Hello everybody!
We are back at it again with a whole new fresh blog post. This post is all about our videomaking unit, as you might of guessed by the title. We recently completed it this past term. I’ll be taking you through all the videos I’ve created over the past term and what went into making them, along with my personal experience on how to make a quality video. Get ready, because here it comes!
Let’s start off with one of our first videos of the year. On one of the first days of the year, our teachers had us create a passion video. During this short (very short) video, we had to talk about our passion and why we were passionate about it. However, we were only given about ten minutes for this video. I think everyone’s video was short, rushed and not their best work due to the amount of time that we had. This assignment was merely an introduction to videomaking. It got us excited for what was to come.
In this video, I talked about golf as my passion and why I like it. I made the video using an app called Clips. Clips allows you to add emojis, text bubbles, filters and more into your videos, making them more appealing to watch. Check out my passion video down below.
With that video over with, we moved on to another fairly low scale video project. Our class shot this video individually and it was still very early in the year. I don’t think we still knew what made a good video. Anyways, this video was about telling a story. The story could be about anything we wanted, as long as it had a clear beginning, middle and end. We learned here that one of the keys to a good video is having a beginning, middle and end.
For this video, we also had to plan out each shot before we filmed it. This was so we knew exactly what to film. Our plans had to be approved be Ms. Willemse before we began filming. Naturally, I made my video about golf. It was a semi-true story about my golf life, with Kiera playing my mom (thanks kiera). The video was shot outside of Seycove, and I used some golfing clips from my iPad and added voiceovers to make my first real video of the year. To learn the whole story, you’re gonna have to watch the video. Check it out down below.
These first two videos are pretty basic stuff. They were made with not a lot of time at hand and without microphones or ideal filming locations. However, we were just getting started on our film making unit. There was lots more to come, as we later found out.
Our next video making next was probably the most unique one we had to do out of all of them. Here’s what happened: One day in class Ms. Willemse showed us a movie. The movie called Run. We watched the movie ( it was only a minute long) twice in a row. Here’s what it looked like.
After we watched this (and were horrified by the jump scare), Ms. Willemse told us the real reason behind watching it. We were to try our best to recreate it as a group. At first, it seemed like a pretty daunting task. There were lots of different shots and angles. It would be hard to make an accurate representation of the trailer.
Once my group got together and broke it down, it was less of a challenge. My job to meticulously pour through the first half of the video and note down every single little camera angle and scene change. To be honest, it was mind-numbingly boring, but in the end it was crucial to have. This way, our group knew exactly what to film and from what angle. The rest of my group, which consisted of Alex, Gabby and Taylor helped with the other stuff like acting, editing and helping me film.
Here’s an example of what our planning sheet looked like.
In the end, we found a location which was sort of similar to the video. I thought it turned out pretty good, considering that we didn’t have a nice camera or multiple days to film. Here’s our take on Run.
Shortly after this, we embarked on a trip to Alberta. During the course of the Alberta trip we had to make 4 videos. 1 was a short production while 3 of them used up a lot of school time to complete them.
The first video we made was filmed at a ghost town. This was a really cool location to film because of all the old shops and places. The town wasn’t really abandoned, it was just built for the entertainment of the people staying in the area. In any case, it was a great location to film. With all the different shops, old cars and amenities, there were many different shots we filmed. We started by looking at the place and then writing out what our shots were going to look like. There was one catch: the film had to be an old- fashioned silent film. Because it was meant to be old fashioned, most groups also made their videos in black and white.
I thought our video turned out really well. It was a dramatic romantic comedy with lots of entertaining moments. It was really fun to film and act in it.
Another video I made on the Alberta trip was filmed in Drumheller, at the Royal Tyrrell museum of dinosaurs. For this video, I had to find a dinosaur and present some information about it in a short video. My video was about the dromaeosaurus, a dinosaur that went extinct when the asteroid hit. Check out that video here:
The last video created on the trip was in the Enchanted Forest of Revelstoke, B.C. The Enchanted Forest was a forest that a couple had turned enchanted by placing all sorts of magical creatures like elves, gnomes and trolls. There were also little houses and things from old stories like a huge pirate ship and tree houses. This was an awesome location to film because of all the crazy settings and possibilities that there was to film this story. It was hard to decide on a definitive storyline, but in the end our group created a magical story in the enchanted forest.
The last video I made from the trip was all about identity. I’ve already talked about this subject and the video I made about it in this post. You can watch my identity video if you’d like to.
This post is getting pretty long, so bear with me through this next bit.
Another video that we made was the live event video. This video was a personal favourite of mine to make because there was no criteria as to how to we could present it. All we had to do was create a video about a live event. Me being me, I chose to make mine about golf. I made up an event between a friend and myself and we played off for the “Seymour junior” title. To read more in depth about this video, you should check out this blog post going into further detail about it. I suggest watching the live event video because I feel like I put a lot of hard work into making it enjoyable for people who don’t really golf.
To cap off our video making unit, we were tasked with making a video for the annual “take your kid to work day” for grade nines across the province. For this video, I went to my dad’s work. During the day, I tried to capture why dad working along with the activities we did as a group throughout the day. I think that this video was one of my better productions, even though it might be a bit boring. This video was a bit of a struggle to make, but read more about that here.
You can watch my take your kid to work day video here!
Now, with all this video making experience, I think I now know a thing or two about film making. Let me share with you some things you need to have in a good video.
From my experience, a good video need lots of pre-planning and to have each individual shot known before you film it. This eliminates confusion and also helps you make a much more organized video. There won’t be a lot happening that takes away from the plot since you’ve already planned out each shot.
All movies that you see on TV have their shots planned out ahead of time. They do this by writing a screenplay. A screenplay includes the actions, the characters, the setting and the technical aspects of the whole thing. Imagine how painstaking it would be be write a screenplay for an entire movie? I wrote a 3 page screenplay for a later video and it was exhausting. Here’s an example of a screenplay, written by yours truly.
It made the video a lot easier to shoot.
Once you’ve written out a screenplay, you have to find an ideal location to shoot, or a setting. Ideally, you would know while writing your screenplay exactly where you want to film. The setting play a very important role in videos. If the setting is boring and bland, the whole mood of the video might be thrown off. You want to have a setting which entices viewers while also keeping relevant to your story.
Another crucial part of videomaking is good audio. Nothing hurts more to be able to barely hear what the person is saying, or to have outside noises like wind ruin the audio of a shot. To have good audio in a video, I suggest using a microphone.
A third part about making videos is having good acting. Good actors really create the story and make more personal. If it’s not the type of video to have actors, then make sure to have a strong video without acting.
One last point I’ll make in how to make a strong video is making sure to edit your videos. Before you’re finished with them, make sure you watch it through a couple of times and make sure to edit things to your liking. Ask a friend for feedback if you’d like to get a second opinion. You’re often never finished after the first draft!
I think that I’ve learned lots of valuable things throughout this videomaking unit. Even just little tips and tricks on iMovie might come in handy later in life, along with other videomaking skills like you read above.
To conclude, it was a very interesting unit with lots of good information. I really enjoyed creating some of the videos throughout the term.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
Nik
