Why Does it Take a Crazy Person to Change the World?
Seattle is a growing city with its own culture of innovation. As I visited Seattle for my 4th PLP trip, I experienced a city of such different qualities than Vancouver. In today’s worldwide connectivity we often lose to touch with the reality of the world around us. In the Seattle field study, I was able to reach out and go on an in-depth journey looking at the companies, people, and history that have made an impact on a vast number of people. Visiting Microsoft, Boeing, and Amazon HQ were highlights of a non-stop trip in which we would touch, interact, and learn throughout the 4-day experience.
The Video
The project that was tied to this trip was connected to my work in the cray cray unit. During the unit, I had already written an essay, presented a mini Pecha Kucha, and eventually, I would present a full Pecha Kucha at the December exhibition. All the assignments and challenges were based on the question at the top of my post and the challenge for the Seattle trip was no different. Our goal was to collect the stories of different people that display craziness and success expressed with quality film making answering the question below.
Why Does it Take a Crazy Person to Change the World?
We have worked with that question that for so long and we’ve looked at it from so many different angles, as one of my classmates stated:
“it’s gotten to the point where we overstand that question”
With that so-called overstanding of that question, you’d think we’d be able to tell a great story about that question. Below is our final product
Looking back at this production I couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed in the material we had to work with. Although I know the extenuating circumstances with a majority of the interviews we conducted that made many interviews unusable. I felt the lack of outside input had a dramatic impact on the quality of the video. It disappoints me because I felt we had a genuine story and plot and a fantastic style and our lack of outside sources limits the credibility and flow of the video. If I was given another opportunity at this video I would be more committed to the question. I feel that with that commitment finding stories that related to crazy would have been easier to find. When you take a story in your own direction especially when working in a group your success in finding a story will be very difficult. Overall, I am very proud of our high editing quality but in the future, but next time my focus will be around finding the stories that are the most powerful rather than focusing on my direction I want to take it.
The Trip
I stated the high pace nature of the trip but I have not given it justice. Through the trip, I don’t remember sitting and relaxing for any time. We constantly were on the move from one place to another. It was so fast paced that getting the shots for our video was a challenge. We had to be very efficient; balancing enjoying the sites whilst getting the shots we needed for our video. I’ll take you through some of the highlights of the trip and talk a little bit about their significance to both our film as well as my personal expierence.
Dale Chuiluy is an ambassador of the new and fresh glass industry. Dale Chuiluy and his team continue to astonish people worldwide with colours that astound art enthusiasts and the everyday person alike. Our class was given the opportunity to visit the Dale Chuiluy garden and glass and paid witness to a legend’s work. Words cannot describe the vibrant colors and the way the light seemingly glows off his work. Dale Chuiluy was a focus of the video we would create and we filmed a live presentation inside the museum with the artwork as a background. The shots we captured at the museum were stunning and surely a highlight of our video.
Airplanes have become such a part of society it is hard to imagine a world without them. Boeing is a leader of that industry and we had the opportunity to visit their main manufacturing site in Everett. We were unable to shoot photos of the manufacturing factory itself but the experience itself was interesting. Seeing the airplanes that fly our skies broken down and seeing how they are built was quite interesting. I learned a lot about airplane production but more so it was an example of modern manufacturing. I had never seen that before and I thought that was quite interesting.
The last highlight of the trip would probably be the visit to the Microsoft campus. We visited the visitor center as well as the Microsoft Garage. Both sites giving us insight into the futuristic ways the world could be advanced in the near future. In the visitor center, we were given the opportunity to drive a very realistic Forza Motorsport simulator. In the Garage, I was able to understand what those that succeed do. When visiting I couldn’t help but think about the comparisons between it and DI. Although DI isn’t a place with funding the way Microsoft is there is a very similar concept of creativity. Microsoft was a very futuristic site and something that was an interesting reality of the real world.
Through the trip, I was able to reach further and get closer to the people and businesses that I had been researching for weeks. The non-stop nature of this trip was ultimately a very positive part of the trip. This non-stop experience always kept me on my toes and I think added to my ability to take in all the various different encounters. I was impressed with how much I got out of one city in 4 days and proud of how I can bring that experience into my future at school. The material we learned was not limited school but it could relate to my future just as much as the present projects. A truly stunning trip with so many different encounters with the legendary companies and people of today.
