More Happy than not is a book that I read in class and has been at the centre of many of my assignments from this unit including this one, the more Happy than not book trailer. In this assignment we chose one of four book options layer out for us and got into groups based on which one we chose. My group consisted of Adlih, Isabelle, Melika, Logan, and Luca. Me and the other members of my group all chose to read More Happy than not, a book about a teen boy who wants to forget that fact that he’s gay because of the pain that it has caused him, so he uses a special procedure called the Leteo Procedure to do so. We all completed the book, and now p our objective was to imagine that the book was to be made into a movie. We were supposed to create and film our interpretation of what the trailer for that movie would look like. 

We had to pick and choose certain passages and the most important scenes to include in order for the trailer to make sense. We put all of our ideas into outlines and storyboards that we used as a guide when it came time to start filming. We had planned out all the settings, costumes, music, and a script for the video, and it was finally recording time. In order to get all the shots we needed, my group and I traveled downtown to record different scenes that we needed for the final trailer. We had also filmed at people’s houses, different stores (with permission of course) and even the workplace of my friends mom who was kind enough to drive us downtown and let us film there. We also filmed at parks and other places that we came across while walking around downtown. 

After this, we edited together our first draft and it was time to review, critique, and revise. This is our first draft.

After revision, we completed our final draft and I quite proud of how it turned out. Our final video even included a self written song that Luca wrote and sang to be the audio for the trailer we created.

This is the final video.

Once finished, we took the QR code from our video that had been uploaded to YouTube, printed out a bunch, and pasted them on the inside of all of the books all the copies we had of our book, more happy than not. That way anyone can take a picture, scan the code, and be directed to our video. So basically in other words, this video will always be around to haunt us forever.

All in all, I was so proud of our group for being so cooperative, easy to work with, and for all contributing in some way wether that be in the form of filming, acting, providing a setting suitable for the scene, sharing their ideas, writing the script, creating a storyboard, finding costumes, organizing when where and what to film, and so on. I learned so much throughout the duration of this project such as how to pick out a good setting and how to plan around everybody else’s schedule as well as my own. We really hit home with the visuals and music and the video turned out extremely well thanks to our hardworking group members, and peers who gave us helpful feedback to change things like the voice overs and quotes which we completed for the final draft.