Grade 9 focuses on the advantages of making videos and films to express our learning, experiences and challenges during the year. This Live Event Video is all about picking an event that occurred and following some guidelines to make a great video explaining a bit about this event. 

For the criteria, we received a book that has an example of a live event video and instructions on how to make our own videos. 

We also had to make sure to include these:

– time lapse. A time lapse is a video sped up.

– freeze frame. To emphasize a certain section within a video, you can freeze to video on the frame of your choice.

– changed speed. This could be either sped up or slowed down film. 

– still photos with Ken Burns. Ken Burns is an effect that adds movement to still photos, as mentioned. This can make it feel much more blended with the video and the photos less blunt compared to video clips. 

– music (copyright free). If you would like to check out my post about Creative Commons, have at it, though it is mostly focused on Creative Commons in terms of photos. The same basics of it apply to music too; unfortunately you can’t use just any music in a video when it must be uploaded to YouTube. Luckily, finding music without copyright is pretty easy on the internet! You can also make your own in GarageBand, which is a great tool for creating original sounds. 

– an interview with a participant. Getting someone else’s opinions or thoughts and including them in the video makes it a lot more interesting and could even give you an idea or perspective that you never thought of before. 

For my event, I chose to go to my church and film about Youth Coffee. Through youth group, the youth in the church have the opportunity to be part of a committee that works to provide coffee and treats to the congregation on Sundays. It requires some setup and quite a bit of cleaning afterwords, but you can do it with another person, so the work isn’t too bad!

Overall it’s a great way for the youth to get involved at church, because many of the youth and kids included do not attend the sermons. This can make it feel like the youth especially are separated from the comprehensive group of adults who make up most of the population at church. Providing coffee and treats is a way to connect with other members at church as well as make money and supply drinks and food for the congregation. 

It was fairly easy to get plenty of shots, but hard to get a variety, because the location doesn’t change. I decided to take some other shots of the church to include in the video just so the video wasn’t stuck in one place.

Before actually going to church, we had to make an action plan listing what we wanted to include in our video. After finishing filming, I checked off all of the things that I did (as you can see). 

In conclusion, another successful Maker project (possibly) completed (in truth, there is always room for improvement and revision!).  I liked this project because it had a lot of leeway for what we could think up to do. It even helped me take a closer look at things that I do regularly, like Youth Coffee, and examine how it impacts my life and what I really think of it. There are definitely a few things I would change about my video and I’m sure I could spin it into something cooler and even more interesting… in future videos we’ll see how I can incorporate my progress and make something better than the last.