Conscription (last years DI sign up)
Have you ever seen those videos, history bombs? They recap major world events in song style but it’s all in one take and they move around taking the viewer on a journey where you see the perspective of everyone involved. This is the first thing I thought of when told about the exhibition and the new style we were using. The time period we would be telling the story was from pre war Laurier era Canada to the great depression in the 1930s. This gap was separated into 5 different topics: Laurier era, 1916 trench, 1917 conscription crisis, the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s all with the common theme of “Canadian identity”. The location was the gym the time period 2 weeks. I was given the conscription crisis along with Cashel, Zak, Chris and Anatolia.
We started where all great projects start research. After we got all the information we could we made a list of things we needed to include in our presentation like the British and French Canadian’s perspectives, the prime minister Joseph Borden and the effect it had on women. We started by putting Anatolia as a woman voter (because she’s a woman) me as a the British general (because I’m British) and Chris as Joseph Borden (because he has a deep voice). This left Zak and Cashel with no role and originally we were going to have Zak on a video at the beginning but that idea was scrapped. We soon decided on having both of the represent the Quebec people and their discontent for the war and conscription. I took us a while to figure out how to do this but eventually they came with the brilliant idea of having them infiltrate the crowd at the beginning and refuting what I as the British general had to say and after that protesting Chris’s speech as Borden.
At this point we had roles for everyone and a general idea of how things were going to play out and by the end of the week we had a full plan. The idea was to have Cashel and Zak to greet them at the beginning of our section and address the group as their fellow Quebec people to put them in the mindset of being French Canadian. They would then walk over to me where I would give a speech listing all the reasons they should join the war. As I listed the points Zak and Cashel would argue with me, they then move on to the next part which was Chris’s speech. His speech was an actual speech given by Borden about conscription and as he got further into it Zak and Cashel got angrier and angrier until they start a mini protest with all the guests involved complete with signs under their seats. They then march to Anatolia who was voting. After seeing this they shout about how she was allowed to vote because her husband was overseas fighting in the war. After this Anatolia explains about why she voted for conscription. The group then move to the last station which is me again (I ran around the back of our set to get here during the speech). This is when I tell them that conscription has passed and they use excuses to get out of fighting in the war. This is the end of our presentation and they move on to the next group.
To pull this off we had assemble a large amount of stuff (still not as much as the trench group though). The list included:
2 desks, 2 chairs and a lamp for me
A podium, 6 chairs, 6 protest signs and spotlight for Chris
Ballot box, Ballot screen and desk for Anatolia
All this was on top of our costumes witch we all had to supply our selfs. I used my dads Air Force uniform from when he was in the RAF.
On the night itself it was a hectic race to get everything set up in time but we managed to pull it off just in time and the whole night went really well with rave reviews afterwards from those who participated. Thank you to everyone involved!
My set up