If you’re of a certain age or brought up during a certain time span, you’ve probably heard of the Travel Vlog icon, Rick Steves. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t even worry, before starting this project, I’ve never heard his name or seen his face before. Basically, Rick is a writer and travel video figure that many girls (like my humanities teacher) can’t keep their eyes off of. He is well known for his travel guide videos and his books to help visitors and tourists get the best out of their trip. Rick Steves was used as a major inspiration for this project. From his cheesy introduction sequence to his informative script, our goal was to make Rick proud. Or, in my words, PLP 9 vs Risk Steves.

So you might have guessed the project just by how I introduced the post. But for this assignment, each of us were asked to research and create a travel guide video about a historical site either in Victoria, Smithers or locally here in Vancouver. I was assigned the well known and visited Chinatown Vancouver where history and modern day meet. Like most projects, the teachers will ask us to reflect after and in this case, write a blog post!

While I’ve made countless films and videos in the past for other assignments, I’ve never really made a travel guide video before so this project was a great opportunity to learn a few new film techniques! To start the project off, we were required to do some research about our location before even thinking about hitting the “record” button. Now, before my teachers start bugging me about telling you what I learned, let’s dive right into it. I’m pretty sure I can call myself the Chinatown Vancouver expert by now 😂.

The story of Chinatown Vancouver, although very interesting doesn’t end in a happy ending. Chinatowns were originally created as almost a “hang out spot” for new Chinese settlers and immigrants alike. Think about it this way, if you went to a party but you only knew a few of the people who were there, you’d probably feel more comfortable hanging out with the people you know and get along with. Right? Well, it was no different for the Chinese. They were kinda the outsiders in BC so they created these towns or villages so they could all be together and still be able to celebrate and share traditional Chinese customs and beliefs. Vancouver’s Chinatown began to grow as more Chinese people were brought into the area during the construction of the CPR Railway. The place reached its peak in the early 1900s as during this time, Canada was more focused on the over population of Indian immigrants in the country. During its peak, Chinatown took up several blocks and featured many Chinese businesses such as theatres, restaurants, schools, libraries and basically anything else you have in your neighbourhood today! This however all took a turn when the country signed what is known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. A costly head tax was billed to any Chinese person wishing to immigrate to Canada in hopes of lowering the population of Chinese immigrants. So, going back to the party visual, imagine the other people at the party (not your friends) started being mean to you. This could be for whatever reason. Perhaps you tripped and everyone laughed at you or you didn’t wear fancy attire, justimagine that the other people there were being mean. But also imagine you going off to hang with your friends. They become a sort of escape from the other people. A sort of sanctuary. Well, during this hard time, Chinatowns also became a sort of sanctuary for the Chinese people too. It was a safe place where they could still be accepted no matter their race.

Anyways, regardless of the racist laws and head tax, the Chinese population in Canada continued to grow. However, Chinatown Vancouver never quite rebuilt its once thriving community and th e majority of its buildings were knocked down in order to create more housing.

Well that was whole ton of history for one day. Let’s cut to the chase, filming techniques and angles and all that cool stuff.

Doing a travel video isn’t as hard as one might think. Sure you see Rick Steves looking all smart and fancy as he casually walks through exotic streets and locations looking like a know-it-all. But really, it isn’t that different than other videos I’ve made in the past. One fairly similar video would be my Alberta Identity film about how land impacts identity. Both include info about certain places that are worth seeing in the area. The video also consists of many voiceovers, on location scenes and scenery shots to show the setting of the video.

This travel video has taught me much about different filming techniques such as how important it is to have a consistant audio throughout. Using a microphone or headset is extremely essential for good clear audio and voiceovers. I used this technique for my video and saw great improvement in the quality of my voice on camera!

Now this should be a no brainer especially when you see it with your own eyes, but camera angles can play a big role in how your film turns out. While on field studies, we’ve gotten pretty good at filming and capturing scenery angles and nature but, everyone in our class definitely needed work when it came to filming a person.

Part of this project was trying to learn and capture a person or object using the rule of thirds. This is a photography term used to try to get an angle that is visually appealing to the audience. To practice this, we partnered up in pairs and took both a closeup photo and another photo of our partner from a distance using the rule of thirds.

Besides learning different film techniques, I also learned to take leadership and learn how to direct people so that your instructions are clear and easy to follow. In a way, it’s like directing a movie. I had to learn how to be firm but kind, patient and specific when it came to giving directions. In the end, I ended up with a pretty cool video that showcases everything I’ve learned up to this point.

I’m extremely proud of how I was able to add in all the details and video making skills I’ve learned this year and be able to pour it all into what I think is one of my best videos yet!