Ideas drive revolutions, and they change countries for the better or worse. For the past six weeks, my group (Ben, Alex, Julia) researched different Revolutions and filmed different types of videos. In every video focused on the importance of how ideas drive change and the competencies, we used to learn. Throughout the project, we worked on our mistakes and built on our content in the following videos. We applied competencies to our work and show how we exemplified them in the process of this project. We had to show the importance of CAUSE and CONSEQUENCE.

Planning:

Research, Plan, Film and Edit! These steps were the process for every single video, and as we did more videos, the process came more natural. The first three videos we were given a week to complete the different revolutions, which were the French, American and Russian Revolutions. The final was a free choice, which we chose to improve on the French Revolution, where we had a whole two weeks to finish. 

When looking into the revolution, research was vital to have a well supported and strong video. The very first thing was the note template from the teacher’s notes. The template included the cause and consequence of a revolution and essential people that dramatically impacted the revolution. The info was the fundamental building block for our videos, but we didn’t want to settle with the info the teacher gave us. The information from the teacher could have flaws and competing facts. With researching, we didn’t take the first source that came up and instead, we used multiple sites to finding correlation and truth. The matter of primary, secondary and tertiary sources was present in my mind when looking into reliable sources. Understanding the articles is very important if you to tell our audience what the history of the revolutions.

The screenplay in my mind was the most crucial part of the video creation. Without proper evidence of the driving question and cause & consequence, the video will not be presented. There would not be anything without the screenplay; everything afterwards will be ruined. The screenplay includes dialogue, setting and actions and usually occurred while we were still doing research. To guide our screenplay to be based on cause and consequence, we used Crane Brinton’s theory. The four stages were exactly like Freytag’s pyramid with exposition rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. This describes the impact of individual people and events as the consequences of either peace or war.

The storyboard and call sheet, however, did not serve as much of a purpose in our group. The storyboard was not used in the 3/4 videos because there was either one scene (informative) or scenes that we had a better picture in our heads. We could have used it more in the rap video as the places we filmed did have anything to do with the revolution. The call sheet was replaced by messages, and we used it for barely anything.

Through using evidence, I have come to use the CRAAP test to find the justification for the history. Though it may seem dumb from its name, it is beneficial for a project like this one. I only started to use this test for the second half of the videos, but when using it, the planning became more natural and took less time to write. From testing the site, you can tell if the source is reliable to use.

Image credit to Furman University

Filming & Editing:

The next step is to get stuff done, and time was a crucial time. We all shared our opinions and quickly built a plan. If anything went wrong, we probably didn’t have time to fix it. We worked well together, and decisions always had to come to a consensus. There were struggles with the mic and audio at times, but everything turned out to be all fine. Representing the driving question and cause & consequence was easy to do with a detailed, well-thought screenplay.

Editing was the most drastic change to a set of videos telling a story. Multi-media will help enhance the video to show the details. The problem with editing is only one person can do it, and others have to watch. This made it challenging to correct small things that people don’t want to or know how to edit. 

Video Products:

We presented the French Revolution as a short film, and it was the worst of the four videos. I was the role of the king, which had lots of lines and the most camera action. I was thrown this role because I was tall, and that was the only role we felt could be tall. I took a long time to film, and I messed up many times. The video showed cause and consequence to the extent of acting instead of telling the story directly. I created the screenplay with Ben and used reliable sources to gather our information.

The second video, on the American Revolution, was a rap battle between the loyalists and patriots. The screenplay was especially important in this video because rapping about something and making it sound good is hard to do. Ben and I created the lyrics going through the stages of Crane Brinton’s theory and ending it displaying the winner. I created the music that goes along with the rap, and it matches well for the rap battle format. Editing was challenging because, in the recording, we cut out different parts of the audio, but in the lip-sync, we did change it. Aligning everything took forever, and it was a test of patience.

The third video was an informative video based on the YouTube channel “Crash Course.” When filming, we used props and my mom’s white photography background to be simple but engaging. Alex and I wrote most of the script, made it very detailed and historically accurate. This video was our best product of cause and consequence and how ideas drive change, but we wanted to do better, so we set high expectations for ourselves.

I have worked tirelessly to get things done and managed the group work. I spoke up about my opinion and brought valuable tools to the group. With sources I read to gather my content, they were simplified, summarized and made enjoyable to show understanding.

Final video:

The last video was challenging, even though we had an extra week to create the video. We chose to use the French Revolution again as we wanted to improve on our first video while doing less research. This week we decided to do a combination of two types of videos, informative/animation. We used the same props as our previous video. I was excited to animate using Adobe Character Animator (Adobe CH) because I watched lots of tutorial videos on YouTube. Adobe CH uses a webcam and mic to move a character’s eyes, mouth, eyebrows, etc.

This is where problems, frustration, succeeding, and the product come in. With any software, there is a steep learning curve, but eventually, I was capable of doing the basics. F.A.I.L. (first attempt in learning) must have been an undershot, and it was more like TW.A.I.L. (twentieth attempt in learning). I am confident with my ability to make a better animation in upcoming projects, and I am sure I will keep improving. Adobe CH used photoshop to create the puppet, which was and still is the hardest part of the animation. The program using the names of the layers to sort them, and if it has a plus symbol in front of it, then it will be movable. Once you have the face features the way you want, you head back to Adobe CH to set the movement to its according to its name. There were many more little things I did to make it the slight bit better, but by now, the face should follow face. The software records your movement and lip-syncs using many different types of mouth shapes for each sound.

Book Chats!:

To add on top of the project, we were assigned a book to read and understand. Every week we would have a book chat with different roles. Many strategies were beneficial while trying to comprehend “Revolution.” When reading this book, I always kept a summary of the chapter series in mind. Reviews were useful in confusing parts of the book because I could recite back to what I knew, and it would help reinforce my understanding of the story. However, if I still didn’t know what was happening, I would reread the whole part slower and more in-depth. 

In class, our reading discussion and tests helped keep me on track. I could never complete the book chat without reading some or all of the chapter series. I could have done better on the first test, but on the second test, it helped to discuss with my book chat group.

The book ”Revolution” has many exciting features, forms, and genres of text that made the book intriguing to read. Instead of most books, the book focused on the sad side of life (depression) rather than being all happy. The growth of Andi as a character was represented well and kept the reader engaged.

I made a remake of the story portrayed by drawing for my creative reflection. I used sketches pro and book creator to make the book. Using recollections from book chats, my recall of the book and online plot summaries, I drew the main events. I spent a lot of time planning, drawing and piecing the part together. I wanted to do the whole book, but with the limited time, I could not complete it.

 

There were many ups and downs to this project, but I gave it my full with tireless hours. I learnt a lot about the revolution and how ideas drive change. Crane Brinton’s theory taught all about the different stages of a revolution and how causation & consequence is so important when talking about this matter. The competencies were a massive part of the creation of our videos and were what I learnt in this project.