Hi, my name is Sam and welcome to another blog post! In this post, you’ll be learning about my process of creating the perfect video about Victoria and Chinatown. Let’s jump straight into it.
Travel Video
If you didn’t already know, I’m in PLP, which means we go on field studies. Or you can say going on field trips to places to learn. So basically in this trip we went to Victoria. We had to create a video that helps tourists that go to Victoria connect with British Columbia’s history. Each person got a different place to film at. For me, it was Victoria and it’s very old, Chinatown. Now for this post, I’m going to switch things up a little bit. Instead of having you read all my learning first, you’ll see my final video. So here it is.
Filming
Now that you’ve seen my video, let’s jump into how I got it done. First, I want to start with some simple things that we did. We watched some travel videos and got to see how professionals such as Rick Steves film. I learned about the angles that we should film, I learned that a shaky clip won’t be as appealing as a steady clip, and I also learned about the rule of 3rds. Now for the rule of 3rds, I want to tell you something about it which is unfortunate. During my time in Victoria, I totally forgot that the rule of thirds existed which is a downside to my video. So basically the rule of 3rds is shown in the photo down below, you can see that the person is lined up with one of the lines. She(Gabby)was also my filming partner in Victoria so thanks.
The next thing I want to talk about is lighting. Now lighting is something that you cannot control but it is also very important to every photo or video. You don’t want to be in a video that’s supposed to show an amazing place but only shows darkness and a little bit of what’s going on only where there’s light. For shooting a steady clip, you will need to film over and over again until it’s almost perfect. You’ll also want to shoot from different angles so when your editing, you can choose the best clips.
This one turned out good in the dark.
MLA Citations
For editing, I learned about MLA Citations. MLA Citations is when you use information from a source and want to give them credits for the information. Here are some examples of the cites I used, they are also in the description of my YouTube Video.
MLA Citations:
Editor, Author, Name of Site. Version #, name of institution, date of creation, URL. Date of Access.
McGillivray, Brett. “Victoria British Columbia.” Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 19 Feb. 2019,
https://www.britannica.com/place/Victoria-British-Columbia. Accessed 20 Feb 2019.
Farrington, Craig. “Victoria History.” Victoria British Columbia Canada Guide, 2012,
https://www.victoria-bc-canada-guide.com/victoria-history.html. Accessed 20 Feb 2019.
Rilkoff, Rachel. “Unlock the Secrets of Victoria’s Chinatown.” Hello BC, Destination BC Corp, 20 Dec. 2015,
http://www.hellobc.com/stories/exploring-victorias-chinatown. Accessed 21 Feb 2019.
“Chinatown Victoria.” Wikipedia, Jan. 2019,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Victoria. Accessed 23 Feb 2019.
Research
Before we went, we obviously had a plan, except mine didn’t work out as expected. First I got to learn about Fisgard Lighthouse, yes you heard me, Fisgard Lighthouse. Now if you did watch my video, you’ll be think, what lighthouse? Where’s the lighthouse in your video? Well, that’s the “didn’t work out as expected” part. Unfortunately, when we went on the trip, our tour to the lighthouse was canceled. Instead, I did Victoria itself, and Chinatown. So I basically got to learn about 3 places. Yay! Anyways, we did our research and wrote our script for our video, I learned about the first operational lighthouse on the west coast of Canada(Fisgard Lighthouse), I got to learn about the oldest Chinatown in Canada while we were on the trip, and some simple facts about Victoria.
Pacific Canada’s 1st lighthouse – Fisgard
Drafts
Well, obviously, we also did drafts. Muiltiple drafts. Each draft, we had something to fix. So here are my drafts.
Draft 1: Things I fixed in Draft 1 are the layout of the video. I didn’t like the mix of day and night so I changed it so it starts with day and than night.
Draft 2: In Draft 2, I had to add more history and voiceovers. I also had to fix some inconsistent audio as well as make the clips line up with the music.
Final Draft: Now that I added everything, I had to change some clips out that didn’t match, I also had to change the conclusion and add credits. Since the clips now look better with the audio and video, I was ready to upload my final draft.
Reflection
Now at the end of every post, we have a conclusion. So what are things I enjoyed learning about? Things like trying to learn in-camera transitions, film different angles, getting cool clips that I feel proud of are things I enjoyed. Other things like learning about the Chinatown and how it kept the Chinese culture here in Victoria is also something that was cool. I learned about how the rule of 3rds really make the clips more appealing to the audience. I also learned that if you want to have a good video, make sure to have music and make the music in-sync with the clips! One thing that I’m sure of is that this video I made is a lot better than any of the other ones. But for now, make sure you check out my other posts, my name is Sam and I’m out. Peace.
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