Hello there everyone! Today, I’m going to talk about a recent project that ended right before the spring break… Destination Imagination.
By the way, I’m all refreshed and eager to return to work now! To be honest, this project really burnt me out (partly since social interaction isn’t necessarily my most favourite thing to do), and I was super glad to have a nice long break right after it.
SIGH, introvert issues…
Anyways- let’s get on with the post!
I know, I know. Your first question probably falls along the lines of, “WHAT THE HEDGEHOG IS DESTINATION IMAGINATION?”
Well… Basically, it’s a worldwide competition where students in k-12 can compete through completing two challenges based on multiple academic areas. Also, there’s both an instant challenge and a challenge solution that each group will present in a live tournament with judges.
However, due to Covid, instead of having a tournament, we were asked to create some videos instead.
If you would like more information on this competition, click here!
Anyways, for PLP we were signed up for Destination Imagination and was thrusted into a competition of a lifetime. (I’m probably being over dramatic again lol.)
I’m going to be completely honest here… There were a lot of times that I wanted to give up, but I’m super glad I didn’t.
First off, I was paired up with my lovely group; Fraser, Hannah, Colton, Cale, and Judah.
…And together we formed the mighty group known as “Let’s Gogh!”
ALSO, here’s a time lapse of my group mate, Fraser, painting our beautiful team sign!
Earlier on, when I first decided on a challenge that I found most interesting, I never imagined how difficult creating the final solution would be.
I was super excited when I first saw this challenge since I’ve always loved music, and I’ve watched tons of music videos in the past. I also really enjoy karaoke (haha my Filipino side is really kicking in.) However, actually making everything ourselves and alone was really overwhelming.
When the time came to choose which piece of literature we were going to pick, I was completely stumped. Our group decided to go on a more “classical” route, and pick a piece that many people would know. We searched through multiple stories ranging from “the three little pigs” (which was scrapped early on lol) to “Robin Hood.”
In the end, we went with “Anne of Green Gables.”
I’ve had many experiences with this story, and to be honest, I was quite sceptical at the beginning since I wasn’t too familiar with the plot. I’ve owned a copy of the book for years, but surprisingly, I’ve never read it before.
However, looking back (and after many “Anne with an e” episodes), I’m really happy we chose this wonderful story.
I was assigned to be in charge of all the music. My teammate, Judah, was originally going to compose the musical part of the song, but he unfortunately fell ill and stayed at home for a majority of the project.
Hannah hand-sewed/designed Anne’s outfit, and helped plan out the rest of the costumes. Fraser planned and maintained our schedule while also working on one of the team choice elements (juggling). He and Colton worked together to film some amazing shots for the music video (even through the pouring rain!) Colton also helped assign roles and do our paperwork. Cale helped film some of the shots, and assisted in organizing our “to do’s”.
In the beginning, we originally wanted to do a dream-like sequence which would take place before the events of the novel (where Anne would be imagining what her new home would be like.) However, we scrapped it all half-way through since it didn’t retell all or a part of a piece of literature-
🥲
Let’s just say that it wasn’t a great day.
Starting from square one was slow and tiring, but it was definitely worth it later on.
We eventually decided to recreate the scene where Anne Shirley hits Gilbert Blythe on the head with a chalk board.
When I first wrote the lyrics to the song, I tried to incorporate lines from the actual chapter in the book (or at least took inspiration from them.) For example, I did this with the lyrics: “What a splendid day…” and “…all the girls think he’s rather something…”.
Also, instead of rhyming every other line like a “traditional” song, I just made two out of four lines rhyme (with the chorus as an exception.) I wanted it to feel like an actual conversation instead of poetry, while making it still sound nice with the music.
Later on, I used GarageBand to compose and record. I didn’t have much experience with composing, so I stuck to a simple pattern of repeating the same notes (which actually worked to our advantage since the song kept getting stuck in everyone’s head lol.)
I feel like I’ve learned A LOT from this experience, because I’ve never actually managed to complete an entire song before.
I’ve learned a lot about songwriting and just how difficult it can be. I also had a lot of fun playing around with different instruments and practicing singing… “beyond karaoke” (it was harder than I expected lol)
After I wrote the song, we started visualizing how the music video might look. Here’s a short animatic I made with a rough version of the song…
And here’s some messy storyboards…
As I mentioned earlier, the filming process was… difficult to say the least. It was POURING RAIN on the ONE day we had to film outside. Everyone got completely soaked, and it wasn’t the most pleasant experience. Although, we kept pushing on, and managed to film some amazing shots!
But I swear, I got so wet and cold… definitely wouldn’t recommend.
OH AND ALSO, I ANIMATED SOME SHOTS FOR OUR MUSIC VIDEO!
The animation was a process to say the least. It was very ambitious to take on (haha… I still haven’t learned my lesson about taking more than I can swallow), and I struggled a lot with managing my time. If you didn’t know, animation takes a LOT of time.
A. LOT.
The first steps to animation is capturing the movement. For this scene, I first filmed myself doing the action, then referenced it throughout.
Then I had to sketch out the character, and ink it.
Lastly, I coloured each frame individually, and added the backgrounds. For Anne’s design, I really wanted to use a lot of bright, vibrant colours to capture her unique personality.
Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to add some “tweening”, so the final product doesn’t look as smooth as I would have wanted. Also, the anatomy was rushed (AAAA THOSE HANDS AND FEET DARLING! CATASTROPHIC!), and her dress doesn’t have that much movement. Next time I animate, I’ll make sure I have enough time to do it properly lol.
Anyways, I’ve created a little chart that shows how I used to think before DI, compared to how I feel now…
Before, I felt pretty excited for DI. However, I was mainly worried on how I might convey my ideas (since I consider myself to be the “quiet type.”) In the end, I never would’ve guessed the amount of learning experiences I’ve been exposed to through this project.
I definitely underestimated how difficult DI could be at times.
There are so many things that I’ve learned from Destination Imagination, and I’m so glad we got it done on time. Although it might be a little grim, creating a music video has been on my bucket list for ages, but I’ve never found the motivation to actually finish one. I’m definitely going to try to make another one in the future someday with all the skills I’ve learned from creating this one.
Here’s our FINAL video:
And here’s a Q&A “interview” on the process of making our video:
Also, if you would like to see how we did in the competition check out here 👀 :
Unfortunately, I can’t show you guys our INSTANT CHALLENGE for competition reasons 😉
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!
If anyone wants to know, I was listening to the soundtrack from the movie “Inception” while I was writing this post. I love the music, and I think Hans Zimmer did a great job composing!
My personal favourites from the soundtrack are “Time” and “Half Remembered Dream.”
Also, here’s a video that someone made on youtube that brings all the songs together into one ultimate cut!
Have any of y’all watched the movie before? If not, I really recommend it (it’s one of my favourites… But besides Star Wars of course lol!)
As always, comments are really appreciated! Thank you again for checking out my blog!
My gifs are from the following sources:
Leave a Reply