Over this past month my class has been working on a new unit. We’ve all created videos about different places in BC to help people connect with its history. We took inspiration from travel videos by a man named Rick Steves. I have written a short overview of the past unit and everything I have learned from it.
Rick Steves is an American travel writer who has created many video travel guides. We based our video projects off of him. Using his video style, we created our own videos about different places to help people connect with BC’s history.
Initial Research
Before we created our travel videos, everyone had to do some initial research on their place. My place was Stanley Park. I learned about the history of Stanley Park and found one main monument in the park that I focused on in my video.
I mainly focused on Siwash Rock, an old and historical landmark in Stanley Park. It became known to sailors as Nine Pin Rock because they said it slightly resembled a bowling pin.
In the beginning of my video I first talked about Governor General Lord Stanley, the person Stanley Park was named after, and I talked a bit about how the park was founded. As well as, other facts and what the land was used as before it became Stanley Park.
Script and Shot List
In addition to our research, we started to move into writing our scripts and shot lists. My script first mentioned a bit of history about the park and who it was named after. I then moved into mentioning some of the known monuments and activities in Stanley Park such as the Vancouver Aquarium, The Miniature Train, Third Beach and Siwash Rock.
From there I went into a bit more detail on Siwash Rock. I talked about its history and mentioned a few facts about the rock and it’s significance to the area. My script:
Now for the filming aspect of the project, where I learned a lot.
There were so many different filming techniques that I learned during this project, such as the rule of thirds.
After creating our first video draft we learned about the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a photo and video technique. It means that the persons eyes and body in the photo or video should be along the camera grid lines. It may look something like this:
I learned just how powerful the rule of thirds technique can be when filming a person, people or even landscape. I’ve learned that even the simplest things like the angle your camera is at can be very effective when filming a person.
Editing
Draft 1
After finishing my first video draft, I had a lot to improve. My audio was very inconsistent, I didn’t have all of my voiceovers finished and my video didn’t meet the length requirement quite yet. However my on location talking videos and my intro were great so I was mostly working on adding more facts and info into my video to make it longer and correct the audio so that it was all the same volume.
Final Draft
After finishing my final draft before our in class viewing party, my video was pretty good and I was proud of the video I had created. I still got some great feedback and am still working to improve my video as much as I can. This is my final draft so far:
This unit has helped me to improve my video making skills. I have learned many new techniques that I will definitely use to improve my future videos. I have taken a lot away from this past unit, learning all about filming techniques such as the rule of thirds, and not to mention a bit about the history of Stanley Park.