As we rode away in the cold early morning, I wasn’t at all expecting how much work was to be done.

This is my first blog post for grade 9 and nothing feels different at all. But time to talk about my class trip to Alberta. We had two projects one for maker and one for humanities, click here to see the one for humanities: https://www.blog44.ca/mikar/2023/10/17/alberta-through-my-eyes/ This reflection is all about the videos we made either in Alberta or at home. Anyone can say filming is easy but this project was about gathering evidence to answer the driving quesiton, “how might I use the moving image to tell a story?” We made four videos in total, the at home video, Tik Tok, silent and investigative video. Through the process of making each of this videos I learn a different skill every time, which in the end helped me create the best version of my product as well as I can take these skills towards future projects. 

The first video I made was my at home video. I feel I actually got to learn a lot about myself even thought I was making this for other people, I got to learn what I really valued, my hobbies and how I was able to capture these moments. The process of making this video was mixed, I didn’t have a solid plan, more like a vision I wanted to create. I wanted to include cinematic shots of myself aswell as editing tricks but as the due date for this assignment it all came crashing down, but I wanted it to be how I enviosned it. I wanted it to show me. 

In the final stages of editing it all worked out. I was able to take a vision and create it into reality for myself and others to experiance. I was able t capture momnets of myself and turn them into a story about who I am, my values and what inspires me. 

The second video was the silent video and it was a gorup project. My group members were Lucas and Hunter and we filmed at the Three Valley Gap ghost town. We explored together, finding spots where we can film and built our story from there. There was a bit of pre planning such as making a story spine but the rest was us adapting, bouncing off eachothers ideas and collaborating. We spent a fair share of time looking at the rail cars and hanging out in them, they were really cool! Our story we wanted to film was about a robbery but many times we didn’t have either a prop or the angel was weird, but we had to improvise. Another thing was we couldn’t talk in our film, we had to act it all out and looking back on it was quite funny (especially when we had to film running scenes). But whenever there was an issue we improvised and worked as a group to solve it, like when we didn’t have cash so we leafs. In this project I learn about camera angles and how essential they are to tell a story. For example we had to capture our scene but also include background details in our shot so they could tell where we are, such as essentially we had to capture that we were in a bank that was being robbed. Next time I would like to capture more scenes so the duration of the vidoe is longer as well as more close up shots so you can feel the emotion through the expression of the person so it tells the story also though feeling. 

The third video I made was the Tik Tok. This project was very independent in the way that there were barely any instrucitons you were suppose to follow, so in the end peoples videos looked very different which was nice. While filming I learned all about angles and for my vidoe everything had to be filmed in portrait mode. I didn’t actually have a plan at all or a vision, it turned out to be very spur of the moment and then after the trip I compile it. If I were to do this project again I would have made a plan for filing and gathered different ideas for videos in case some turned out to be fails. I did enjoy making it though becasue in my vidoe you can see all the places we went to which were amazing but then as well you can see the reality aftermath of the trip. Overall I liked this video project but if your ever going to do it too, pre plan it’ll save you so much time. 

Last but not least is our investigative video. This video was a way to tie into our humanities project, a way to show our findings and evidence relating to our thesis, to in the end answer our driving quesiton “How has the Geography of the West shaped who we are?” During the making of this project I learned very valuable skills such as how to conduct as interview which was a key point of evidence to support my thesis. I learned how to approach people, ask if they’d like to be interviewed for a school project, their consent to be filmed, and lastly ask and phrase my questions so the interviewee understood and could respond accordingly. The idea of interviewing people seemed weird to me, I have no problem talking to strangers but suddenly when it involved a school project it freaked me out. After seeing all my friends do it, it seemed easy but in the end what really helped me is that when am I ever going to see this person again. So in the end I also learned to become more comfortable interviewing people and their answers really benefited me, as I gained more knowledge and evidence to prove my thesis. 

Overall all the skills I learned while making these videos are essential to make and create a sotry using the moving image. Having a proper plan and ideas can smooth out the process of filming and creating the story, so theres so conflict or dispute in the end. Angles, close ups, positions, body language help show depth, emotion and feeling when telling your story and give your audience a proper understanding. Lastly all of these videos were made to in some way to tell a story about me and who I am as a person. 

Bye bye!