RUN! – And Don’t Look Behind You…

I never thought I would watch the same 1 minute video so many times!

Well welcome to PLP 9 where we do the most unexpected things all the time. Like on this random Monday our teacher messages us all and tells us to dress warm. (Not going to lie I thought we were going on a walk or something) and then we get to class and we are told that we have 30 minutes to recreate an EXACT copy of this video:

Yes this is the video that I watched way way waaay to many times…

Driving Question 🏎️:

How can we learn video skills by recreating a short film?

My answer to this question is that we can learn so many skills from recreating a film like this by watching how someone with  ore experience films something so simple. We can learn skills by learning different camera angles and different shots that we can reciprocate when recreating this film. Some skills that I learned were different shots to take and the usage of sound and just like with our TYKTWD Video how important it is for a crisp audio.

30 Minute Film Day:

On the first day of filming I had a different group than in my final one because Ms. Mc switched it up a bit while I was away. My group members for our first filming draft was: (Click their names to see their blogs!)

Emilia
Liann
Griffin

I was really proud of this video that we made on this day (I might even like it more than the other one that took 3 more weeks 🤫) I feel that the video that we made in such little time almost looked exactly alike with the one we were trying to replicate. Me and my group I would say worked well together in communicating and collaborating on our video. Some pieces of work were more unevenly split like the filming and acting (and we had an extra person in our group as well). But all in all I was very proud of this video and I hope you like it!

Back To The Starting Line:

After watching them all in class and having a good laugh we were told that we were going to be making a whole new video! We would have to try to replicate it even more so. So instead of wearing like Christmas pjs wear a grey sweater and a grey toque and some headphones to match the guy at the beginning! So maybe you will see in our next video we are more prepared.

Shots And Angles:

Just like in our last video, TYKTWD. We learned about the importance of using different camera angles to tell a better story and to show the audience more! Some shots that we had to include in our short horror film were:

  • Close Up Shots
  • Wide Shots
  • Back Shots
  • POV Shots
  • Front Shots
  • Worms Eye View Shots

Some were harder than others to film but I had fun being the camera operator and filming all them and piecing them together to make our finals products.

New Group, Recoup

Because I would be missing some classes I was put with some other amazing people who also are missing class on the refilming day! Those people were:

Tyler
Julia

With our new group we discussed some things like our roles and responsibilities and things that we have to be held accountable for during this filming process:

If you look at my newer video and my first video you will see that we did use some of the same sounds like I reused the scream of the runner at the end of the video.

Screenplay? Storyboard?

You might be wondering what both of those are well they are simple. A screenplay is an all word written out detailed dicription of what you film is going to look like. It’s almost like a script except waaay more detailed in pointing out things like camera angles and sound FX. It supposed to written out in a way that as someone who has no context of what’s happening (usually the director) can understand the vision of the writer.

Heres Mine:

Now a story board is a little different it still shows the step by step process in filming and everything expert this time its all visuals! We are supposed to draw some pictures and explain what happening in each box with a picture we also explain the kind of shot that we are using and how long that shot is on the screen for. Ours may look messy but it for sure helped us in the end!

Our Groups:

 

Official Film Day 🎥

Because I had been away with Julia in Arizona for a soccer tournament we could not film on the designated filming day so instead we met up on Tuesday which was a review and completion day for all students at Seycove. We all met up on the pathway to Strathcona park and got to work. We filmed all the different shots (all 25 of them) and we filmed them for longer than we thought we need them because its better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. I really loved the costumes that Julia as the monster and Tyler as the jogger decided to wear! We may have also used tape on Tylers sweater if you couldn’t tell 😬. 

All in all our filming day went very smoothly and also very quickly and although we didn’t film with everyone else on the same day i’m glad we could make the time to meet up and get it done.

Final Product!

I am also very proud of this especially because after all the work we have done to make it up to this amazing final result and it was all totally worth it!

I really loved working with this group and collaborating altogether was so rewarding in the end. I think we all stuck to our roles and responsibilities and I hope you enjoyed watching it and comparing it to our first draft and the original one we were copying!

Conclusion:

I really liked this project and not just because I love horror movies and filming and creating movies like these, I just loved working altogether on same thing we were all proud of! Another thing that was interesting to see was the adaptation that our videos had from the first one that we did in 30 minutes to the one that took almost 3 weeks! 

In conclusion I had so much fun with this project and cannot wait to see what else we will be working on in the near future. 

Thanks so much for reading! And stay posted for my next post! 🙂👍

Reaching Our Peak Potential! (Trying At Least) 🏔️🥾🎥

Ill never complain about Quarry Rock again!!!

Hey everyone! It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything because it’s a new year, I am now in grade 9!

So as you may or may not know last year the grade 8’s went on a trip to Oregon and I was not one of them because I was in Bali! Here is my blog post on that: My Class Was Ore-Gone But I Was In Bali!

I promise I’m going somewhere with this- So each year the grade 9’s go on a trip to Alberta at the start of the year! So yes! I have just had my first ever PLP trip!

Our DQ 🍦🏎️:

Although we did go to Dairy Queen this trip (and it was delicious) our actual driving question was, “How can we become the best version of ourselves?” The main part of this project that focused on answering this question was our 10 essentials video that you will see if you continue reading!

Back To The Starting Line…

Ok so that was a bit of information to throw on a person in a span of 15 seconds, to start off and give you a clear view of what I’m trying to say I’ll start from the beginning.

In July we received an email about us being able to go to Alberta and of course I was very excited! When we got back to school in September we immediately started doing assignments and projects and readings that may be related to what we will be doing in Alberta. We would be doing practice interviews on our peers and we would be focusing on how to find a story in a conversation. 

My Practice Interview With Cole

Banner In The Sky 📖🚩

This was a reading that we did in humanities about a boy climbing the mountain his father died on. This was a lot about conquering your goals and not listening to what others say and this may just be me but I didn’t really like the book. The ending wasn’t as satisfying as it needed to be and at some point whilst I was reading I got superrrrr bored (Im not saying that Mr.Harris has bad taste in books). I can relate this back to our Alberta trip by thinking how the character in this boom used a strong mindset to get through tough situations just like how we had to whilst powering through the tougher hikes.

My Craft notes on this book: Banner In The Sky Book Notes

Our Videos/ Video Making 🎥

Video making was a very big theme on this project because we were going to be making a Vox Pop video, a silent video/movie and a “TikTok trend” video.

TikTok Trend

The TikTok Trend video is where we take a viral travel trend and we make it our own of Alberta. The goals of this were to include the views of the amazing places we would see and to make it our own! Although this part of the videos was an individual project we could still do it with people as long as we all have different videos in the end. 

I did this trend with my amazing friend Maya!

Silent Film

The silent film is something we made in the ghost town at the 3 valley gap. We made these on our first day so even though we were all really tired we still all had amazing videos at the end! The goals for this video was for it to be silent and black and white and be able to tell a story without any words! I learned from this part of the project how important it is when you have no words to be more dramatic with motions and being overly emotional.

My group for this part of the project was: (click the names to see their blog!)

Chloe
Brooklyn
Maya

Vox Pop

A Vox Pop is a kind of video where you ask people on the street or just walk up to them and ask them questions. Vox Pop means “Voice of the people” and whilst we were in Alberta we were tasked with making a video on the 10 essentials of life. We would basically walk up to people and be friendly then we would lead into us asking if we could interview them for a school project. These interviews really helped me become more confident with speaking and with talking to new people and I found it really cool to see the end product of what I could take from all of these interviews to make my final result.

My group for this video that we did during the entire trip was: (click their names!!!)

Brooklyn
Ian
Marcus

Alberta! 🏔️

So now that I have filled your head with a bunch of information of what i have learned and what we did, I wanted to talk about some of my highlights and what was super fun! (Prepare for lots of photos) Also if you want to see even better photos go to PLP’s Instagram (run by Ms. Kadi 💕👍)

The Hikes:

A VERYYY big part of this trip was the amount of hikes that we went on some were shorter than others and some were more tiring but every single one was definitely worth it.

 

Lake Louise

Sulfur Mountain

Moraine Lake

Johnston Canyon

Lake Louise

Other things that weren’t hikes…:

We did a lot more than just hiking as well! We went to the golden skybridge we went in the Banff hot springs and we stopped at so many more places too! One of my favourites was definitely the golden skybridge and the coaster there because it gave me an adrenaline rush and I love those!

Banff Hot Springs

Ink pods 

3 Valley Gap Ghost Town

Tea House on Lake Louise

Glass Skywalk

Everyday…

Everyday was a challenge we would wake up pretty early and go down for breakfast (sometimes earlier if you had breakfast duty). Then after we would all pack up into the bus and the van and head to our destination which was usually a hike or a cool museum. I had so much fun at all of our destinations and then at the end of a long day we would go back and sit in the hotel lobby or whatever and do a reflection work book where we would talk about our feelings and what we hope to do the next day! Here is it:

We have never looked more like iPad kids… the amount of stares I bet we got… 😶 

Conclusion: 

A big part of this project was all about us and trying to reach our peak potential which means being the best version of ourselves which is like what we were learning about in our 10 essentials and I feel like I really did reach my peak potential of this trip! From keeping a strong mindset through the hikes to being a responsible and respectful classmate even out of the class room. I really loved this project because we traveled for one but we also did a lot of group work! Something I feel like my groups could work on (specifically my 10 essential group) is equal participation. Like our class norm “Equal participation equal dedication” Although we all got it done I feel there were times where we could’ve all worked together more. And I do know that I have been told that sometimes I can seem intimidating  and because I’m willing to do more work my other group members let me so in the future I will give more people opportunities to do work. In conclusion this was my favourite part of the year so far and I cant wait for our next trip!

Thank you so much for reading this post and I hope to see you next time! And stay posted for my next post! 👍