So for those of you keeping up with my blog life, first off, I definitely need to say good on you for actually reading through and looking through my posts! You guys are truly amazing. Second, you may know by now that many of my posts contain videos. This is because in our Maker Class this year, we’ve been buried nose deep into video skills and creating quality videos and films. This post is like me bridging the gap between all my videos from other posts and creating one last unit wrapping post on video skills. So let’s begin! 3.2.1…Action!!!

Now that I really think about it and look back at all my videos from the beginning of the school year, my first video this year would be my Passion Video. This was a short clip we individually created about our passions. This kind of relates to my original entry video when I applied for PLP. Both these short films are centered around my passion of dance and we’re filmed early on in the year. Because the two films are fairly similar, I hope you get the chance to watch both of them and compare how much I’ve grown since the beginning of last year when my application video was made. The Passion Videos really taught me how to express myself with the use of voiceovers and how to properly incorporate them into a video. This tool comes in handy for most of the videos we create in PLP especially educational ones and it’s very important to have a clear voiceover to catch proper information. While this video is t one I’m exactly proud of considering the multitude of films I’ve made now, it was a great stepping stone in the video tool kit process. I hope you enjoy!

Ok, now you’ve seen probably the most embarrassing and cringey part of my video making career. Fast forwarding a bit, many of my videos from this year were filmed during the PLP Class trip to Alberta. Along our trip we stopped at a ghost town in Three Valley Gap where we filmed a short silent movie. This meant that there was no sound or talking allowed. To add to the fun, many of us even added a cool old timer filter giving the video a pioneer days feel. If you’d like to read more about our trip to Alberta and the process of creating this video, please click on the link above!

This video really taught me how each clip has a special significance and meaning  o the overall story. With us not being able to use sound for this film, it showed us how effective actions, expressions, music and titles can be and how much, music especially, can add to the mood and feeling of the film. Our ghost town movie below contains very emotional music. As you watch, I challenge you to try to imagine this film as well as perhaps one of your favourite movies without music. How would that effect the overall experience?

https://youtu.be/MPxmLIhNsAI

On our way home from the Alberta trip, my class stopped by something called the Enchanted Forest. As “enchanted” as it may sound, this place was basically an ordinary forest filled with very creepy and quite frightening concrete fairy tale figures. Our task was to create a movie that incorporated these stone figures. These could be props, characters or whatever our group decided them to be! I actually played the high pitched voice of a stone pig! This video really was so much fun to make and taught me the use of special effects. This was a whole new element for me as I’ve never really bothered to use computerized effects in my past films, but I have to say, they added a whole new level to this film. The effects allowed me to do things I’d never be able to do otherwise such as shootings and explosions which are shown in the film below. Enjoy!

During the Alberta trip, we visited a museum in Drumheller. If your familiar with Drumheller, you probably know that it’s famous for Dinosaurs so of course that was the main topic of the museum. For this video, we simply had to pick any artifact in the museum and create a short video about that artifact. I chose the Ammonite which was a squid-like creature living around the same time as the dinosaurs. This animal caught my eye due to its beautiful lustre and shine. To learn more about this beautiful creature, click on the video below!

The final film we created in Alberta was our unit end Identity video. This was filmed in Alberta but created at home. Basically it was about how the lands Identity affected and impacted us and those who lived there. The main video skill I learned from this video was the use of transitions. The video required us to cover three examples of how the land can impact our Identity. We also had to include photos and interviews so smooth transitions were essential for this project. I used both fades and iMovie transitions but also learned that transitions can be done while filming by simply shaking the camera or darting in and out of poles and walls. I’m very proud of this video because I truly think that it showcases everything I’ve learned from both my Identity unit and video creating unit.

Transferring to the less educational side of the scope, another video I created this year was my live event video. This required me to document a live event that I was either attending or being a part of. The only cool event that was happening that week was dance class. So, I documented that! Get on your tutus and pointe shoes because your about to enter the world of Ballet at Seymour Dance.

This video really challenged me to incorporate interviews into a video. This was a challenge especially for this project as this video had a time limit of no longer than three minutes and interviews are about three minutes on their own! The challenge was to cut down footage and get straight to the point. To do this, I made the intro rather short and went straight to the important part of the film which was the ballet footage and interview.

Another fairly short video, similar to my live event film is my take your kid to work day video! This was filmed on BC’s annual take your kid to work day where all grade 9 students from across the province would shadow their parents at work for a day to gain the experience of a normal work day. To read more about my personal experience, click the link here.

This was another great chance to incorporate interview skills as this video required us to add in an interview. I got to learn so many new things about the stress of adult work life and what an average day in the life would look like. By the end of the day, one thing was for certain, I NEVER want to be an eye doctor when I grow up😂

The final video I’ll talk about in this post is my Scimatix Chemistry Story Video. I made this with my partner Taylor. This was very different from the other films I’ve done. Like my Ghost Town Story, this vidéo had to be a short film and tell a story. Our main characters had to be chemicals and the plot had to result in some kind of ionic or covalent bond. I’d never really done much animating before this project so this was a great opportunity to learn some cool skills for animation. Using magic move, I was able to move objects and characters around the screen. I even learned how to make a person’s mouth move using this cool app called FlipaClip. I’m so proud of how this video turned out and had so much fun making it.

Thanks again for reading my blog! I hope you enjoyed watching my videos. If you have any comments or feedback, please leave a comment below!