Category Archives: Field Studies

Posts about field studies that I have gone on.

我去了唐人街！

Oh. Hello people of the inter-webs, I am, as always, Jason Guan, and this is my official Victoria post.

In this post, we’re going to go over the skills and information I learned, my experience in Victoria, and how I got to my final product, which was this beautiful video.

https://youtu.be/2ndvDcXrMj8

First, let’s go over the initial project. As always, there was a driving question and ours was:

How can we help visitors connect to BC’s history?

Inspiration

The main project for this unit was, as you’ve already seen, a travel video outlining a specific part of Victoria. Mine was, as you’ve also seen, Chinatown. At the beginning, we watched a few documentaries and videos to inspire us. We watched Michael Palin in North Korea, Departures, and one of our personal favourites, Rick Steves.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o8o2wG3KUGk

Victoria

We then did a bit of research on the sights we were seeing, and researched our locations before departing at a wonderful 5:00 AM to catch our ferry to Victoria.

In Victoria, we visited many well-known locations, such as the Royal BC Museum, the Parliament Building, and Chinatown. We also participated in many tours, such as a tour of Ross Bay, Downtown Victoria, and a spooooky ghostly walk.

In the Royal BC Museum, we recorded story-telling videos about the exhibits in the museum, and Sam, Nik And I had fun recording tales of recruiters, immigrants, and bad Chinese accents.

Rule of Thirds

After the trip, we edited our videos and to everyone’s surprise, the great Jason Guan goofed up. Turns out, rule of thirds was actually crucial to our filming, and I kind of messed up my filming partner Nik’s video, as I did not follow the rule of thirds to any extent.

After a few lessons and more than enough disappointed looks, I learned my lesson and realized what I had done. Lesson learned.

Drafts

As is with any PLP project, revision was necessary. In my first draft, I had about 1 and a half minutes of footage, no music, and no voiceovers. It was too terrible to upload to YouTube, so it will remain unseen.

The second draft was much better compared to my first one. First of all, I added much needed music and voiceovers, and scrounged up enough footage to get 2 minutes and 52 seconds of video. The audio was a little inconsistent, and I was 8 seconds under the minimum, but it wasn’t too shabby.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3VAQov7ZBw

The third draft was not a huge improvement, but progress was made. I rewatched my video and fixed the small inconsistencies in my voiceovers, and added different music to the background. I also added citations, which I learned about during the editing process of my video. I also added a “The end” screen, extending it to three minutes.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgg1aQTBZno

The fourth Draft was pretty much the same, just minor changes to the audio and shortening the ending screen.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gXoJCTO5fbU

Now, onto my final draft. As you can see, I came a long way from an audio-less slideshow of Chinatown to an actual honest-To-god travel video. I made some nice 90’s sitcom-ish credits, made my audio more consistent and it was finished.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2ndvDcXrMj8

Reflection

In conclusion, this project was actually one of my more favourite projects. I usually enjoy making movies and this project was, yet again, another refresher on the magic of iMovie.

However, I was also able to work on my perseverance skills through this project. Multiple times throughout this project iMovie messed up my project, un-syncing audio and messing up voiceovers, and many times through this process I felt like giving up and just asking for an extension, but I was able to fight through it and come out on top.

I know, I know, I’m over exaggerating it, but iMovie is no joke. It’s like, like…. I can’t think of an analogy. But if iMovie treats you well, you’ll have a good time but if iMovie is bad to you, it won’t be good.

Otherwise, this project really helped me improve my filming technique through some pretty brutal lessons. Rule of thirds will forever remain in my mind for many years to come. I also learned how to do MLA citations, which will undoubtedly be a big part of any future projects in humanities. In conclusion, I was very happy with how this project turned out. I revised well, and polished and improved many different skills (rule of thirds, iMovie).

This is Jason, signing off.

Possession is 9/10ths of the law

Alright, so I’ve gone over the whole “Identity” part of our trip, but what did we actually do on our trip? I’m sure that was on everyone’s mind while they were reading my post, instead of “Who is this kid?” or “What am I doing here?”.

As many of you know, I am Jason, and this is my official Alberta blog post.

So, in this post, I’ll be covering most of the things that I didn’t cover in my identity Video, so if you want a bit more info on Alberta, and specifically, one of the main projects we worked on. Check out my identity post after you read this post.

Also, before you read, I’ve made a little video documenting some of the places that I will mention in this post. Make sure to take a look at that. If you do not like EDM, then you can get out.

Just kidding. If you don’t like my music then just mute it. However, I spent a lot of effort syncing up the images to the music, so it would mean a lot to me if you enjoyed the full experience.

https://youtu.be/6P8OZum2tys

On one fateful day in September, similar to last year, at some undisclosed time early in the morning, 17 rowdy kids departed Seycove in the ol’ faithful Seycove bus, with their bags crammed under their seats and their headphones plugged in. And just like that, the trip had begun.

Canadian Pacific Railway

Along our trip, we visited several CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) attractions. The CPR was also a pretty big focus on our trip, as we visited Rogers Pass, the Spiral Tunnels, and most notably, the Last Spike. We also did a lot of research before and during our trip, including watching the CPR movie The Iron Road and watching some short filmstrips and documentaries on our trip, such as “The War on Snow”, which we watched in Rogers Pass and taught us about how the military launched missiles into the mountains to cause avalanches. Or something like that.

Calgary

We spent a few days on the road, staying in Three Valley Gap and Lake Louise, before arriving at our final destination, Calgary. We spent 4 days in Calgary visiting some well known attractions, such as the Calgary Zoo, Glenbow Museum, And The Royal Tyrell Museum (which technically isn’t in Calgary but we went there while we were in Calgary).

Beakerhead

But now, you might be asking, why did you go to Calgary in the first place? Well I’m gonna tell you.

You see, in Calgary, we participated in a magical event called Beakerhead. Basically, beakerhead is when a bunch of scientists, artists, and other people come together, and take over the city of Calgary, setting up various “Beacons” and “Pop-Up” events. Beacons are pretty much huge attractions that combine both science and art to represent something.

During Beakerhead, we visited a huge dung beetle, a burning man recreation, an up recreation (House covered in balloons) and giant tesla coils.

Through beakerhead, I’ve gained a better knowledge of both Science and Art. Also where else are you gonna get to ram into your fellow students in zorb balls for school? (Yes, we actually did that.)

The Art Of Filmmaking

Another focus for the trip was filmmaking. We worked on both our iMovie and clips skills by creating 4 short films/movies at various locations.

Obviously, you’ve seen the identity video, which was included in my identity post, which all of you obviously read, but what were the other 3? Well, I’m not gonna tell you.

I’m not gonna tell you.

Nope. Not gonna tell you.

OK, maybe I’ll tell you.

Hey, stop peer pressuring me to tell you!

Alright fine, I’ll tell you. Our first one was on one of the first stops of our trip. The Heritage Ghost Town In the Three Valley Gap. The Ghost Town is made up of many restored historical buildings, and is eerily creepy, due to the abundance of manniquins. And also the dental office. That was terrifying.

In The Town, we created silent films, which weren’t even allowed to include sound effects. Even though it was in a ghost town, it didn’t have to be spooky. Ours did have some spooky elements, but still has an old-timey movie feel about it. Take a look for yourself.

https://youtu.be/n_Lt3wFq8gw

Our second was a while later in Drumheller, where we had to make a video telling the story of one of the fossils in the dinosaur museum using accurate facts about the fossil. Check that out as well:

https://youtu.be/H2zppdozdMY

Our final project was on our final day, in the Enchanted Forest, which may have been one of the creepiest places we went to. Take a look at the figures in our video and you can see for yourself.

https://youtu.be/q6nJsipWFd4

Well, you’ve watched and enjoyed our movies (I hope) and you’ve enjoyed this post just as much (I also hope) and it is now time to cap off this post. The Alberta trip was definitely a great way to start the year and will definitely be one of the highlights of my high school days.

Oh, what a trip!

What up folks. It’s Jason. This post is going to be about our wonderful trip to Oregon. AKA Rain County. Well, it actually rained once in Oregon, but it usually rains a lot in Oregon.

Alright now that all the memes are out of the way, let’s get the ball rolling and start. By the way, I also made a book. You can click/tap below to read it!

PLP 8 Oregon Book

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

Let me start by saying Oregon was great. They take the new Grade 8’s every year and we always end up hearing about the horrors of one of my worst enemies, Rain. Luckily for us, it barely rained in Oregon. I’ll admit, it was pretty cramped in the bus sometimes, but we managed to bear through it. We also did some pretty fabulous things in Oregon. From ziplining, to boat riding, to indulging ourselves at the Golden Corral, which was this massive buffet we went to. There were some pretty memorable inside jokes too. *cough we eat tonight cough cough* We also had some great adventures at Wal-Mart, Costco, and Fred Meyer. Also, we may or may not have discovered a new species on the boat…

Yeah… No one’s really sure what THAT is.

Moving on. We had some really great food on the trip. From the amazing chicken at Nisa’s Thai to the hot roast turkey at Chalet. We also went to some amazing buffets. Izzy’s, Sweet Tomatoes, And Golden Corral, which, by the way, had a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN.

What’s next, let me check…. Oh! The beautiful scenery. The scenery on our trip was (imagine me saying this in a snobby, stuck up accent) simply divine. But seriously, the views on our trip were dope. Here. Why don’t you see for yourself.