Category: PLP 9 Maker

The Vibrance of Video

It is time for another Maker blog post. So welcome back to this blog of mine where I explain things I did in school. This project was called Vibrant Video and it was all about making videos and learning film history. This was not a very long project so this post may be rather short. But in the end its not about the length of the post is it. So I hope you enjoy and lets get right on into it.

The History of Video 

There is a lot to learn about the evolution of film and movies. We learned about the first moving images and the beginning of the film industry, which I found to be quite the interesting topic. We also learned about early special effects and how they added colour to film. I got to practice using my note taking skills in a keynote doc and I must say that I got pretty good at it. 

Videos

We of course got to practice making videos/movies in this project, with each video focusing on a different aspect of film making. We learned how to use all of the features of iMovie and Clips and how to use a storyboard, logline, and treatment. 

Our first video was a story about one of our favourite hobbies. It was supposed to show a blend of pictures and videos, have a complementary soundtrack, and have a beginning, middle and end. Here is the video I made;

The next video was a silent movie. It again was supposed to tell a story, use the “GASP” poster, aged film effect, and again have an appropriate soundtrack. I told the short story of a girl on an egg hunt and I think it was pretty good. Here is my silent movie;

Our next 2 skills were going to be creating a DIY video showing the audience how to do something. We had to create a treatment and logline for the first time and we were also in groups. My group wanted to show how to tie your shoes and I think that our treatment and logline are quite comical. 

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Logline

Are you still a loser and still wearing Velcro shoes? Well worry no more because in this tutorial you will learn from professional shoe tie-rs on the best methods to tie your shoes.

Treatments

At the beginning of our journey a young fellow does not know how to tie his shoes. But then helpful professionals come along and show him the proper method of tying his shoe. In this helpful tutorial you will see the many different methods of tying one’s shoe in a proper manner including the bunny ears method and others.

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And here is our video;

Our last video and skill was creating a special effects sequence, again in a group. This was a really fun one to watch all of the videos created because it was a chance to get really silly and stupid. Before we recorded we had to create a shot list so that we could know what we needed to record. We also got to use the green screen and that was super cool. Here is the final video that we called “Fish Boy is Born”;

Challenges

We also had to do at least 2 of the 5 video challenges that were given to us. I chose to so the “Add a Song” and “Playing With Angles” challenges. If you didn’t get it already, the “Add a Song” challenge is where you add a song over a video in a way that they sync up and relate to each other. I chose to use a video that I put on my Instagram that was my friend and I running around an arena on a Timelapse to that really annoying hamster song. And I collaborated with my friends Noah and Cooper to create the “playing with angles” videos. It was pretty fun. Here are those videos;

Angle 1 Angle 2 Angle 3

Conclusion 

So I definitely learned a lot about the history behind videos. I think that it is really cool to learn about the behind the scenes of how movies are made and am now able to identify different techniques and shot types when I watch movies at home. I actually went to see a movie with Dana on the weekend and we were having some annoying fun naming all the different shot types in the commercials. I definitely can use iMovie and clips to their full potential now that I’ve learned all of the tips and tricks. The next video I make will take full advantage of the special effects and transitions that I can now use confidently. So yeah I think I am a professional movie maker :).

As always, Brooke.

Being Effective

Helloooo fellow moderately effective human beings. This blog post will be a bit different from the usual ones because this is for something we did in Maker. We learned about a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or in our case, Teens. You may have seen this book before or even just heard someone talking about it. And as you may have guessed from the title, this book is supposed to teach you how to be your most effective self. And before we dive into this project I have something I would like to say about being “your most effective self”. Mainly why is the expectation that we should be functioning at a high level? I am perfectly fine functioning at a moderate to low level depending on my mood. I think we are setting the standards a little to high for a bunch of exhausted highschoolers. But maybe thats just my opinion. Ok so lets jump into the rest of this post.

The Habits

Throughout the book there are 7 habits for you to start including in your life. Those habits are categorized into 4 groups of your life. Here’s an overview of all of the habits and categories.

The Set-up

The set up phase talks about why you would want to complete the 7 habits and how they can help you. We also talked about paradigms and principles and how to identify them. For each category we did something called an “assessment choice board activity” which was supposed to show our understanding of the topic. Here was my playlist I made for this category and the written explanation that I created to go along with it;

Songs;

Follow My Feet by The Unlikely Candidates

Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons

Sing Together by Train

I think that these songs represent part one because they are all about finding yourself. Follow My Feet is about choosing right or wrong, the low road or the high road. Little Lion Man is about being honest with yourself and knowing your weaknesses. I Will Wait is about loving yourself and others and supporting. And Sing Together is about coming together and supporting everyone and the ones you love.

The Private Victory

The Private Victory was the first category that included habits. These habits are all about taking responsibility, planning things out, and being a visionary. The Private Victory will help you become independent and in charge of your own destiny.

Habit 1- Be Proactive

Habit 2- Begin With The End in Mind

Habit 3- Put First Things First

The assessment choice board that I did for these habits was a little animation about a girl planning her life out. Here it is along with the written statement;

Animation

A brief explanation of the animation ;
This girl, lets pretend its me, is bored and confused on what to do. But then she starts making plans about her future. Starting from what job she wants to have and working backwards from there. She keeps that in mind and it gives her purpose and a set of things to work towards. She is so happy and fulfilled that she does a cartwheel. The end.

My connection;

I have always loved planning ahead into my future ever since I was a child and I find it fun to research how I need to get there. Thinking about how I can be an agent for my own success is something I want to work on because I know that it will be an important skill to have. Stewardship delegation if you will. I also use my Things app similarly to The Weekly Schedule™️, showing me the most important priorities for the day and the things I need to accomplish.

The Public Victory 

Once the public victory is solid, you can move along to the Public Victory. Because “Before you’ll ever win in the public arenas of life, you must first win the private battles within yourself.”  

  • Excerpt From: Sean Covey. “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.” Apple Books.

The Public Victory teaches you how to become interdependent and how to work with others for the ultimate success.

Habit 4- Think Win-Win

Habit 5- Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Habit 6- Synergize

My assessment choice for this segment was writing 3 poems, one for each habit. I have always loved writing poetry so I would say that it was my favourite part of this project;

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Win

We all can win

Can we?

No

But somebody doesn’t have to lose

I’ll lose so you can win

No 

You will lose so I can win

No

Actually I can help you

If you would lend me a hand?

I will

I will

We both win

In their shoes

Put yourself in her shoes

His shoes

Their shoes

When do they get to be in my shoes?

Later.

Synergy

We don’t work well together

You are so different than me

This will be disastrous 

My strengths could make this so good

But they are your weaknesses

So that won’t work

Right?

I didn’t see your strengths

I only saw where you didn’t meet me

But you far surpassed expectations

And I wasted all this time

Thinking that we couldn’t work together

I’ll do this 

I am good at this

You’ll do that

You are good at that

This is looking good

Better than I thought it would

Just because we aren’t the same

Doesn’t mean that you’re to blame

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Renewal

Ah Renewal. This part is all about self-care. The 4 dimensions of renewal are mental, spiritual, social/emotional, and physical. Mastering renewal means mastering how to take care of your spirit and your vessel, and how you can enhance your greatest asset-> you.

Habit 7- Sharpen the saw

I created a song in garage band but for some reason it has not been exporting properly so I can’t insert it here. But here is the written explanation for it; I chose to make a song for this activity. I wanted to make the song soothing and powerful in a way that makes me think of walking into the woods on a path. The path leads to the future and I am ready to go onward and keep improving with all of the knowledge I gained from this book. I used to go to the Vancouver symphony orchestra a lot as a little kid and I have always been connected to classical music so this piece is near and dear. I think the piece conveys feeling and for me that feeling is the strength that is deep inside. 

Audio, Visual and Kinesthetic

To show our final overall understanding of the philosophy of the 7 habits, we created 3 final assessment pieces. These were also supposed to be related to the 3 core competencies that we work on in highschool; Communication, Thinking, and Personal and Social. 

For the competency of Thinking, I thought that habits 1, 2 & 3, or the Private Vicory, fit the criteria for the competency in every way. My idea for the visual piece was “A photo of me thinking with sketch notes around me: the sketch notes will be similar to the animation that I did for the private victory assessment choice. About visualizing the future and making a plan to get there.” And here is the final visual;

Then for the audio idea I was going to link it to the communication competency. I think habits 4 and 6 were the best habits to use because I think they are both very important for communicating. My audio idea was as follows “A background audio of a muffled conversation, everything goes too loud. Then there is silence. One person speaks, everyone cheers. : represents how cloudy communication is not functional. Kinda sounds like Charlie Brown teachers.”. And here was the final audio/video;

Communication video

And then for the kinesthetic piece I wanted to create rock sculptures. I thought that rock sculptures would be a deep metaphor for the personal and social competency and represent habits 5 and 7. “Rock balance sculpture on the beach: everything requires balance. Work / life, alone / social, school / activities. A balance of all of the renewal categories ; mind, body, spirit, emotion. Being understood and understanding. The rocks represent that balance. Because they themselves are balancing.” I made one big rock sculpture on the beach and one small rock sculpture that I could bring to school. And here they are;

Rock building Timelapse

A Reflection  

The habits are basically my stepping stones to preforming the core competencies. My favourite competency + habits would definitely have to be Thinking with habits 1,2 and 3. I enjoy thinking about the future and taking actions towards my goals. My assessment choice board for the private victory shows this as I imagine that I could be the person in the animation. I also think that there is a lot that I could do to procrastinate less and be more comfortable making decisions, which I think specifically falls under the “Be Proactive” habit. I think that my visual idea of an annotated photo is a good way to show my journey with those habits. 

I am quite proficient at the Personal and Social competency and I think I can consistently utilize habits 5 and 7. I am a good listener and very empathetic. And I am also getting better at taking care of my mind, body, spirit, and emotions. The balancing rock sculpture is something that I was very excited to do because I think the symbol of balance is very important to understanding those habits. 

The communication competency is a pretty easy one for me because I think I am a good communicator and collaborator. Synergizing comes naturally to me and I think I am effective at thinking out options where there is mutual benefit. I have a pretty clear idea of what I want my audio idea to sound like and I hope it conveys the importance of communication. I kind of hear it sounding a bit like the teachers in Charlie Brown.

I don’t think there really is an end to this project because this will be something that I will always be able to improve on. I hope to look back on this project in the future and see the effects it had on the way I lived my life. I hope you learned something from this because I definitely did. And even though I am not always going to strive to be the MOST effective version of myself allllll the time, I think that following through on the upwards spiral will help me become more effective.

Thank you for reading.

As always, Brooke 

Am I Imagining This Destination?

Have you heard of Destination Imagination?

Destination Imagination (or just DI) is an international competition that our school competes in. I am now going to direct you to the DI website because I think that they do a great job explaining what DI is all about. The Destination Imagination website is here. (I really suggest that you go to the website before reading further.)

The time had come for another gruelling term of Destination Imagination . This year, I was a part of one of two Seycove Gr 9 Improv teams. We got to present in person this year instead of a video like last year. It was a lot more fun but definitely more stressful. Our team “Leap Before you Look” was an improv team. So what was this year’s challenge? Well this year’s challenge was called “Festival Frenzy” and in this challenge, we would try to achieve a random goal at a festival from around the world. We had to research festivals, learn how to successfully carry out improv performances, practice running through the challenge, and enhance our skit with imaginary items, represented by a set of cardboard boxes.

The following is a list of all the festivals. Since we are in the secondary level, we had to research 10 festivals. Our chosen 10 are highlighted.

All of our research went into what we call the “festival binder”. The festival binder started off as a shared pages document that all of our research was recorded in and we later printed it out, so that we could bring a hard copy of it to the final competition. Here is an example of what one of the pages in the festival binder looks like;

When we are about to preform at the tournament, we draw one of those ten festivals randomly, along with a random goal (i.e. go skydiving) and a random “fork in the road” that will come into play later (I.e. make soap or find a way to keep your tools from rusting). The goal does not have to actually be accomplished in the skit but it should be heavily incorporated. The fork in the road comes into play during a 30 second intermission between Act One and Act Two. You then declare which fork in the road activity you will be using and then resume the skit to finish up act 2. 

Since we didn’t actually have to create a script or props for our challenge, we had a lot of free time to prepare. We were fairly disorganized at the start and didn’t really start to put tons of work in until later on. Our festival binder was lacking a lot of detail in the beginning but we did end up fixing it towards the end. The unstructured time to practice was quite challenging for certain members of our group and so subsequently we spent way to much time slacking off. Needless to say, this was definitely going to kick us in the ass later if we continued on that way. After a few failed practice performances, we started to get our act together. On the more positive side, I think we definitely showed a lot of growth by the end. Our final performance was pretty good (definitely the best one we had ever done). And even though I screwed up by not finding a watch to bring so we ran out of time for the end of the skit, I think that it still ended in a successful way and I am super proud. Our team was able to bounce ideas off of each other and we worked very well as a group (with maybe a bit too much banter apparently :p).

 

I know that there are a few things I can work on/hopefully change for participation in DI next year. Our group argued too much and that may just be because we had some clashing personalities but I think it overall did put ourselves at a disadvantage. The banter was never super serious as we all kind of consider each other friends, but I think it was just a bit of a time waster. Speaking of time wasting, we were all easily distracted by unimportant things such as having a irrelevant conversation with someone else. I think that in the end I am super proud of my group and spending time with them was actually quite fun.

And the moment we have all been waiting for, the video of us performing our challenge;

Overall, DI taught me leadership, teamwork, persistence, creativity, and so much more. I am really excited to see how I face future DI challenges in the years ahead. I want to say a huge thank you to my team members, Ben Y, Jocelyn, Noah, and Carter, without whom none of this would’ve been possible. I had a lot of fun with you guys and hopefully we are not in the same group next year 😁.

See you next year Destination imagination 👋🏼!

As always, Brooke