Rise of the Frankenstuffies

Hello, it’s me Randy again. Today I’m going to reflect on the project that I just finished, it’s called the “Rise of Frankenstuffies”. The driving question for this project is “how do revolutions transform the world?” And we had to answer the question by making a short film of our Frankenstuffies. We studied the Industrial Revolution, and each came up with an answer to how it changed the world. My answer to the driving question was “revolutions transform the world by changing people’s life styles,” I learned this by studying the Industrial Revolution.
In the launch phase I sew my Frankenstuffie and created a resume for my character. I brought “the shaw guy” to school, and used it as a head for my Frankenstuffie.

I got the body and the tail from my other classmates – Annie and Erin. I documented the process of my sewing and it was pretty entertaining to watch.

Here is my beautiful creation(Billy Chungus):
I made a resume of my character that explained his personality, job, friends, etc. I didn’t try to relate him to the Industrial Revolution so later on I made a lot of changes. Moving on to building knowledge now. We learned what Industrial Revolution was, and how to write a short fiction. I added the key points to my historical notes, and made a note of “how to write a short story.”

A week into the project we were already writing our short fiction. First I thought of some creative idea of my characters, then I tried to use a creative connection between my character and the Industrial Revolution. Here is a brief summary of my story: in 2130 shaw took over the world, the robots are the rulers and the humans are the peasants. A group of humans called “Fido” decided to attack the shaw military base, and our main character – Billy Chungus time traveled. He time traveled because he wanted to kill Fido’s future leader, but unfortunately the time machine milt functioned and brought him back to a wrong time. It was 1760 and people had no technology, Billy Chungus built a steam engine to recharge the time machine and time traveled again. He left the steam engine behind and a man called Thomas Savery found his creation. The man claimed that he invented it, he mass produced it, and it was commonly used in factories. This led to a industrial revolution.


On the develop and critique phase we gave each other comments of improvements and compliments. We then started working on the film, first we planned. The story was quite long so I had to shorten it a little. And here is the story mountain:
Once upon a time there was a crazy scientist who traveled back in time to work on his new robot. He traveled to 1760 because the air quality is so poor in the future. Every day he would work on his robot. And one day when he was cooking a hot dog, a sound came from the laboratory. He went to go check and it turns out to be Billy Chungus milt functioning. He wanted to have a closer look, but Billy detected danger so the crazy scientist got killed. Billy wanted to make clones of himself but he didn’t seem to have enough materials. So he used all his money to buy mechanic parts and made a steam engine, he sold the machine to a man called Thomas Savery, and went back to the laboratory with all the money and parts. The man then mass produced the steam engine and it was commonly used in factories, which led to a Industrial Revolution.


Then I made the story into a story board and started filming. It took three days to edit, film and do the animation. Here is my final product (Billy Chungus the legend):

 

Reflection: I learned the most when we were studying the textbook pages of the Industrial Revolution. I really learned a lot from the trade in China, and the trade in Japan. It taught me that Japan industrialized quickly after the invasion of the Americans, and that’s how they got much more powerful than China. After all, I have made a great video but there are still some improvements to make. For example, I could’ve added more animation into the time travel part, when I was narrating I could’ve used a voice changer to make me sound like a different person. Billy Chungus and the crazy scientist all had the same voice, which might sound confusing for my audiences. If I had another chance to make a second draft of this then I would definitely try to manage my time better, and try to add more details to the story.

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