Bonjour!

This blog post is my first Maker project of grade 9, which we partially completed while we were on the PLP Alberta trip last week. For this project, I made 4 different styles of videos to help answer the driving question, ‘how might I use the moving image to tell a story?’ 

The first video was a silent video made in groups and I worked with Aiya, Sunny and Esther! I think that this is the video that I learned the most from. Because silent videos have no speech and no sound (other than music) we had to be able to still tell the story without those. To help make our story we wrote a story spine, which is 9 sentence starters that create a story. This was our story spine.

After writing the story spine, we researched filming locations in the Three Valley Gap Ghost Town, where we filmed our movies. I also learned how props and costumes help tell the story and add details to the character, so I brought a dress because it is a well known stereotype to show that I was the woman and help give contrast to the rest of my group who had male characters. They used mascara to draw moustaches or beards. As well, I learned that since you don’t have words, you have to compensate with your actions, by having over-exaggerated expressions and movements. Using digital enchantments like filters or music also helps tell a story. Making this video was also a review of how to take a good shot, like angles, background and foreground and positioning the subject. Anyways, I learned a lot making this video and that audio isn’t required to tell a story with the moving image. This is my silent video, called The Love Square:

The second video style that I made was TikTok styled videos, basically short little videos that tell a story, similar to reels on TikTok. Before this project, I never realized how TikTok or Instagram reels tell a short story and I learned how to tell a story through a video like this. I decided to tell the story of our trip, specifically all of the lakes we visited. I chose to do a transition video and instead of using a popular trend, I decided to make my own transition. Making this video helped me learn and improve how to angle the camera so that it was level and so the lake was in the background. I also learned how music can help tell a story if the song matches the vibe and mood of the video. I used the used the song ‘the lakes’ by Taylor Swift because she is my favourite singer and Folklore is my favourite album and it goes perfectly with the theme of the video. This is my transition video:

I also helped make two other videos. I think that making videos with other people improved my collaboration and communication skills because we had to communicate about how and where we were filming the video, and get the timing in sync. This is the video that I made with Alva and Aiya:

This is the other video I helped create, with Alva, Aiya and Esther:

Another video style I made was the Investigative video. This video was made to answer not just our Maker driving question, but the Humanities driving question too: ‘how has the geography of the West shaped who we are?’ To answer this question through the video, everyone created their own personal thesis. I chose to focus on the natural aspects of the West and my thesis was ‘People come to these unique natural places to experience the beautiful scenery and connect with nature.’ To gather evidence of whether our theses were right or not, on the trip everyone did individual interviews and asked people questions related to their thesis. I did 3 different interviews, at natural locations (Athabasca Glacier, Larch Valley and Lake Louise). I found that the interviewees’ answers mostly supported my thesis. For more about my thesis and Humanities, read my Humanities Blog Post. As well, my goal for this trip was to get better at talking to strangers and people I don’t know very well, which I think I definitely improved on. My first interview was about 55 seconds and my last interview was 1 minute and 40 seconds. Anyways, this is my Investigative video and thank you again so much to my interviewees and to Aiya for filming!

The last video that I made was back at home, about what inspires me. Before this, I wasn’t completely sure what inspires me, but by making this video I learned how my passions and skill, goals, interests and daydreams give me inspiration. Though I have made a few storyboards in the past, during this video I learned how to decide which scenes were the most important to draw on my storyboard. This is part of my storyboard (draft).

I also improved on choosing music to match the vibe of this video too. In this video I think that I told the story of my past (for example, when I used to homelearn), the present (my current passions, my family and friends) and the future (like my daydreams). Here is my What Inspires Me video:

In conclusion, I really enjoyed making these videos, and learned a lot about how to tell a story through the moving image, through different lengths and formats of videos, and using audio, music, effects or text to help enhance the story. 

Kaia out!