He’s Crazy

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We have recently started a new unit. It’s definitely interesting. It is called…

Cray Cray Yay! Yay!

What a name, right? Anyways. The driving question for the unit, well, this project in particular, is ‘Why was this person thought of as crazy and how did they change the world?’ This mini project was a fun one, and I learned a lot.

First, we watched Apple’s Think Different Video. The people in this video, and others who were featured in the campaign, changed the world because they were different. And different can be crazy. 

https://youtu.be/cFEarBzelBs

From the people in the campaign, we each chose someone to do a keynote presentation. But this wasn’t a regular keynote, oh no. This was a pecha kucha. A pecha kucha presentation is a presentation where the slides change only every 20 seconds, and usually last for about 7 minutes. For us, we had 9 slides, 20 seconds each, the whole thing lasting only 3 minutes. Now, that was really hard. To fit a person’s entire life into a 3 minute presentation is hard. But, we did it.

The person I chose for this was Jim Henson. Jim Henson was an amazing man, who completely altered the film industry. This is his story. 

Creative Commons License IGypsyWoman via Compfight

Jim Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi on September 24, 1936. From a young age, he had an interest in puppets. He was heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, Burr Tillstrom with his puppets Kukla and Ollie, and other puppeteers. While attending high school, he made puppets for a television program called the Junior Morning Show. 

He followed his passion into university, where he created Sam and Friends with his future wife. These characters were the forerunners for the muppets, and even included a prototype of Kermit the frog. Did you know that the word Muppet is a combination of marionette and puppet? 

As his work with puppets progressed, he started to experiment with puppetry on television. He worked with having the performer off camera, using rods to control the puppets, and precise mouth movements. He even changed what puppets were made of. Instead of wood, he started  working with foam rubber and different fabrics. 

As he developed his Muppets, he started to get more recognition. He began making commercials with his muppets. In 1958, he and his wife created Muppets Inc. in New York City. There, he hired Jerry Juhl and Frank Oz, who became critical to the latter years of the muppets. 

InspiredImages / Pixabay

In 1969, the Children’s Television Workshop had an idea for a show with puppets. They acquired Henson and his muppets, and through that, Sesame Street was born. Characters like Grover, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Oscar and Big Bird were first featured. Even Kermit was on Sesame Street. 

Once Sesame Street took off, Henson started to see where his muppets could go. He tried to start a television program in America, but the producers thought it was crazy. So he pitched it to Lew Grade, who loved it. They moved to England and started the Muppet Show.

Ribastank / Pixabay

 

3 years into the muppet show, Henson and his team created The Muppet Movie. This was a huge success. Once they realized the success that the movies could have, they stopped making the TV show and focused on films. Muppet movies, like Muppets Take Manhattan, or the animated show Muppet Babies, were plentiful. He worked on other things as well, including Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and The Storyteller. He even worked on The Empire Strikes Back, with the creation of Yoda.

In the 1980s, he entered into discussions with Disney about acquiring the Muppets. Nothing came of these first talks, because of Henson’s unexpected death in 1990. His children took over the company, and ran it for some time until the Disney discussion began again. In 2004, it was official. The Muppets were Disney.

Jim Henson’s legacy is still seen today. As well as the many muppet movies produced recently, the Jim Henson Creature Shop has continued making muppets for other films. Farscape, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and MirrorMask are a few.

Jim Henson changed the world of puppets, and had a huge part in the introduction of them into the media, so for that he was crazy.

All of the people who changed the world were different. They had an idea, one that wasn’t normal. An idea that didn’t fit into the societal norms. Something that had never been thought of before. To ignore all that, and change the world, well, that’s crazy. 

Week 5: Music!

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For this week’s challenge, we are getting to know each other. I decided to do the 4th task, the music task! The task was to explain what your favourite type of music was!

My favourite type of music is Folk Rock. I got into this type of music at Kaslo Jazz Fest, after hearing Shakey Graves. From there, I discovered The Avett Brothers, and many others. Here’s a cool Spotify playlist that features them!

One of my favourite songs right now is Morning Song by The Avett Brothers. I really like the vibe of the song, and the melody.

What are your favourite types of music? I want to know about my readers!

Essay Writting

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As I mentioned in my Movie Trailer Project Thing, for this project we had to read books and create a video. What I didn’t mention was that the video was part of a larger purpose. The true purpose for this project was to WRITE AN ESSAY!!! Not just any essay, either. An in class, synthesis essay.

A synthesis essay is an essay that uses many different sources to support your thesis. For this particular synthesis essay, we had a few specific things to draw upon. Firstly, we had our choice books, which I mentioned in a previous post. For me, that was Don’t Get Caught.

 

 

 

We also read another book, called Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It was an autobiography about her childhood in Iran during the Iranian revolution. It was a very interesting story about different perspectives, and I thought it was really cool.

 

 

For this essay, we also had to have a third source. I chose the book Go Show the World by Wab Kinew. This story tells us about different First Nations people in history. We actually got to go meet Wab Kinew and I got his book signed. Anyways, I wanted to chose this book because I thought it was really cool how he told the stories of people that are largely looked over in history.

I think the most important step for preparing for an in class essay is the planning stage. While making the outline I felt like I really got to understand my thesis, and the point I was trying to make through writing this essay. Another important part was the details. For the essay, we were able to bring in a piece of paper that had facts, quotes, and the like. While putting this together, I found more direction in for my essay.

The most difficult step was probably worrying about forgetting your outline. We were not able to bring our outline into the essay, and a lot of us, me included, were worried that all of our preparations would be for not. It turned out that by working so tirelessly in the outline, and in making all the revisions, I had my outline pretty solid in my mind.

It is important to practice essay writing in school because in the future, there will be many instances in which we will have to write essays that have a great determining factors. For example, when applying for jobs and universities, it may be required to write an essay to determine wether or not you will be fit for the opening. Also, practicing the writing process is great for would-be authors. The outline that we made for this essay could also be used when writing a novel. Not exactly in the same form, but similar. As we continue to practice these skills, we will progress as learners, and as people.

Click on the image to view my full essay!

Writing an essay was hard. We had the preparation, the actual essay write, and then the revision process. I was pretty happy with how my essay came out in the end, but i still had a bit to revise. There were lots of little things, like tenses and words I could’ve ommitted. This was a long process, and I know that this won’t be the last. In the future, I plan to have more ideas formulated before hand, for the body paragraphs, so that I don’t fall short. I noticed in this essay that I finished with lots of time. Next essay, I hope to still finish with time to look my essay over, but also have more supporting points.

Week 4: Emoji Challenge

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This week’s task was about emojis. I decided to do two challenges for this week.

The first challenge I chose was the emoji math challenge. For this, I wanted to make an emoji sudoku game. See if you can figure it out!

The other challenge I wanted to do was the emoji story challenge. Using byrdseed.com, I got an emoji writing prompt. The emojis I got were as follows.

This is my story.

Once upon a time there was a man named Ned. Ned lived in a van, and traveled all around the world in this van. But after a few years, Ned got tired of traveling. He wanted to make some friends. So he signed up for the Ice-Cream tour, a 21 day train excursion around Alabama. On his first day, he met Paul, the talking horse. Paul loved to sing, but he was awful. Ned had to look away when Paul sang. Ned knew Paul thought himself to be a great singer, and Ned didn’t want to let him down. But on day 20, Ned couldn’t take it anymore. He told Paul that when he sang, he sounded like a camel dying. Paul just laughed. He knew he was a horrible singer the entire time, he just wanted to know if Ned would be honest with him. After the train excursion ended, Paul went with Ned and they traveled the world. Ned was lonely no longer. The end.

Commenting on Others Posts!

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For this week’s Student Blogging Challenge, as well as writing a commenting guideline, we had to comment on 3 different peoples posts. I chose three random people, and away I went. 

The first blog I commented on was The Life Without “R”… by Raegan Riley. I chose to comment on this blog because I thought it was cool how they went about doing the challenge. Instead of doing a graphic, as I did, they wrote about quality comments. 

This is a quality comment because of a few things. Firstly, I formatted the comment as a letter. Second, I complimented their blog and said what I liked about it. Finally, I gave them some feedback. 

The second blog I commented on was Celeste’s Blog. I wanted to comment on their blog because I thought it was super cool that they completed this on paper, instead of doing it on a device. 

I though this was a good comment, because it was formatted like a letter, along with the first comment. I also asked a question, that may start a conversation. I hope, if they hadn’t thought of doing it in an app, that I can tell them about some cool apps they can use. 

The last blog I commented on was Preston’s Blog. This was a really cool post. I wanted to comment on Preston’s blog because I really liked their graphic. 

This was a quality comment for several reasons. It was formatted as a letter. Also, I tried to help Preston by pointing out how I saw it as blurry. 

I hope my comments help these people, and that they start conversations!

BORSCHT! A Story

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Recreating videos is hard. But this project matched it. Welcome to; Project Live Event. 

For this project, we had to film a live event. This is really useful, because a lot of the time when we go on field studies, like Calgary and Ottawa, we need to film stuff that is happening in the moment. Now, unlike the Recreation Video Project, we only have one chance to get that perfect shot. 

You can’t really use a storyboard, because you can’t be 100% sure of what is going to happen, and when. So instead, we made an Action Plan. Using Notes, we wrote down all the shots and points we wanted to capture. This was very helpful, because we knew what to film, and while editing, we knew what shots we had to work with. 

I decided to film Borscht: A Story because I thought it would have a very interesting story and, well, it would be fun. And it was! I love borscht, and making borscht, so it combined my interests with a school project. My mom was great about it too, so it worked out great! Except we had a bit of an issue with the slowcooker, which you will see in the video. 

Then, it came time to edit, using iMovie. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Turned out, I actually had about 20 minutes of footage, and the videos could only be 2 minutes long. I had to cut a lot of footage, and trim the stuff I had. In the end, I did get it to 2 minutes, but just barely. 

Honestly, I was pretty happy with my first draft. Other than the music, which I though didn’t really match, it turned out great. I never got any critique, so I just edited it slightly and bam. Draft two.

I had a lot of fun with this project. Other than the slightly stressful part about only having one shot, it was a really cool project. I definitely learned a lot, and I’ll be able to use these skills on our next field study!

Copyright Free Images

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For this week’s task, I decided to make my own image. Making your own image is a great way to avoid any risk of copyright infringement. I made this image using Sketches Pro, but there are many other apps you can do this with. By making your own images, you can tell the story in the way you want it to be told, and to use your creativity. 

Movie Trailer Book Thing

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Reading is fun. I truly believe that. In grade 10, we have to learn how to read for fun. And, as I explained in my other post, I read Don’t Get Caught by Kurt Dinan. So after we read the book, we had to do the project, which was a movie trailer for our book. There were several steps to this project. 

First step was an individual trailer template. It was very interesting, because our teacher was on another PLP trip. And our sub didn’t exactly know what was going on, so we came up with many different ideas for what this was. I figured that it was, well, I’ll show you instead. 

It wasn’t great, but I think it got my point across. If I were to to this differently, I would have drawn stick figures, or diagrams, or something more visual than what I had.

Once we finished this, we had to create a group trailer template. In my group, which was Daniel, Lucas, and Jamie, we divided up the tasks and put it together. 

In our second draft, we took the critique we got and made it better. We added more shots, and added specifications. Also at this time we had to figure out who was playing whom.

This was a very difficult part. We had an idea, but we ended up completely switching it. We had Tamara as Kate Malone, Lucas as Dave Wheeler, Jamie as Tim Adleta, and Daniel as Maxwell Cobb. I played Ellie Wick. Based on character description, it didn’t really fit, but our video turned out alright. 

Click the pic for the full script!

The script was interesting. I wrote the script, and due to how we structured the video, I wanted to use direct passages from the book. Don’t Get Caught is written as if you are in Max’s head, so it was pretty easy to work with. One of the things that bothered me was that the descriptions on some of the characters is limited, so you don’t really know that much about them until the book progresses. 

https://youtu.be/0catErfGOBo

Our first draft wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t terrible. We had a critique in class, and the basic things we needed to fix were the missing shot, fix some audio things, and move the reviews around a bit. We had a week to revise and refilm, but as this project was part of a larger project, we didn’t have tons of time in class. We did get it though, and I’m actually really proud of how this turned out. 

https://youtu.be/58VWb8ZLM-g

I have a lot to reflect on with this project. If I were to redo this project, I think I would have taken more of a leadership role. I tried to direct our group a bit, but it didn’t turn out so well. I would also have to say that for some of our assignments, the work probably could have been distributed more equally. But overall, I’m actually pretty proud of our group. It may sound strange, but we’re kinda like the water tower five. Yup, that sounded weird. 

Now these videos will haunt us forever. Because they won’t just be on our blogs, no. Our school has ‘reading group’ copies of these books, and our teacher put QR codes linking to our videos on the books. So Seycove will forever be reminded of our PLP 10 class, through this! Oh god, I hope no one I know watches this. 

SohCahToa, the Tropical Trig Island

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Hello Australians! Ha, reference to our video. Anyways. So, for our first blog post for Scimathics this year, ima talk about something really complecated. Triginometry. Yay.

For the past month, ish, we’ve been learning about the math for, well, triangles. Triangle math. Tri, three, angle, angle. It’s all about the angles. Using triginometry, you can find out all the side lengths and angles of a triangle (as long as you have two points of data previously). Sine, Cosine and Tangent.

For this project, we had to create a video where we explained how solar panels are used and how you can use triginometry to find the optimal angle.

“And Action, Wait, *thunder* Okay Go”

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In PLP, we make a lot of videos, which is a good skill to have. Usually, we have to create everything from a story spine, to music for the videos. But for this project, we didn’t. 

Project Recreation was a project where we literally, just, recreated a video. Our first video was chosen for us, Catch by Joe Haltzer. Everything was supposed to be exactly the same, with angles, costumes, editing, music, all that jazz.

I was in a group with Tamara and Kai. For this video, it was not a requirement for us to make a storyboard, so we didn’t. We just had our script, and the video. While filming, we decided to join another group. We each had only one male in our group, and the videos needed two. So we filmed together, and edited separately. Honestly, looking back, I don’t think that was a great idea, but that’s in the past. Learn from your mistakes. Anyways. 

Editing is not one of my skills, but that was my part in the group. The video was to choppy, and the sound effects weren’t great. We got a lot of critique, which was great. I think a second draft would have made great improvement. 

Also, mic’s. Our audio isn’t great, and mic’s would’ve greatly improved that. The audio was a huge part of this story, and it could’ve been better. 

Our next video was a huge, well, huge half-step. This time, we had to find a funny video. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. These are supposed to be humorous. Our unit is called ‘Funny or Die’. So, keep that in mind. Anyways. We had to find a school appropriate, short film with a beginning, middle, and end. This was harder than you’d think. In our same groups, we spent a long time looking for videos. Finally we found this BBC short.

I have watched this video so many times that I find it funny, but I’m not sure if everyone would find it funny. Moving on. 

This time, we had to do the whole shebang. Story spine, screenplay, storyboard. But in the end, it helped a lot. Understanding the story made helped us understand the characters better, and the purpose of the story. Plus, having them help film. Except for the storyboard. And I only say this because the video was in one shot. Usually they are very useful. This one was just, less useful. It was still helpful. 

Filming was intense. There was a thunderstorm happening when my group was trying to film, and they had to wait for the thunder to stop while filming. After about a dozen takes, they finally got it, and then we went to editing. 

There was not a lot of editing to, because it was one shot. There were lots of sound effects though, which were a bit difficult to find. But it turned out well, I think anyways.

https://youtu.be/mEz–vGQ8p0

In the end, I learned a lot. I learned about how the internet is a scary place. I realized how important mic’s are, and how mad the teachers get when we don’t use them (which is understandable). I definitely learned a lot about time management. Overall, this was a really cool project, and I am glad we did it, because were gonna be doing a lot more videos!