This project was the combination of many themes, ideas, and experiences. All put together to create one final video in a short doc-u-series style. In total there were five different episodes, each with a focus on a different aspect of the West Coast, culture, unreal realities, arts and architecture, outdoors, and the entertainment industry. Each theme had a different group of three working on the creation of its video. Me, Erin, and Johnathan created the episode on the entertainment industry. The goal of this video was to answer the following question,
Why are some people able to see around corners in ways others are not, and by doing so, shape how we see ourselves in this changing world?
Big question, I know! We had to answer this question while having a focus on the entertainment industry on the West Coast. Which means we had many topics to cover and a lot of planning to get done in order to incorporate all these ideas in one short video.
If you want to watch the video now it will be posted below,
If you just watched the video above you may have gotten the idea that all of the clips weren’t just from Vancouver. That is because for this project we got to do an incredible trip down to L.A! As the focus was on the West Coast for this project, we were able to extend our learning and travel farther down the coast to gain experience and talk to people that could give insights we otherwise wouldn’t have gotten.
Before I could even start thinking of what the trip might be like and how much fun I would have, I was busy planning, prepping, and stressing about the creation of our video. Deadlines were hard to meet, as they were coming fast and we were still lost as to what we actually wanted our video to look, feel, and sound like.
This started changing as we each talked through what we thought the content of the video should be. Talking about our ideas and how we saw the video playing out. Some of the focus of our video would be based in Vancouver as one group member was staying behind and would be able to focus their time on that aspect of the video. Sectioning off parts of the video that needed to be planned and created really helped. We were able to focus our thoughts on one aspect of the video, plan that out, then combine and weave the ideas together into a final product.
One of the biggest struggles was coming up with the initial idea. I think at first the creation of this video seemed so far off that the reality of it, the stress of it hadn’t settled in. Which for me means I didn’t have the same push to work on it as much (yes I know this is something I need to work on…). This is where working in a group really helped me! When I see others in my group actually putting in effort and doing their cut of the work, it drives me to complete my part as I don’t want to be the one in the group that slacks off. This is one aspect of group projects I find quite beneficial for myself, as sometimes the hardest part of the project can just be sitting down and starting. However the group aspects allows the people around me to push me and drive me to work without even realizing it. In my group this worked really well as I found we were all contributing our thoughts and ideas, and as everything got rolling and a plan for our video was made we each put in effort to make it come together.
Before we could start putting any of the video together we needed to get our photos, videos, and interviews. Personally I am someone who often gets carried away in the moment so I knew this might be a struggle for me as I often forget to take out my phone to capture the moment. However before we even left I started thinking of this and decided I needed to create a list that went day by day, place by place, listing all of the different photos and videos we were hoping to get. This way each day I would have a reminder on when I needed to be focused on capturing what was around us.
Along the trip my favourite places to visit were the art museums, Luna Luna and Mr. Brainwash were two of the top ones. However some of the more beneficial places for our video were Disneyland, Sony pictures studio, and the Acedemy Museum of Motion Picture. My group and I were hoping to get interviews with staff or visitors at all these places. This part of the plan did not go as well as we were hoping, as at Sony Pictures Studio and the Acedemy Museum of Motion Picture all the people we asked were unable to give an interview as they weren’t allowed to answer questions and be recorded while at work. We had slight hopes as the woman we talked to at the Museum gave us her contact and as we emailed, we were given the impression that she would be sending us a video of her answering our questions. However that ended up falling through, which was unfortunate but these things happen in life and we just had to pivote as we had already been doing throughout the project.
A big focus of our video was at Disneyland so right away we knew we would need to get lots of footage on the days we visited. We also knew that we wanted to talk and interview some of the visitors themselves and we were lucky enough to get that footage. I was able to go up to some of the visitors and chat with them breifly, asking for an interview. While this is a simple conversation, it actually took so much more effort than you would expect as I may have been just a little scared to go up to some strangers and ask to record them…
But I did it! And I actually felt really good coming out of the conversation.
When it came to actually creating our video Erin gets so much credit as she put so much time and effort into editing it, while I helped out by narrating. Our video covers our answer to the driving question, but here’s my answer in my own words.
Some people are able to see around corners because they themself push the boundaries of what is around the corner. People in the entertainment industry are able to push those boundaries by creating realities within different forms of entertainment and share it to a large audience, influencing them and essentially creating what will be our future. They are able to reach these audiences and often shift peoples perspectives and views on the world.
Overall I enjoyed this project, especially the travel and going out and getting have new and different experiences. I think it always adds to my learning and I genuinely have fun on the trips.