Throughout the first term, we have done more videos than all of last year. We have created ten videos, but that wouldn’t be possible without the extensive techniques we learnt along the way. The creation of a well-organized film consists of three parts; pre-production, production and post-production. We have gone through failure and success, which has made me a better director, producer and editor. I am proud of the videos I have created, but we didn’t just become good at it and by having the advantage of making so many. We used the stages of production and the competencies in the project to create an awesome video.
Pre-Production:
In a good video, you always need structure and supporting points, but that is only possible with planning. To anything that you want to have strong evidence, most of your time should be spent preparing. The very first thing we did was the initial research to get an idea of the topic and brainstorm ideas that could work. With every group, we had to communicate clearly to have shared understanding and no miscommunication. There were instances that communication got the best of us, and the product was not best we could have hoped. For individual videos, I had to keep myself in check using Things and creating a long term memory. This preparation was especially useful, going forward into more detail and creativity expressing, critically curating and using technology to enhance the information.
With basic understanding, we were able to use strategies to show an outline of the production. In most videos, we had to do a screenplay, storyboard and call sheet. Every step had unique tools used to create a product that would easily show incite on the topic. The screenplay was foreign to me, and I have never even heard of it to this point. I learnt how to correctly write a screenplay from Run remake using Pages to describe the setting, sounds, backstory, dialogue and actions. Strange at first eventually became almost natural during the Revolution videos. They helped piece events together in chronological order that we could customize to best of our understanding. The storyboard was the most original part of this stage, and we could plan what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. The storyboard, however, was infamous for not being used that much in either the Revolution videos and the Run video. The call sheet included everything from the dialogue to the weather, but we never solely used it to communicate times and places. By now, I had a pretty solid plan and a massive set of goals I wanted to live up to.
Production & Post-Production:
The next step is to get stuff done, and time was a crucial time. We had to bring props, costumes, tools and quickly film the video. In individual projects, we would have to take as many videos as possible to get the few that are good and match the content. As for groups, we had to plan out every step to show a cause and consequence to make sense.
Editing was the most drastic change to a set of videos telling a story. Multi-media will help enhance the video to show the details. The problem with editing is only one person can do it, and others have to watch. This made it challenging to correct small things that people don’t want to do or know how to edit.
Empowered Learner:
Throughout the project, I have learnt new techniques and new ways to use the technology I knew already. I have set high goals (maybe too high for the time constraint) because I believe I can always reach it and succeed beyond my goal. The work is tiring, hard, and the work ultimately is not useful to university to spend the time all the time on the work. However, I find the will always to do the best I can and learn new things. I took an active role in the Alberta video to choose, achieve and then demonstrate my competency. I created a plan that was firm and had a good action plan for what I wanted to do because I would only visit the place once. I thought my Alberta video was really good with well thought out evidence, good media and self-made music. I lived up to all my goals, but there were things that I still had to work on. I didn’t take nearly as many videos as I would have liked, and my limited iCloud and phone storage filling up did influence me, but it is not an excuse, and I learnt my lesson for next time.
Knowledge constructor:
I have used digital tools to expand my capability with software, and I learnt how to learn about a software without getting mad. The best example of this is the final revolution video creating an informative (John Green) video with animations. I was excited to animate using Adobe Character Animator (Adobe CH) because I watched lots of tutorial videos on YouTube. Adobe CH uses a webcam and mic to move a character’s eyes, mouth, eyebrows, etc. I had many struggles with the software’s basics, which was frustrating, but I realized I could only get it done with a straight mind. The product was terrific, and it showed the first person view through Robespierre, and it is straight forward. Was it worth it, though? No, and yes, no, because it was not highlighted in the video and was a lot of extra work to be done for school. Yes, I learnt a new program that will be easier and useful in the next time we need to do animation. It was also fun, and I felt accomplished when finishing the project, stage or little step. This info was embedded in my brain because of how many times I had to redo my lines due to glitches.
Innovative designer:
One point of a video you get will get stuck and not what to do. In these situations, you need to take a step back and first recognize what is wrong. I would then try to create new, useful or imaginative solutions to complete my massive goal in the time required. When conditions, clothes and locations were different in the Run video, we had to imagine a really obscure solution. It may not be the best, but at least we tried our best to solve the problem. The final scene where we had to have the monster grab the runner. This part of the story was hard to do with two people and not having the same costume, but we managed to prop it on a tree and make it look unnoticeable as possible. We had to reshoot way too many times, and it felt more like a command C command V type of video.
The Ghost town video was planned for what we were going to do, but we had to make last-minute changes due to the buildings there. With the hour we had to scout the structures, we created new scenes, camera angles and plot. Using our imagination, we quickly brainstormed our ideas together to finish the video before we had to leave.
Computational thinker:
Every video has involved strategies to understand the content and solve problems every step of the way. The three stages of production need organization to be successful and ultimately learn in the end. I thought the take your kid to work day video was straightforward to get b-roll because I had already planned out everything I wanted to do (a lesson learnt from Alberta). Even though I had a pretty dull day, the video turned out to be engaging with the unique shots and questions I prepared. However, there was the Run video, where we didn’t plan successfully, and I didn’t end up learning as much as I hoped.
Creative Communicator:
Communicating with a group or keeping in check with myself using time blocking is how work is done. All except two videos were in groups and in groups, I felt that I stepped up to manage the communication, work and shared lots of ideas. I never chose to do a project easy, and in these videos, I used softwares I have never heard of before for creative content. My storyboards was unique and strongly incorporated the animation tools.
Four Shot Video:
The four shot video was the very first video of the year. Using the four angles (closeup, medium, long and establishing shots). With my group, we used strategies we learnt from the previous year. We didn’t have any issue with the production stage but not knowing how to plan for the video messed us up horribly. We didn’t have a thorough plot and camera angles so when we got to filming we had to decide things on the spot. This resulted in a film that was interesting but confusing.
Ghost Town Silent Film:
Using tools to plan out our story we created a typical storyboard to plan everything out. We shared are opinions but when it came to post-production in Alberta with a busy schedule it was hard to communicate and we ended up creating two versions of the video. With the limited wifi, I learnt to work around the handicap and using my resources for what I had. To plan when I got the chance to use wifi I jotted down the things I needed using with wifi.
Drumheller Documentary:
The videos I created keep getting better, and I have learnt so much during this term. I hope to learn from my mistakes and make new ones to become the best I can be. Groups, hard at first, became easier and more natural from strategies that we created personally and as a team. The three stages of production guided our work and made me more independent when challenged with making another video. The curricular competencies have guided our skills and use of technology to create videos using unique videos we would never think of making before.
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