The most recent PLP project is (almost over), and as I march ever forwards towards my graduation these blog posts become more and more valuable to me. A chance to take a step back and reflect, -albeit for only one course- is a needed pace change, in these hectic last months of my highschool journey. This new project was unique for me, the entire class worked together to create a short film adaptation of the Shakespeare classic ‘Macbeth’ contextualized in the 1950’s. I think the film came out pretty much as best as it could given our time constraints and resources. You can watch it right here.

 

As for my learning during this project, it was pretty standard on the mandatory readings/lecture front. We read Macbeth and got some Shakespearean reading under our belts for the english portion of the project, and learned about the cold war for our social studies portion before connecting the two through the medium of film as our final product. Making the film seemed to be where a lot of the real learning was tested for me. Working together with all 27 students came with new challenges that really put our team working skills to the test. I was the editor for this project, so I pretty much exclusively worked with the director Kaia and the cinematographer Fraser, as well as the other two members of the editing team Angelo and Anders. For the most part, I think the project went really well. I think the most challenging part was figuring out a system to share all the files with one another effectively for editing. Kaia also had a pretty strong vision for the film, which although it may have stripped a few creative liberties from our department, overall made our lives easier since we had a followable direction. Speaking only for my own department, our communication and collaboration was pretty smooth after we figured out a good system. People like Jordyn(producer) and Izzy(screenwriter), probably had a much harder time as they had to work with a lot more people than myself.

 

Another strong point of this project was my use of my Zettelkasten, my literature notes were consistently strong during this project. I think it is here where I did my deepest and most connectable learning. Using prompts from class, I ended up researching concepts like Performativity, Rhetoric, and Determinism (Here is a personal lit note relating to it). I was able to connect these concepts back to ‘Macbeth’ and these topics constituted for a much more fulfilling reading. Now knowing about these concepts it will add to my readings of other texts in the future as I am now able to use the lens of performativity or recognize the use of strong rhetoric, or themes/arguments for and against determinism. Determinism was definitely the most potent bonus factor of these concepts as it really played into the themes of fate in ‘Macbeth’. 

As I look back, I have but one regret. I wish I did a bit more with the film production. I have always done editing (sometimes directing) in video projects for PLP, and that’s what I did here too. Personally, I wish I could have done some acting or perhaps put my leadership skills to the test and gone for the directing role, although I probably would’ve pissed a lot of people off. Angelo was/is a very capable editor, perhaps even more so than myself. I think having both of us edit was perhaps a waste of resources as we probably could have done a bit more for the production, yet like I said earlier, I think the film turned out great.

 

Thanks.

P.S I want my 96%