My Near Death Experience With Video Editing

In September, our class learned about nuclear war.

It was terrifying, but of course I just kind of had to ignore that part and stop being dramatic. Cause I had work to do.

Ensues an adventure/nightmare/learning experience that almost made me drop out of school to become a burger flipper.

Okay, I’m being dramatic again.

The actual trip we went on was great and informative and really fun. Instead of telling you everything we did, I’m just going to insert a really fun looking video that hopefully tells some kind of narrative and lets you know what kind of things we did on the trip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ494qDxiTU

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS

Once we got back is when the real trouble began. We had to make a video, and this video caused me a lot of pain and suffering. My group and I (Spencer, Stanfield, Luciano, & Matt) handed in our final draft a week after everyone else because of our busy schedules and technical difficulties. First of all, it was a lot of editing. I had to fully edit the movie 5 or 6 times, and of I’m being honest, I’m like, barely happy with the results.

The first video we made was a scratch video, so we knew we were going to have to reflim everything we were doing, and we were 100% okay with it, because it wasn’t very good. We were just trying to get formatting down. It ended up not looking great, tbh. You can click here to view it.

The second draft was when things got serious, so I brought in my DSLR camera to film everything nicely. That took about two days. Then, I had to actually start seriously editing. I did my best, but I wasn’t able to complete it how I wanted it in the time I had. I didn’t have the interviews in place, and the editing was only finished for like, the first third of the video. Click here to see what ended up being handed in.

The third draft was when all hell broke loose. I spent hours working on this thing, and THEN IT CRASHED and I had a breakdown and everything was awful.

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It actually fixed itself the next day, but it was still traumatizing. I was completely drained of everything I had in me. I finished the video, and then I did my best to forget the whole thing ever happened. In fact, here is a poem from the book Teen Angst Poetry that really represents how I felt in that period of time. Anyways, here is the video we ended up with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEq_feT_2rw

What I’ve learned from this experience seems to be what I’m learning time and time again: effort doesn’t always mean anything. I put literal blood sweat and tears into this project, and it still didn’t come out like I would have hoped. Meanwhile, I can put pretty much no effort into something and it will turn out great.

I’m not sure exactly why I can never feel satisfied with projects like this. Sometimes it’s almost like the more I work on something, the worse it gets. Maybe that’s because I have a higher expectation for things I spend a long time on. I can always confirm that they are objectively worse. I even think that 2 minute video at the beginning ended up better than this video that I spent at least a dozen hours on. Working hard doesn’t mean anything when your end result looks like it wasn’t worked hard on.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to stop working hard on stuff, it just means the world is unfair.

Agh.

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Mid(dle School) Life Crisis

World War One was a tragedy. It was a war that caused millions of deaths and changed the world forever.

It was also an insane catfight.

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I don’t mean like, the fighting in the trenches and all. I give my highest respects to all the soldiers who fought during WWI.

‘Cause I’m talking about the governments.

Most of the countries really only entered the war because their friends were in it. It’s the perfect example of “If your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you?”. It turns out that for most of these countries, the answer is hell yeah. I still think this Arthur video sums up pretty much what was going on that made WWI happen. A simple case of insane chaos.

But I know I can’t just hand in a clip from Arthur from 2003 as my assignment (as much as I would like to). So I have theorized that WWI began because the strong sense of nationalism coming from multiple countries caused alliances to weaken. This means, pretty much, that everyone thought they were better than their neighbours, or deserved more, or thought things were becoming unfair. This made me relate them to children because kids tend to be so immature that they think the world needs to be 100% fair.

Well, at least, that’s my opinion. To support that, here are some real actual diary entries that I totally didn’t make up.

Originally, I was going to make a bunch of diary entries for each country, but after finishing the first batch of entries, I realized that I probably only had enough time to make one more batch (writing them all out and pasting them on sheet things took about 2 and a half hours per batch). I decided to start with

I decided to start with Austria-Hungary, because I feel like their animosity towards other countries was very spread and affected nearly every other country. They were pissed at everyone and their government was falling to pieces, and yet they were still making awful decisions (honestly me). They sent Franz Feridnand to Serbia even though EVERYONE KNEW it was an awful idea. They also knew they shouldn’t start anything because they didn’t want Russia coming after them. So at first, they just tried to ignore Serbia.

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Meanwhile, Serbia was being moody. I gave Serbia a different font from the rest of the countries because I kind of felt like they were the emo kid. Like, going around talking about how nobody understands them and all that. They were pretty new as a country, and were mad that nobody was taking them seriously (kinda like North Korea is today). They actually ended up being the country that started all this mess, though. Franz Ferdiand got shot in Serbia. But would the war had happened otherwise? Probably. Serbia was just the moody emo kid who put the bullet in the gun (and forget to click the safety).

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The issue may have stayed in the Balkans, like everything else that had happened in the Balkans had, but Russia and Serbia were actually pretty good friends. If Russia hadn’t have cared enough to get involved, then the war might not have happened. Oh, and Russia was bitter towards Germany, who was friends with Austria-Hungary, so there was also that motive.

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Then, because Germany thinks they’re better than everyone, they have to get themselves involved. There’s not a whole lot to say about them. They were acting all high and mighty, which made a lot of people not like them. Germany honestly needed to calm down for like, the first half of the 20th century.

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England and France got involved because, as I said before, EVERYBODY HATES GERMANY.

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And then Canada joins in because “When Britian is at war, Canada is at war.” – Sir Wilfred Laurier

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And Italy is CONFUSED. Kinda like me at this point tbh.

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THEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. Once Franz Ferdinand gets shot, and Serbia gets invaded, everyone needs to stick their nosey little fingers in it. Everyone was too proud and protected their friends when they shouldn’t have, so everything goes to crap.

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War is dirty, messy, and bad. I blame nationalism for most of this. If everyone wasn’t so damn proud, maybe stuff like this wouldn’t happen. I think it shows in history that too much pride can be dangerous, and that’s what happened with WWI, WWII, and a whole lot of other wars that I don’t know about because Canada doesn’t do much war.  Pretty much my thesis on all war is that pride is the killer.

I’m looking at you, America.

 

 

 

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What if Canada Opened Our Doors to Everyone?

In the Laurier ages of Canada, we were practically begging people to come on in and take our land. We needed the people to fill up the land that we didn’t want to be taken by America (of course we took no regard to the people who had been living on those lands for hundreds of years).

We used an open-door immigration policy to fill up all that space. It worked, for the most part. We were able to bring in enough people to claim the land as Canadian.

I’ve noticed that immigration is a touchy subject now in Canada, with all the refugees we’ve brought in. It seems like it might have been just as a touchy subject a hundred years ago when the government invited a whole bunch of people in.

But what would happen if we did what they did back then, and just kinda opened up our doors? I tried to figure it out. I wrote a script

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and I have made an accompained video to futher explain my understanding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmPjj33y3z0

 

This video was actually very simply made. I used the Explain Everything app to make the video, and was able to make clear visuals that help enhance what I had written in my script.  My one issue that I often have with this app is I’m not sure if you can do the animations sepretely from when you’re recording your voice. If you can, I’ve never been able to figure it out.

Either way, my EE skills have improved a lot from when I first used the app. As I continue to use this app throughout the year, I hope that I can begin to understand more the features avaliable to me so I can make videos with better animations.

 

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September/October Playlist

Because of school starting, I didn’t really have time to piece together a new playlist for September, so I’ve decided my best option is to just mash up September and October in one playlist. I figured it made sense because I didn’t really start listening to new music until the end of September anyway. So, uh, here it is.

  1. Bad Reputation by Shawn Mendes

This song is my favourite right now off Shawn Mendes’ new album. I don’t really know what to say about it. It’s just like, a good song. I….I like it.

Favourite Lyric: She got a bad reputation / She takes the long way home

2. This Town by Niall Horan

First post-1D single from a member who isn’t Zayn? How about YES. This song is so chill and it reminds me of both One Direction (FOUR era) and Ed Sheeran (Ed Sheeran is never a bad thing). You might scoff at it because it’s, yanno, Niall Horan. But I think you should give it a listen.

Favourite Lyric: Everything comes back to you

3. I’ll Only Miss Her When I Think Of Her by Seth McFarlane

SETH MCFARLANE is a SINGER? Literally my reaction when I found out last week. I was then even MORE blown away when I realized he was a GOOD singer. Like a really, really, good singer. I know this isn’t his original song, so I assume that all the songs are covers, but I don’t care. His albums are nice to fall asleep to.

Favourite Lyric: I’ll only miss her when I think of her / And I’ll think of her all the time

4. I Want To Write You A Song by One Direction

This song makes me happy. I listen to it when it is cold. That is all.

Favourite Lyric: So when the world is cold / You’ll have a hiding place you can go

5. Vienna by Billy Joel

Despite the fact that this song always makes me think of 13 Going on 30, it’s still a good song. I think everyone should listen to this song.

Favourite Lyric: But you know that when the truth is told / That you can get what you want or you get old

6. In The Ghetto by Elvis Presley

This is obviously a classic song. I’m pretty sure ‘Ghetto’ isn’t a politically correct term anymore, but it’s a still a good song. Well, of course it is, it’s Elvis.

Favourite Lyric: And his mama cries

7. i hate u, i love u by gnash

This song is kind of bad to be honest but the chorus is so great that I’ll ignore the rest. It’s so catchy! (I hate this song, I love this song, I hate that I love this song!)

Favourite Lyric: I hate you, I love you / I hate that I love you

8. No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young) by Queen

This song is mad sad, but it’s a good sad. A positive sad. A sad I can support.

Favourite Lyric: And everywhere the broken-hearted / On every lonely avenue

9. Rise by Selena Gomez

This song, despite having that lame talking part in the middle, has a calming effect. Maybe it is the lame talking part that is calming. I don’t really know, it’s just nice to listen to when I have a backache.

Favourite Lyric: You can rise like the tide, like the heat it in the summer

10. Even My Dad Does Sometimes by Ed Sheeran

It seems the worse the weather gets, the more I want to listen to Ed Sheeran. This music is the kind fo music that doesn’t just distract you from how FREEZING it’s getting, but actually kind of makes an experience out of it.

Favourite Lyric: It’s alright to die / ‘Cause death’s the only thing you haven’t tried

That’s all my songs for September and October!!! Here’s the complete playlist.

 

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Today, we were given the assignment of writing a fake “letter to a loved one” as if we were somebody working on the grounds of Los Alamos during the 1940’s, which was one of the secret cities of the Manhattan Project. I’m not making a blog post about that, because that is actually pretty mundane, but I wanted to make a blog post about what I did when I couldn’t get into the mindset of a Los Alamos worker. It’s something I do often when I have writer’s block for any kind of assignment or if I’m just writing something for fun.

I sing.

I’m in choir and stuff, so I sing all the time and this isn’t really mindblowing information. The interesting part is that to get to the writer’s block, I get out my ukulele and make up songs. Some of my greatest masterpieces have come from this method (Guy Fieri, Be Mine). What I wrote tonight was actually kind of cool and I wanted to share it.

So here’s half a song about Los Alamos (what, you thought that I would have the energy to write an entire song? of course not!)

I COULDN’T GET IT TO EMBED TO YOU CAN LISTEN HERE

Lyrics:

Welcome to the land of Los Alamos

Where we’re without our families but nobody’s alone

Welcome to the town without  a name

Where everyone’s trying to make it feel like home

I’d like to welcome you to the secret city

The work is hard but the views are pretty

We’re gonna be the one’s to win the war

I’d like to welcome you to where we’re living

We might not know exactly what we’re doing

But we’re all working towards the same ol’ goal

 

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Celebrity Cruise: My Summer In Blog Posts

A toenail, a carrot, an emo, a librarian, a hippie, a 10-year-old, Siri, newwest, and my cousin all walk into the Celebrity Infinity’s X Club.

We then promptly walk out because it’s almost 11:30 and we gotta watch the fake northern lights.

I expected a cruise to be a relaxing experience, but when you make friends on a cruise ship, and everyone is about 16, none of you actually end up sleeping. There’s a lot of eating though, because the buffet is open until 1:30 am, and room service is open 24/7.

Every night, I had dinner with my family, then I found my friends (we were the 1st squad, there were a couple to follow, but we, of course, were the best, according to us). Though it is only two days later, I can’t exactly remember what we did each evening. Probably something weird and embarrassing. We ate a lot of sour patch kids.

As the ports we actually went on the cruise, Juneau had GREAT end of season sails. The other two places were, like, towns. We didn’t go on any excursions, so we just did a lot of walking around. I bought a mammoth stuffy.

Oh, and my sister was lonely and had no friends. Sorry, Mikaela.

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