Over the past year and a half, I’ve been a part of many video projects in PLP. However, the one we’ve just completed is one of the ones that I’m most proud of. Amelia R, Gabby, Amelia B, Lennart, and I created a trailer for a memoir of a Holocaust survivor. This book is called The Cage, and it was written in 1986 by Ruth Minsky Sender. The work that we did to turn this book into a trailer, from script to storyboard to screen, helped us answer the driving question of the project— How Do Stories of Survival Deepen our Understandings of WW2? But before we know the answer, we need to understand the process of the project!
An interesting map depicting several important battles of World War 2.
We did a lot of background research about World War 2 itself, and everything that led up to World War 2. We looked at a lot of maps depicting various battles and invasions, and we also learned about how there were several battle fronts; fighting occurred in the European Theatre and the Pacific Theatre, after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941.
Next, we split up into groups to do a novel study! My group (Gabby, Amelia R, Amelia B, Lennart, and I) read The Cage, a book about a girl living with her brothers in the Jewish ghetto in Łódź, Poland, who is eventually sent to Auschwitz and on to work camps. Our project for this unit was to create a trailer for this book, using footage of ourselves as the characters.
Something we did during this project was attempt to watch one movie trailer per day. We saw the trailers for a lot of movies about World War 2, and learned about the basics of what makes a good trailer.
The pages we used to plan the story.
Soon, it was time to start the video process. Throughout the past year and half, I’ve gotten to know this process very well. First, we wrote a script. This was a challenging piece of the project, as it was the most important for the eventual story in our trailer. We drew upon all of the knowledge of trailers we’d learned to include interesting elements in the script; there are several montages, sound effects, and types of music. Something in the script that I’m proud of is the fact that Lennart, whose native language is German, could play all of the German roles (which are few) in German.
An example of a shot from our storyboard.
Next was story boarding! This step took a while, because we wanted to make sure everything was planned out. I made a template for the shots in the storyboard, and every angle, shot, and sound effect was written down.
One of the more fun aspects of this project was casting all the roles. There are too many characters in this book for even us, a group of five, to fill. So, we got creative. We found younger siblings and friends to play, well, younger siblings and friends. I played both the young and older versions of my character, Riva.
Next was filming! This part of the process is one of the most important, and we spent a lot of time gathering various shots for our scenes and montages. We tried to find costumes that fit with the setting of World War 2 Poland, and places to film that wouldn’t be recognized as modern day Canada. We looked for plain backgrounds, like blank walls, trees, or doors. Not having any modern settings helps the viewer keep believing in the story.
Last in the video process is editing. This is, in itself, a process. We completed multiple edited drafts of the video, even creating our own music. The final, edited product is (in my opinion) enjoyable to watch and I, for one, am very proud of it.
To finish this post, I want to reflect on three things— the two competencies we used in this project, and the driving question of the project.
A graph I created depicting the percentage of the world population who died during WW2.
First is the first competency, “Cause and Consequence.” This unit, I learned about the causes of World War 2, and the consequences of it. The causes include unrest and anti-Semitism in Germany and Joseph Stalin’s rise to power in the Soviet Union, and one of the consequences was the deaths of seventy million people. This is one of the biggest events in recent history, and the consequences of it will be remembered for many years to come. It impacted many millions more lives than just those lost.
The next competency is “Create.” This competency is all about how I’m using my literacy skills to create something. I did this throughout this entire project, by taking what I learned from the novel study, and writing a script with my group for our video. Then, I helped make the words that we’d written a final, entertaining and interesting video.
The author of The Cage, Ruth Minsky Sender, at a book signing last year.
Lastly, I’d like to reflect on the Driving Question. How do stories of survival deepen our understanding of World War 2? Well, we spent a long time learning about World War 2, but the best understanding I have of it came from reading The Cage. It helped me understand not just what was happening, but more importantly how the people it was happening to felt, and what they had to go through. Learning about how specifically WW2 affected just one person, makes me feel more empathetic towards everyone impacted by it. And that’s it. To understand the war, you have to understand the people.
Thanks for reading my blog post.