Back to school

After a long and refreshing summer it was time to time to get back to school and begin grade 9. I felt quite refreshed after I had a very exciting summer and I was ready to get back into a much more structured schedule at school.

However, the biggest reason why I was excited for school to start was the field school that PLP 9 was taking during the second week of school to Calgary. As we prepared for the trip I learned that the whole trip would focus in creating multiple movies both fiction and non-fiction as we travel across western canada from vancouver all the way to calgary.

The Field School

Trip Overview

There were many places i visited during this trip, many places I never could have seen without this amazing trip. Beautiful sites such as lake louise, the athabasca glacier, serpent mother, and many more are all once in a lifetime opportunities.

Every day was filled with many experiences, activities and assignments to work on so there wasn’t a dull moment on the trip.

On the first day we got footage for our first film project on the trip. we were tasked with making 2 non-fiction films and 2 fiction ones. Both fiction ones were in groups and both non-fiction ones were done individually.

With each film I was under very intense time crunch to get all the footage with the longest time to film being 2 hours.

And in the case of 2 films there was a time crunch on the editing as well. the time limits made sure I was focused in getting the footage I needed in a short amount of time.

When I wasn’t getting footage or B-roll, I had plenty of an opportunity to explore the many sites that calgary and the places on the way had to offer.

I learned quite a bit about canadian history, the CPR, and most of all about film making.

 

Assignment #1 – Ghost town (Three Valley Gap)

This film was a group project and the goal was to create a fictional story set in the ghost town at three valley gap. Me and my group which consisted of Marshall, Maggie, Kailey and Melanie, set out on the first day of our trip to get 10 minutes of footage in 1 and 1/4 hours. That extensive time limit made it quite a challenge for us to get all the footage we needed. We worked fast but as we ran out of time and we only had 4 minutes of footage. Even though we did not get all the footage needed I think we all took away some learning in how to get footage fast. This new found knowledge would prove very helpful later in the trip. After all of us assembled the footage and edited it we finished the video and completed it and made into an interesting story.

In the end I think I would have filmed much more efficiently if I could go back to three valley gap again or I would change the story to be a lot less complex so filming would not take as long. Most of I wish I would have chosen an easier story to make. Horror movies are quite hard to make look good and as much as I am improving as both an editor and an actor it takes professional skills that no one has at 14 years old. In the future i made sure to avoid these types of films and choose more action or thriller type themes as I try to perfect my skills.

Main project

 Assignment #2 – Non-fiction story

This assignment was one with a lot more freedom and I could use quite a bit more creativity with the story.

Not to mention, this one was an individual project, so I was the one making all the decisions so I could personalize this video as much as I wanted.I was able to choose the story, the only limitation was my story had to be related to my predetermined location The Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre. As you may have guessed from the title I needed to my project on wolves. I didn’t come as prepared as I should have been but in the end it wouldn’t of mattered. After talking to the scientist at the northern lights wolf centre it sparked an idea that I was very passionate about, and there was no way I could have chosen that story to talk about going before I visited the wildlife centre. When I created this video I tried to balance the voice overs to interviews, and I tried to incorporate intro and outro videos. I didn’t get to use my outro but the my intro but I did add quite a bit of colour into my film.

 

When my video was critiqued by one of my classmates by the name of Daniel he pointed out that I hadn’t cut off as much of the interviewer as I could have. He also said that my ending didn’t really make too much sense.

 

Using that feedback I created draft 2 and I am quite happy with the way it looks and i am happy to present it to you. The video on the left is my first draft, note both the endings and the interview differences in both movies. I think I definitely learned a lesson about taking enough footage. I thought I had enough footage of the wolves but I learned that it is always good to get more footage than you originally think is enough

Assignment #3 – Royal Tyrrell –  Non Fiction film

The goal in this assignment was to create a short film about story that I could find and talk about in the Royal Tyrrell Museum. I choose to do my film on the Gorgosaurus, an ancestral relative of the T-Rex. We only had 1 hour to film and edit our movies so everyone was required to move quite fast in filming and editing. However, I had spent the whole day in the museum so I did have a few ideas before the assignment was even assigned.

I had learned some new strategies to get footage fast at the ghost town so it was a good time to practice some of the skills i had learned. One of those strategies was to make a simple story, with simple voice overs, and/or simple acting parts. During this time I managed the time very well getting my footage in very fast leaving more than half the time to edit. Without the learning from the ghost town I know for a fact it would not have turned out as well as it did for a 1 hour time limit to create the film and a 1 minute cap on the actual film made it a very interesting and difficult challenge that I was quite happy with the result.

Even though I was quite happy with the result it doesn’t mean I had nothing I could take nothing away in learning for next time. Looking back I could have illustrated a much better story but given the circumstances I think I came up with a decent story line. Overall I learned quite a bit about how I seem to work well under the pressure of the clock and I hope I could replicate it on the future projects.

Assignment #4 – The Enchanted Forest – Fiction Film

Potentially my best work in a film in all of the films wasn’t the most surprising due to it being the last one on the trip and the one I had the most experience going into. This limited but important experience complimented by some accidental good bad timekeeping helped me and my group that consisted of Kai, Marshall, Adlih and Lucas complete a quality story in the short 2 hours we had. We made sure we were quick to survey our potential filming spots taking B-roll whenever possible. With a unique set of circumstances, with the time zone change we thought we had 1 hour less time to complete the editing and filming. This made us work very fast and once again I learned that I work quite well when I have to work a against the clock. It only took us 10 minutes to plan out our story and get a feel for the props we could use and we got filming right away. This sense of urgency is something I would like to use later in future assignments. We finished the scenes in 45 minutes and we then figured out that we had 1 more hour so it gave us plenty of time to edit all the clips into one movie. Looking at this for the first time I was quite surprised that I did all that work in 2 hours. I really hope I can use some strategies I have learned to find that same productivity later in this year.