Case For A Nation

Hi, welcome back to my blog. This blog post is about my most recent project Case for a Nation, in this project we made six videos. Each video was about certain topics like BNA and the Métis. In total for this project, I had to complete ten milestones, which is a lot considering an average project is only 5-6 milestones. All these videos were leading up to a video which accumulated all of our videos into one to answer the driving question “How can a un deer standing of nationalism help us understand today”. My partner and I did this video together we answered the driving question together. Our answer is An understanding of nationalism can help us make sense of today by recognizing that nationalism created the countries we live in and how people feel united through language, political beliefs, and ethnicity.

The first video I made was an interview about nationalism. I decided to interview my mother Annette Klein, we learned about how interviews use the rule of thirds to film. We also learned all about nationalism and what it is. I had to prepare questions to ask my mom, figure out how I was going to film and filming location. This video was not that hard to film but I did need to get my sister to help me film so I could ask the questions. It was pretty funny because my sister couldn’t take my mom seriously so we all kept laughing as soon as we started filming. That was a highlight in this project. Other than that this interview was not that hard to film, little did I know things were about to get a lot harder and I was going to have to expand my worldview and my think beyond what I have ever done before.

Our second video I made was an animatic video that explained the story of German nationalism under Otto von Bismarck. This video started everything off for this project. It made me realize how hard it was going to be to create 6 videos in just 4 weeks. I had to make a screenplay, storyboard and plan out the whole video in a story planer document. Within a week I had finished my video. It wasn’t my greatest piece of work but I knew if I worked hard I could do better in my later videos. While making my animatic I improved my skills under empowered learner because I used a lot of different app on my iPad to create each scene make voiceovers and draw characters. I also improved on my designing texts competency. I worked hard to make a good script that describes what many characters were doing. This helped me get better at writing screenplays for future videos to come. One thing that I didn’t expect was all the homework I was getting and this was just the start.

The third video I made was a tutorial video that explained how to make Canadian confederation. Leading up to this video I learned all about BNA (British North America). As well as John. A. MacDonald. I had to watch a movie and make a story mountain for that and in class, I also made a story mountain for the story of confederation. I also had to fill out a story planner document just like for the animatic, I had to make a screenplay as well as a storyboard to help guide my way to filming. Doing all these preparation steps helped me make Filipino and editing a smooth process because I know what I have envisioned and all I have to do is make it come my visions come to life. I did indeed use my GoPro to film my tutorial in my POV. This worked out well in my opinion. I created a cooking tutorial but each ingredient represented something in the Canadian confederation. Throughout the whole process of making the tutorial, I had to think about ways I could include continuity and change in my video. I improved on the continuity and change competency because of this video because I had to think about how I could creatively include continuity and change into my tutorial. For this video, I tried to extend my designing texts competency by only using captions to explain my video. This worked for most of it but some people were still a bit confused by my video so I have learned that it’s better for me to used voiceovers as well as captions to portray the story to the best of my abilities.

Our next video I had to make was on oppression around Louis Riel and the Metis. This was a rough patch for me because I was getting worn out by all the videos I had made and the homework I was doing. I knew I had to push through this and still make the best quality of work possible. We learned about all the things Louis Riel did for the Metis and he was executed for treason. In class we even had a debate, half of the class represented the side saying Riel was a hero and the other half saying he was a villain. I was selected to be on the villain side. We had a formal debate and it was pretty fun, the side saying Riel lost by only two points. Now it was time to focus I had to make another story planner document. By now I was getting annoyed with all these screenplays and other things to prepare for videos. I finally made my screenplay for this explainer video on Louis Riel I went home and recorded my voice overs for the rough draft that was due the next. Later Ms. Maxwell said we can just hand what we had in and our marks would not go down if it wasn’t good and we would just move on because of how much work we had done. I was very happy with this announcement and it made me more excited to do the next video. Although I had still done the prep so I had improved on my video skills because at this point I just made screenplays all the time so I knew exactly what to do. I may have not liked the subject of Louis Riel and the Metis but I still learned from it and the experience helped me later on in the project.

Finally a group video. I was getting tired of doing something on my own, so when I had the chance to work with a partner I was more than happy, to say the least. In this video, it was an accumulation of all of my partner Logans and my video we had made over this project. In this video, we had to answer the driving question “How can an understanding of nationalism help us understand today?” The process of making this video was a lot easier because I could split the work with Logan. We had to fill out yet another story planning document, make a screenplay and make a storyboard. We split the writing of the screenplay half and half. In this video, we had to include 3 examples of nationalism in the past and connect them to the present. We connected the unity of Italy to Sports and their nationalism, confederation of Canada to Joe Biden trying to unite the United States and Louis Riel and the Metis to Indigenous issues with fishing rights. We had to get copyright-free photos from the internet and some clips from our previous videos. We cut them together and made our cumulative video. While making this video we had to keep in mind that our interviewee that appeared earlier in the video was going to react to it. Throughout the making of this video, I improved once again my empowered learner competency by being able to share the work, find videos and photos and use my technology to my advantage. In this video, I think I improved on every single competency and I’m very proud of my work.

Last but not least I had to make a reaction video. I titled my video Annette Reacts. I had to make questions for my mom that she could answer in the middle and after the video to keep the reaction interesting. I was very happy with how she reacted because it was kinda entertaining. I used the rule of thirds once again just like in the interview. Although it used a different filming location because I needed something for the laptop to rest on while she watched the video. I learned how to work with issues and that I only have one shot for a reaction video or else it’s a true reaction. I had to work around my dog making a special appearance and some bland moment but overall I think this video was pretty good.

To recap this blog post I talked about my learning journey throughout this video. We looked at how improved at the competencies from video to video, what I learned and how I was feeling throughout this project. This project was a roller coaster but I’m glad I completed it because now I have tons of knowledge about video skills and all the subjects we covered going into the next quarter. Make sure to check out my other posts here and logan’s blog here