During the past week we were tasked with creating a short video to go along with #HistoryWeek2017. The project was to pick a location in Vancouver and figure out the history behind it, then of course explain it in video. The project was called “Namesake” and with Adam and Aiden, we chose to focus on Kitsilano. Kits has gone through some huge changes over the past hundred years or so and before starting this project I knew almost nothing about it. Upon completion I now realize why it’s such an iconic and special place in Vancouver.
To kick things off we started to compile research upon research Kitsliano. The name derived from a First Nation’s chief who lived in the area. The spelling of the chiefs name was “Khatsahlano” but I believe it was respelt due to confusion with the pronunciation. The area itself is located near the downtown peninsula and is home to numerous amounts of beaches, as well as the tourist hotspot Granville Island.
I think the most interesting thing we were able to find out and include in our project was that Kitsilano was one of the hotbeds during the hippie movement in the 60’s and 70’s. Constant parités were happening in the streets and on the beaches. This moment in time was the most popular for Kitsilano and the hippie culture is what really made it so popular, making it one of it’s most iconic times. It managed to stay that way until it was gentrified by “Yuppies”, the Young Urban Professionals (It took us so long to say Yuppies in our recording without laughing).
To begin our video we compiled some time lapses and short clips as an introduction on Kitsilano, then began our script and importing that to line up with the video. Aiden created some explain everything clips to help showcase our knowledge of the subject in a more interesting way, instead of just photos and us talking over top of it. We went with the style choice of having it fast paced, fact after fact, with lots of clips and edits throughout the whole thing. Our group managed to pull all of this off and we thought it was great, unfortunately our class thought otherwise…
I was away for the class and peer critique, but I heard it didn’t go too well. Some of the clips in our video just appeared as black screen, makin gour teacher think we were being lazy and didn’t bother going back and editing any of it. After going back and seeing what was wrong, we were able to fix the issue and revise our Namesake video.
In the end I thought this project was really fun, I got to learn more about the place I live and work on my project planning and layout skills. I’m often out there for sports, I also have family that live out in Kitsilano, so I think it’s really great that I was able to learn more about the backstory and history to such an amazing place. Yuppies, I also learned that was a thing,
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