Category: Maker

All my maker work (applied skills and technology.)

The tPOL of Grade 10 – The Halfway Mark of Highschool

Posted on by christianl

Good Evening.  

The transitional presentation of learning, the reflection of the year and our evidence of growth.  Why do I believe that I am ready for Grade 11?

Driving Question:  How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

It’s already the end of grade 10, and it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learnt, and what I still need to do.  As I progress into grade 11, I hope to meet new people and improve my work.

“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.

I’d like to start this presentation on a high note, one of the main things that I have improved on myself.

Confidence

Confidence is key, so they say.

I really struggled to connect with the PLP teachers and students last year, I had an inability to express myself confidentially, and always put up a mask, both figuratively and physically.  I believe this stemmed from when I moved to Canada, everyone was different, and I felt like I smaller and more vulnerable than the others.  Even when I had friends, I still lacked the confidence in myself to truly express who I was.  I felt scared when communicating with teachers, and was afraid how others saw me.  This year has really allowed me to understand and express who I am, through conversations with friends.  With the help of others, I slowly regained self-confidence, to take of the mask.

With confidence, comes the ability to improv and be comfortable on stage.  The confidence in what you know, the confidence to speak from your mind.  This is something that I most definitely improved on; going without a script and just speaking what I think is best in the moment.

I always enjoyed preparing scripts, making sure I was ready, so that there was no chance for any mistakes or errors in what I am saying.  I hated the feeling of when an awkward silence takes the conversation and I am unsure in what to say next.  Though it was usually effective and complete, whatever I presented always seemed to be robotic and uninteresting.  I believe that the implementation of a system where I memorize the content, and make the words on the spot has allowed for more of a conversation including audience participation.

This has significantly helped with my presenting skills, and be able to propose something even if I am unprepared.

I believe that this is demonstrated through the Pecha Kucha and Shark Tank project.  These two projects heavily relied on knowing your content, and presenting something to an audience.

The Pecha Kucha project was where it all started; I decided to make up my words on the spot, instead of memorizing a script, like I usually do.  I believe that I did a good job, but still had lots of room in improvement.

The Shark Tank project was a way to understand how to sell ourselves, and what we bring to the work world.  I really enjoyed this project, and find it to be one of my most favourite projects since starting in PLP.  It really allowed me to understand how to sell myself, how to pitch myself to employers and know what they want to say.

This also helped with things outside of school, business and engineering competitions where I had to pitch an idea to a panel of judges.

This was my main success of the year, and hope to grow in other areas of growth.

Instead of splitting up the success behaviors, I have opted to focus on the three success behaviors that I think that I have growth in.  Apart from the success behaviours I have shown, I believe that I uphold each and every other one.  I always look for rooms to grow, and want to become better.

Reflection

I thought that reflection was one of my strong suites as of last year, but it has come to my attention that I have become a bit lazy in this area.  I believe that my blog posts lack the depth that it once had, the passion and carefulness of what I once had when I joined PLP.

This may be due to a lack of motivation, always getting checkmarks and never pushing myself to do better.  This could have caused me to put out the bare minimum in terms of blog posts, and focus more on the actual project.  This could have been shown in my last project, where I poured all of my time and effort in the project and was to tired to write a quality post.  I hope that this post does not show this.

Self Care

Though I always care for myself and try to have free time, I tend to sign up for as many things as possible to fill up my schedule.  This may result in sleeping late, lack of motivation, or worse of all burn out.  I want to do as much as possible, sign up for as many extra-curriculars and become the best in what I do.

My want for more is shown in my work, in the Romeo Romeo project I always prioritize quantity over quality, which results in a large amount of work that I have to do.  My theme book had about three times the required evidence, I chose to try to find as many themes as possible, even if may not relate to the topic.  They all fit the requirement, but none really stood out.

Not only that, the schedule that I chose for next year may result in me being very tired or demotivated.  I chose to take 10 academic courses, 2 being online.  This also does not include all my extra curriculars, positions, and musical courses.

Goals and Self Assessing   

My goals are usually generic and boring, often plaguing a large amount of people.  Though they are usually relevant, I believe that I could go more in depth and break down my ideas further.  I have a clear path that I would like to take, but setting goals for to achieve success is pretty vague.

Not only that, I sometimes give up on goals, and never end of finishing things that I want to do.  An example of this was the awards that I said I had wanted to achieve, but never ended up accomplishing it.

My Learning Plan

The last part of this presentation that I would like to cover is my learning plan.  The learning plan, a document we make every year that shows of our strengths and weaknesses.  I believe that I had completed most of my goals, and was successful in achieving my plan.  I look forward to making another one next year.

PLP Learning Plan 10 – Christian Lo 20232024

Though there were many successes this year, I always have growth.  There are always ways to improve, and I will always be far from perfection.

Thanks for listening to my tPOL

-Chris

A Shark’s Den – Back to the Future!

Posted on by christianl

Hellooo people!

After completing this long awaited project, it is time to start the reflection and examine the work that I built along the way.

Driving Question: How do you set yourself up to become the person you want to be?

The learning journey involved not only allowed me to grow as a person, but understand what I want to do in the future. These everyday skills that I learnt are vital in the work world.  Lets get right into the skills I learnt!

Stress Management:

Everyone faces it, everyone needs to deal with it, stress is part of everyone’s day to day life.

Under the short duration and pressure we had during this process, it has really allowed me to understand what calms me down, and what I need to do to in order to prevent it.

I enjoy taking long deep breathes, reflecting what I have done, and try to maintain a calm composure when under lots of stress.  Realizing that is all okay, and that I have had a lot of experience in this type of things allows me to realize that I can do this.

Knowing who I am and what I want to be:

Before starting this project, I had a rough understanding of what I wanted to do, and where I want to be. Along the journey, I realized that staying in a job and not starting anything of my own is something I do not want to do.

My parents, my motivation and inspiration, has made me come to a realization that I would like to start something of my own in the future; whether it has to do with technology or not.

Understanding who I am and where I want to be has become clearer than before.  This project gave me the time to reflect and think of what I want to do.

What it takes to get there:

Realizing that not everything is easy and having to work to be able to achieve the goal you want is what people often overlook. Everyone wants something, but nobody has the courage and determination to actually start.

To achieve my goals; to be able to enter the technology industry I need to be able to have the skills and knowledge to start. Doing side projects and creating what I want is something that I need to work on. I believe that I have the fundamentals, but lack the evidence to show for it.

A lot of companies and universites would actually like to be able to see your skills, and how you have implemented it into your work.  By doing projects it shows that there are things that you have created and they know what you were doing.

Here is a link to the document I created throughout this project:

https://christianl.craft.me/HmgTiNEsF2ADbt

During the process of creating my pitch, I tend to create a full script for my projects, which leads to a static and robotic type voice that people often get bored with.

In this case, I made a script, but refrained from using it. I had memorized the contents of it and tried to not use my cue cards at all. I didn’t follow what was written, thinking of words on the sport and from past experience. This process had allowed me to keep eye contact with the judges, and have a certain flow to my words.

Practice was my key to success.  The phrase “practice makes perfect” encompasses my idea and purpose for this project.  Friends, family, even teachers listened and watched me practice my pitch to them.  I made sure that I had all the concepts down, and focused on creating interactivity with the audience.  I made sure to smile, maintain eye contact, and most of all, ask them questions to keep them engaged.

Cover Letter – Christian Lo Resume – Christian Lo

Answer to driving question:

I do not need to have everything planned out for the future, just taking it step by step and achieving my goals is what I need to focus on. Planning out each day and making sure that every passing day is better than before is something that I want to be able to do. Having not everything planned is okay, and people our age should not have to stress about knowing where they want to be in the next couple of years.

Along with this, just having a couple clear set goals that you want to be able to achieve is what most should strive for. These goals should better you as a person; whether it is to eat more healthy or start going to the gym.

Overall, I genuinely really enjoyed this project. I found the idea of a shark tank pitch to be really effective, in not only being able to present yourself, but understanding who you are and what skills you offer. In my recent years of PLP, I have to say that this was one of my all time favourite projects, and would love to do something similar in the future.

Thanks for reading!

-Chris

Imagining the Destination 2024 (Provincials)

Posted on by christianl

Good Afternoon and welcome back to our second Destination Imagination (DI) blog post for the year.  Unfortunately, this will be my last year of doing this competition in PLP, but might sign up again for next year.  Stay tuned!

 

So… Destination Imagination… if you have read the previous post, I mentioned about how it is an annual competition that PLP partakes in until grade 11.  We get paired up in random groups, usually in our grade level but this time across the years, and get put into a subject of our choice.  Like the last time I did Destination Imagination, I was put into the Scientific challenge and had to base our story on puppetry and archaeology.  I worked with Gino, Esther, Belle, and Lila to create our best possible solution to our challenge.

From last time, we had to make very drastic changes.  My entire group, except me, was not planning to show up due to having other commitments on the same day; which left me in a really tight spot.  However, before the actual day came around, two other group members, Belle and Gino, told me they were able to come.  This put us in a very bad spot, we hadn’t met up at all since the regionals, and had to make major alterations on the day of the tournament.

Instead of me just playing the role as the puppet, I was a scientist and was part of the team.  To be able to play the role as the puppet as well, my character left the stage after not wanting to continue, which allowed me to change into the character of the puppet.  Gino and Belle’s role stayed the same, but were given a lot more lines which were originally the other group members.  It was quite stressful, but I think we were able to pull of a pretty decent performance.

During the Instant Challenge, the worst possible situation happened.  We were tasked with creating a tree, that has to be as wide and tall as possible whilst also being in a box.  We were doing really well, and I was confident that we could beat all the other team members.  We maximized our height, used different materials to make it bigger, and also were working well together.  Unfortunately, at the last moment, one of the pins fell, and I tried to put it back on, which ended up toppling the structure.  It was very unfortunate, and we only realized that one side was imbalanced after the challenge was over.

Unfortunately, our team came last in both the team and instant challenge, due to being down two members and having to improv a bunch of the lines on stage.  I think that our team could have definitely done better, but some things did not go as planned.  Overall, it was a good effort, and we tried our best to win.

Thanks for reading,

– Chris

Imagining the Destination 2024 (Regionals)

Posted on by christianl

Destination Imagination.

What is it?

Destination Imagination (DI) is a provincial tournament that we do every year, which builds our communication, collaboration, and building skills.  We have been doing this since grade 8, and have learnt to work with new people.  Overall it is a really cool experience where we gain a lot of valuable experience.

We started off by getting put in a random groups and topic.  It really allowed us to connect with people we did not know, and might have never met without this project.  I got put into a group with three grade nines (Esther, Gino, Lila), and one other grade ten (Charlie R.).  They were people I had not really interacted with, which led to an awkward start within our group.  I felt like our group chemistry was not the best; some of our group members did not get along the best and there were some arguments.

I worked a lot in the development in the story, and creating the script.  I also helped with the development of the puppet (I brought the RC car), and finished some of the forms.  I was a valuable asset of my team, and I think that I really helped with the success of our teams results.

We based our entire project on Ancient Egypt and how their was a race of “Meta Humans” who lived before them.  Since their were multiple stories about the Sphinx being built before the Egyptians, we decided to take that idea and made it so the Meta Humans were the ones who created it.

I played the role as the puppet, and was supposed to be a meta human from the past.  Each “Meta Human” has an enhanced human characteristic, which means they can either have enhanced speed or strength.  My character has an enhanced lifespan, which explains how the puppet had survived for so long.

My other team members played the role as an archaeological group who stumbled upon this discovery, and ended up discovering this meta human.

What did I learn?

The most valuable lesson that I have learned through this project was being flexible.  “Flexibility is a tortoise trait.”  I had to do things that were unplanned, and solve problems on the spot.  Some of our group members did not do their work; which sometimes made me have to finish what they were suppose to do.  Though it made made me irritated, I had to understand that people were busy, and that they had others things to do in their life.  These were things that I learnt in the process, to be ready for the unexpected, to support team members when they were unavailable.

However, I felt like our prop-making and some of our group member’s artistic background really allowed us to come second in the competition.  It really showed us how we are unique in our own way, and that we have skills and talents of our own.  Like mentioned previously, us coming in second was a major highlight of the day; it really showed us how much could be done in one dedicated morning of building and rehearsing.

This competition was a very valuable experience that not only made me grow as a person, but understand different things.

Overall, I would say like this project was pretty successful, and were able to place pretty high on the rankings.  We came second out of four teams, and was the highest in the instant challenge aspect.

Thanks for reading,

Chris

Pre-Pol… My Goals this Year

Posted on by christianl

Good Afternoon Teachers and Parents,

Thank you for coming out to my pre-pol, I have created a blog post with evidence to show my upcoming goals and how I will grow in the coming year.

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.

My Learning Plan:

So… how will I be achieving these goals.  Grade 10 has been a year where we have learnt positive strategies to help boost our productivity.  Since starting the personal productivity project, I have created a firm understanding on certain activities and apps that really boost my productivity and organization skills.  We experimented on different applications for about four weeks, and found out what works best for us.  For my personal piece of media, I have created a video also to go with my pre-pol, providing evidence for each of these areas that will support my growth.

The next time I have a mPOL or tPOL, I will document my growth and how each of these aspects has positively changed me.  I will create another video that shows evidence of this growth like the one I have made today.

Thanks for Listening:

-Chris

TPOL… Grade 9 Reflection

Posted on by christianl

Good afternoon!

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

 

It’s already the end of grade 9, and it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learnt, and what I still need to do.  As I progress into grade 10, I hope to meet new people and improve my work.

 

“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.

 

Driving Question:

How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?

 

Humanities:

Projects:  5 Themes of Geography, Full Steam Ahead, Storm the Barricades, Rise of the Frankenstuffies, A Case for a Nation, and Dulce et Decorum Est.

 

Humanities was the main subject in PLP during my grade 9 year.  I had it for both semesters and I think it shows my growth in the most obvious way.  During the start, I feel like I sometimes got distracted from the people/things around me.  This caused me to sometimes not know what we are doing, and sometimes end up doing the wrong thing.  However, after the semester change, I feel like I have made an effort to stop getting distracted.  My main method to do so is to not respond/interact to the person/item distracting me.  This allows me to be more focused and stay on task.  After the semester change, I made an effort to do so which allowed me to be more focused, and on task.  I also enjoy helping out people that don’t know what to do, and answer questions they have.  During the MPOL, I also wished to improve my presenting skills.  I feel like this was improved during the previous exhibition, I planned out what I was going to say, and prevented myself from saying filler words.

On the other hand, I still wish to improve in fully pushing myself.  I usually finish my work to my learning plan goal, not pushing myself even more.  I always aim to get a rainbow, never trying to do anything more, such as trying to get a flex.  Next year, I wish to improve even more, pushing myself further to earn better grades.

 

 

Maker:

Vibrant Videos, Your First Film, and the Stop Motion Viral Video.

Like in science, I unfortunately did not have this class this semester.  The previous goals I had for maker is still pretty relevant.  I try to make an effort to compare work with my peers, however, they usually say they don’t know what I can improve on.  This results in me not really knowing what to do, so I end up just handing it in as it is.

Science:

Handle with Care, Life as we Know it, Essential Elements, and Exciting Electricity.

 

Even if I am not doing Science 10 PLP next year, I still have things I want to improve on for normal science 10 next year.  I feel like I had accomplished my previous goal for science, staying on task.

 

Core Competencies:

Communicating

I enjoy talking and discussing ideas with different people.  This allows me to talk and meet new people relatively easily.

Collaborating

I feel like collaborating and communication are quite similar.  They both require me to communicate to different people, to complete a common goal.  I like working with other people, and don’t mind working in random groups made by the teacher.

Creative Thinking

I think I am a pretty creative thinker.  I feel like I am able to make pretty good ideas for projects, which leads me to accomplish my learning plan goal.

Critical and Reflective Thinking

Personally, I think I am good at reflecting, I can take feedback and will try to improve on what I need to do.  Not only that, I am currently reflecting on my past grade 9 year.

Personal Awareness and Responsibility

For this competency, I think I am responsible and usually aware.  Like mentioned before, I feel like I have matured over the grade 9 year, slowly growing as a person.

Positive Personal and Cultural Identity

I feel like I am a positive outsource to my peers, I usually try to cheer up friends in sad times, and will encourage people who are trying to accomplish something.

Social Awareness and Responsibility

I think I am socially aware of the people around me.  I know when to tease my friends, and when not to.

In conclusion, I feel like I have accomplished my goals.  I do not feel burnt out and tired like last year, and I feel like my work right now is pretty decent.  However, I still think I could push myself further and aim further then my learning plan goal.

Overall, I feel like my past grade 9 year was pretty successful, I learnt new things, made things I was proud of, and things I could have done better in.  I hope you enjoyed!

Some work that I am proud of:

How has the geography of the West shaped who we are?

Thanks for listening to my TPOL, have a good day!

-Chris

 

Viral Videos are Fun!

Posted on by christianl

Hello!

Today, I will be going over a week of school in Maker!  We created 5 different videos that utilize different skills and techniques.  This included jump cut, green screen and much more.  Hope you enjoy reading this mini blog post!

The first mini video was the jump cut, I worked with Andrew and Charlie M to create this.  Jump cut is a technique that allows people to disappear from a frame.  You basically cut the video when you want to disappear and replay it when you want to continue.  Here is my video:

 

After that, we created AR snow globes that included something random inside.  We used and app called AR maker to create these videos.  I chose to put a selfie with me, Cameron B and Dylan.

 

We then created a video that utilized green screen.  For this one, I worked with Keenan.  We decided to green screen ourselves on Mount Fuji, since it was beautiful.  Later, Daniel told me I should make it erupt so that it could be more interesting.  I listened and implemented it into my video.

 

For the next one, we reused AR maker.  We had to use memoji’s that told a story.  We also had to draw the rest of the memoji’s body so that it was not just a head.  For my story, I decided that I would run away from a dragon, so I drew the rest of its body.  Here is that video:

 

For the final video, we worked in partners to recreate a viral short video. I decided to work with Charlie M again, and originally planned to create a compilation of Zach King videos.  Later we decided to change it due to the short amount of times we had.  This is my final video:

Overall, doing this short learning week was very interesting and I learnt a lot about video techniques.  However, I think that some of the videos that I created could have been a bit better quality.

Thanks for reading!

-Chris

MPOL 2023?!

Posted on by christianl

Good Afternoon!

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Over the past 4 months, I have gained a deeper understanding about myself as a learner.  During this time span, I have created things that I feel proud of, and others I feel like I could have done better in.  I will be reviewing my learning plan and will assess things that I have accomplished and that are still unresolved.  I look forward to what in store for me in this coming year.

“You don’t learn from experience; you learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey.

Driving Question:

How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?

Maker

During Maker, I think that I have produced satisfactory work that I am proud of.  Inside my learning plan, my goal was to be show both perspectives to a question.  Inside my work, I think that I demonstrated this.  One of these examples is my documentary.  I worked quite hard in editing together the b-roll, voiceovers and interviews.  I think that it shows a sophisticated understanding on the topic that we were learning about.  Also, I wanted to take more risks and participate more in class.  In this past year, I think that I participate in a lot more class discussions.

To improve, I can compare my work to other students that have accomplished the task that I am working on.  This will allow me to review my work to make sure it is all good.   If there were any ideas that other people included, I could take inspiration from them.

Humanities

This year, I think that my humanities work has shown a significant improvement than last year.  I felt like my work had shown a notable drop in quality.  I started feeling tired and was not putting out my best work.  On the other hand, I feel like I have been doing a much better job on my work this year.  I show this inside most of my work inside humanities.  I have been constantly accomplishing my weather rating goal in my learning plan.  Inside the project Storm the Barricades, I have put in 100% of my effort and have been getting extending’s in all my assignments.

How has the geography of the West shaped who we are?

However, I think that presenting my project is something I could build on.  Specifically, whenever I demonstrate my learning inside a class, I usually stutter or say “um.”  Over the years, I have created a habit to fill in silence with a word.  This causes my sentences to not have a certain “flow” that I hope for.  Also, within my learning plan I state that I would like to pace my work instead of rushing through it in one day.  I think that I had done this for most of my assignments but still occasionally do this.

Science

In science, I have also improved my work since last year.  I think that I did not push myself enough during Scimatics last year.  This resulted in me getting mostly accomplished ratings during this time.  However, I have been pushing myself to go above and beyond so that I can get the extending rating.  I think that all of my projects demonstrate this growth.

Something I feel like I could improve on is staying on task.  This is especially prevalent during science.  I think that I sometimes get distracted due to the long lectures we have during this class.  This results in me either talking to friends or playing games with other people.

Core Competencies

Communicating

I think that I am quite an outgoing person, I enjoy talking to people and discussing ideas.  This allows me to communicate any ideas/ points to other people.  Like mentioned before, I feel like whenever I do presentations I occasionally stutter.

Collaborating

I enjoy working with other people, I usually work well with most people.  I don’t mind working with someone that I don’t know because I like meeting new people.  However, I feel like if people are not doing their share of their work, I get a bit annoyed.

Creative Thinking

I think that I sometimes come up with creative ideas, if I am interested inside the topic.  On the other hand, if I am not curious about the topic I will not really think creatively.

Critical and Reflective Thinking

For reflective thinking, I think that I can find errors and ideas for growth in my work.  Currently, I am reflecting on my past year and talk about what has so far happened.  I also don’t mind taking constructive criticism on some of my work.

Personal Awareness and Responsibility

I think that I am decent at this, I always finish my work on time.  However, sometimes I get distracted from work during class time and end up playing games with other people.  I also know what my values are and what aspirations I have for the future.

Positive Personal and Cultural Identity

For this competency, I feel like I am quite a positive person and enjoy motivating people.  I also know who I am and am proud of myself.  I understand that I am from a really small country in South East Asia and have moved here.

Social Awareness and Responsibility

I think that I am socially aware of things and can tell what to do when there is a situation or somethings happens.  I feel like I can respectfully talk to other people who are different than me.

Overall, I think that I have had a quite successive half year.  I am proud of the work that I have created and have met a lot of new people.  I still have a lot of things that I can work on and learn about.

Some things I am proud of:

 

Thanks for reading!

-Chris

What Makes a Good Movie?

Posted on by christianl

Hello everyone!

I just finished my third exhibition in grade 9!  Our exhibition was based on the movie Avatar, so all our projects had to relate to a theme that the film included.   This meant the grade 9’s had to make a documentary that showed of one of Avatars main ideas.  I chose to do mines on sustainability destruction, more specifically into Borneo’s deforestation.  I hope that you enjoy reading!

Driving question:

What does James Cameron’s fantasy world of “Avatar” reveal about our own society?

We started off by watching Avatar so that we could learn the lore and the different characters inside of it.  After finishing, we discussed what the different themes were so that we could choose one for our documentary.  These are some of the ideas that we thought of:

•Augmented Reality

•Imperialism + Colonialism

•Corporate Greed (Corporate interests outweighing local rights)

•Sustainability/Destruction of Natural Environment over Humanity’s interests

•Racism – Lack of understanding for different cultures/ways of being

•Militarism

•Spirituality/Beliefs

•Exploration – Terrestrially/Space Travel

•Connection Community/Culturally

•Oppression – Forced Evictions

We went into the next stage of our project, the planning.  We needed three things to create a successive video: B-roll, an interview and good editing.  To start off the planning, we created a treatment and storyboard for our video.  A treatment is a short paragraph that explained what it is and has to excite the person reading it.   I wanted to split my video into 2 parts, Borneo’s jungle and North Vancouver’s forest.  I would interview 2 different people about the deforestation in their respective areas which would be included in our video.  In between the parts, I would also be explaining different facts that added to my short films.  Here is my storyboard and treatment.

After that, I had to find interviews that were informed on this subject.  I contacted multiple people that  came from here and people who worked in Shell in Brunei (country in Borneo) about an interview for my video.  Unfortunately, I only got 1 response back and he said that he would not be able to answer my questions.  At this point I chose to interview my father (businessman from Brunei) and Ms. Kadi (green club teacher sponsor).  

Along with the interviews I had to find b-roll to add to my documentary.  B-roll is background footage that is added to make the video more interesting.  Lots of the b-roll was from my parents and things that I found online.  To properly use this, I had to play the footage only when the topic is relevant to the subject that we were talking about.  To display our knowledge, we made a short video to practice our interview and b-roll skills.  Here it is:

To put my documentary all together, I had to cut out and edit lots of the clips so that it would fit into the movie.  It took me lots of time finding the right b-roll footage that fit in with the voiceovers and interviews.  I also had to find background music that fit the mood of my video.  To finish my video, I had to include a clip explaining how my video is related to the move Avatar.  Here is my documentary:

Inside the exhibition, we also had to create viewing boxes to make watching the film more interesting.  I had the idea of making a tree stump so I was given a really big box.  I painted my box brown and Daniel helped me out to create vines and leaves that were placed onto it.  I also created holes at the bottom and top so that you could see my iPad.  

The final thing we had to do was decorate the room for the exhibition.  I was placed inside the destroyed planet group, it had people from other grades that had projects to do with sustainability destruction.  We wanted to make the room more post apocalyptic so we added black paper to the walls with old environmental signs.  We also dressed up as homeless people  and put a garbage pile in the middle.  

In conclusion, I really enjoyed creating and presenting my work to the community. I think I did a really good job in creating my documentary.  It included all the required items and more.  If I were to do this again, I would like to have made my viewing box a bit better.  It was intended to be a tree stump but ended up looking like a nature mailbox.  

To answer the driving question, Avatar portrays multiple different themes in real life.  Lots of large corporations invade foreign lands and exploits them for personal gain.  Like in the movie, they deforest the jungles in Pandora so that they can get a rare mineral called Unobtainium.  They even went to such lengths to destroy the native tribe’s home for more of this resource. 

Thanks for reading!

-Chris

Vibrant Videos

Posted on by christianl

Hello everyone!

During Maker, I have been creating videos and goals that I would like to accomplish.  I have learnt a lot about cinematography and different shots and angles that people use to enhance a movie.  Not only that, I got to learn how to use a cool app on our iPad called Clips to edit all our videos.  I also learnt about interests, goals and hobbies that I enjoy doing.  I hope you enjoy reading!

Driving question: How might I use video skills to tell my story?

At the start of this project, we started reading a book called “What I Really Want?” that helped us pinpoint what we want and what goals we would like to set.  We had to create a goal tracker to include all of our work that we did along the way.  We also learnt a lot about

Inside the book, we filled out a form called “What Inspires Me” that had a list of questions relating to our goals.  We had to base and create our first video on this form that had to include different media, filters, music and sound effects.  Some of the questions included what we enjoy doing, what don’t we enjoy doing, what brings us meaning to our lives and a lot of others.  I talked a lot about how I really enjoy coding and want to potentially create a game in the future.  If you would like to watch my video, here it is:

After that, we started learning and experimenting angles that we could add to the videos we will create.  We also started learning about the usefulness of storyboards.  A storyboard is a series of frames with simple drawings that shows the angle, plot and sound effect.  We watched the new avatar movie and had to storyboard it using our skills we learnt.

After that, we wrote out a goal getter story about something in our life that we have overcome.  I wrote about our hardships and success inside Destination Imagination.  We then started creating our second video that is based on our goal getter story.  For this video we were working in groups of 3 and had to make it an old silent film.  I was working with Cameron L and Max and they chose to do my goal getter story.  We wrote out a storyboard to plan all our shots and what was going to happen.  This is our video:

At around this time, it was a week away from the Humanities mini exhibition.  The teachers decided to create multiple videos that we would play during the exhibition.  We used the editing skills we learned along the way to produce this video.  We had to storyboard, plan and think about what would be inside our video.  Here is this video:

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The last and final video was a tutorial that relates to our SMART goals.  SMART is an acronym to create better goals.  The S stands for specific, the M stands for measurable, the A stands for actionable, the R stands for realistic and the T stands for time bound.  We also learnt how to write a logline and a treatment.  A treatment is a short summary that is no more than a page.  A logline is a small blurb that goes over the main plot.

We decided to use Jessie’s idea on how to open lockers as our tutorial.  Her goal was to be more organized so she wants to use her locker to make easier.  We then created a logline, treatment and storyboard to plan out what would happen in our video.

In conclusion, I learnt a lot about video making and goal planning.  If I were to do this again, I think that I could have aimed for getting rainbows in all of the videos.  For the first one, I could have included a story to make it more interesting and more shots and angles for the second video.  However, I think the videos I created were pretty well made.  To answer the driving question, I think my most latest video has a story using a video.

Thanks for reading!
-Chris