WWII Trailer Project Post

Hello there

During the first few weeks of November, my class and I studied the topic of WWII, including, The Battle Of Britain, The Battle Of Hong Kong, The Bombing Of Pearl Harbour, and The Rise Of Adolf Hitler.

Our main task for this project was to create a visual WWI Trailer. Our driving question for this project was “How do stories of survival enhance our understanding of WWII”. Our first concept that we learned is called “Cause and Consequences of Canada’s involvement in the war”. 

Topics, Groups & Tasks

For this trailer project, my class and I were put into groups of 3-4 people. 

Our first task was to talk about the Causes and consequence of Canada entering the war, in a short audio file with music from GarageBand. Our second task was to meet up with our groups and choose roles to complete over the BookChat days. 

The book that we chose was called MAUS, and it was based on a child (Art Spiegelman) interviewing his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor during WWII, as well as in the concentration camps of Auschwitz.

This story is based on Art interviewing his father (Vladek) about his relationship with Anja, as well as his time escaping the gestapo and facing the concentration camps of Auschwitz.

My most favourited scenes of this book were the secret underground tunnels the ice used as a getaway from the gestapo. As well another favourited part of this book was when Art was face to face with his father Vladek, talking about his relationship with Anja, during the event of the holocaust.

As all of the groups projects were based on some version of the holocaust and WWII events. Our book in particular was based on the Jews in concentration camps.

This book was written by Art Spiegelman, a 71 year old American cartoonist, known for his most famous book, and biography Maus. Art’s father Vladek was a survivor of the Jewish ghettos and imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, Poland. In the story the cats represent  the Germans and the mice represent the Jewish people. 

My team members for this project were Izzy, Fraser, and Ruby and myself. Our final task was to create call sheets and storyboard drafts of what our video would look like. After completing the storyboard my group and I had to begin acting as the main characters for the trailer. 

Project & Acting

During the last few socials classes before Christmas, my group and I finished drafting our Storyboard and Call sheet. My group and I decided to film most of our scenes down at Myrtle Park, while the last few scenes, and voice over were filmed at Izzy’s house.

Some props that we used to create this film included: pill bottles for one of the scenes, pill sorting containers for Fraser’s voice over, a shovel for digging at myrtle as a scene in the Concentration camps, and a few flashlights for the bunker scenes at Izzy’s house. 

If you want to check out my groups Maus Trailer, Please tap on the Video or Link Below, Thank you, be sure to subscribe for more awesome and upcoming PLP Videos.

Conclusion

I think my group and I worked very well together. I don’t believe that anyone in my group had a difficult role to play. A few problems we may have had, were the voice overs because some of them seemed very quiet as we were filming, but it think we could have spoken a little more clearly and a bit louder. 

As soon as my group and I finished, the final product was ok, but the time stamp on it was only at least 1:00 long. Now looking back on my project, I think we could have filmed a few more scenes. As well I feel that I could have spent a little bit more time on creating the background music because overall the trailer didn’t seem very shocking and epic, like a WWII trailer should be.