For our final project before winter break we had a project about revolutions, my group was the Russian revolution, for the project we had to create a “Metaphor Machine” witch was a Rube Goldberg machine but each connection of the machine had to represent a key part of the revolution. (If you don’t know what a Rube Goldberg machine is then watch this video-
We had to work together as a team because it was not only the machine we were making, we had to organize costumes, food, and decorations for the exhibition. The first thing we had to do for this project was to create a infographic about the Russian revolution witch was to get us familiar with the revolution and to start getting some ideas before we go into our groups.
Not only did we have to learn about the revolution but we also had to develop and use technical skills to plan the machine and actually make it work. This project was fun because we got to work in groups but also because we actually got to make a physical creation instead of something on an iPad. I wish that we had things a little more figured out during the building process but the machine still came together pretty well so I can’t really complain.
Alongside the machine we had to create a documentary about the making of the machine. It was supposed to be a behind the scenes type of video but it did not get the attention we thought it would at the exhibition. Here’s the video
This project was a good send off to the break and I enjoyed it. The run through of the machine was never fully filmed but there are clips, ill show them below. Thanks for reading.
How do the choices we make set our future path? That was the driving question from our trip to the pinnacle pursuits at loon lake. We went on a week long trip to bond as a team but also learn about leadership and how we can apply skills and ability’s to communicate and work better. There were three competencies we focused on;processing, analyzing, and decision making. Processing is about thinking critically, creatively, and reflectively and using multiple ways to do so. As an example, during our time at loon lake we made shelters in the forest out of sticks, that required creative thing as well as critical thinking to complete. Although most of them had deeper meaning we did a lot of creative activity’s while we were there. Analyzing is about identifying, analyzing, and coming up with conclusions while keeping bias, relevance, and authenticity in mind. We learned a lot about making decisions fairly and understanding the facts of a situation first. Decision-making is about evaluating ethical implications and making complex judgements while identifying and respecting diverse communities. We did a lot of activity’s that focused on diversity and being inclusive of everyone but we also did activity’s showing how we can all relate one way or another. On the last day we needed to come up with a transfer goal (something we learnt that we are going to apply in our daily lives) and I decided to keep talking to the people I didn’t really talk to before the trip. It was way more fun than I expected and I’m glad we went, it was also a great learning experience
Take your kid to work day. I had a great take your kid to work day with my mom. My mom is a prop master in the television/movie industry, and we visited some of the laces that supply and make props for her.
What are a prop masters responsibilities? Well as the head of the props department she has to coordinate with the other departments. Let’s say as an example that a costume a character is wearing has a wrist gauntlet that shoots a dart, even if the dart is CGI sometimes they want a shot of the dart firing. It’s the prop departments job to build the wrist gauntlet and make sure it fires the dart, they also have to share plans with the costume department to make sure it all fits together. Even something small like that can take a few days to make work. Another part of her job is helping design props. If the prop is simple enough or not specialized then they can make in in-house but if it needs complex moving components or a design cut out of metal (as an example, not just that) then they go to places that do that for them. I was lucky enough to visit IRL creative witch is one of those company’s. Places like IRL creative are almost like private contractors in the industry. The process of these “private contractors” making the props is; my mom and her props team talk with the producers and directors and any other department that might be involved, next they take what the director and producers want and draw it out and map out the dimensions, after that they would take it to somewhere like IRL creative and show them the design, the “private contractors” then would use the machines they have to make the prop. A process this complicated is quite common for making props. When I visited IRL they demonstrated one of the many machine they had and it was very interesting, the machine heated up a sheep of plastic then pressed down over an object to make a mole of it, after it had been pressed down the air was sucked out from under it and it became an air tight mold so the replica was exact. As well as IRL creative I got to visit the Prop Shop. The Prop Shop is a prop wear-house that does rentals. Let’s say a show my mom is working on is filming a airport scene, instead of buying 50 suitcases she can just rent them from somewhere like the Prop Shop. This is often a much more cost effective option making it a more popular option, even if you need the suitcases for an extended amount of time you could do an extended rental witch is still cheaper than buying them. My take your kid to work day was a different experience for me because most of the times I have gone to work with my mom I’ve only gotten to see the props in action and never what goes into making/getting them. For take your kid to work day I had to make a video about my experience (YouTube link at the bottom of the page) and I used IMovie for this. To Make the video I took photos and videos at the workplaces I visited as well as interviewing my mom. I learned a lot about what my mom does for work and it gave me the understanding to follow in my moms footsteps if I wanted (I probably wont, I hear the hours suck.) I think that this was a valuable learning experience and I wish we has it two years in a row because I would love to go to work with my dad who is a on-set painter for the movie/tv industry as well.
For the launch of our project we had to remake a video named “run,” linked here (link.) the criteria was we had to replicate a short film titled Run to the best of our abilities. This was a group project and I worked with three of my class mates (their blogs linked here.) There’s a few aspects to reflect on in this project. One of them being the product itself. The final video was pretty good in my opinion. We had had some shaky camera shots during the first draft but when we revised those got fixed. I think we did a pretty decent job syncing ours to the original and it was only a few seconds off at the end. During Sydneys (who played the main character) acting i think he could’ve smiled a little less while he was getting choked out but I still think he did a great job especially since not everybody is comfortable on camera. The first time we recorded the audio for our video it wasn’t super clear and wasn’t in time with Sydney’s footsteps but after the ground frosted over we were able to re-record the audioand it was much louder and clear. Another thing to reflect on is the teamwork. James, Sydney, and myself worked quite well together while filming and we also collaborated on ideas to improve the video. Hunter was only present for the re-shoots of our video but he helped out where he could. I personally think four people is one to many for this project, although I’m happy with the work my entire group did and all four of us collaborated well at some points throughout filming one person was just kind of standing around waiting to be useful again. I didn’t play the biggest role in the editing of our video but I tried to help where I could, I think the editing aspect turned out well and the speed of the clips and sound effects added made the final product much better. I also liked the filter that was put on the video to make it appear a little more dark and mysterious because in reality it was quite bright during the filming of the video. One ting we had to deal with during filming is the placement of other groups. Because of the limited area we could film in there were a lot of groups kind of lumped together where we were filming and that made it difficult to film certain shots. There were a few times where we were trying to film the running senes and in the background you could see another group filming there’s so that was a bit of a setback at spots. Although I’m proud to present our final product I think there’s always room for improvement. If we could’ve just gotten our video down by 3 seconds we could’ve matched it with the original and then I would’ve been very satisfied. If you watch the original and our remake side by side they actually are quite similar and almost in sync. A lot of other groups had interesting ideas that were super cool but the didn’t match the original as much and I think my group was on of the groups that did it best. This was only the launch of our project witch I find crazy because we just spent the last 2 weeks working on these videos.
Did you know that Banff was Canada’s first national park? I do because I was there. For our first project this year we went to Alberta to do a field study, this is the post for the maker part of this project. Our driving question is how might we use the moving image to tell a story. Although the two subjects (maker, and humanities) are separate they ended up being pretty intertwined on this project, however we have to make two separate blog posts so here’s the link to the humanities post- (link) For maker we focused on videos. Basically every part of the maker aspect of the project had to do with a video. We learned a little bit about videography at the beginning, we looked at different types of interviews for our interview video, we looked at an example for our at home video, and we also got to see a few different tik toks that we could use the same style of for our tik tok video.
VIDEOS.
SILENT VIDEO.
The first video we made was the silent video. We went to Three valley gap château and ghost town for the first night of the trip. The criteria for our silent videos was: story must have a beginning, middle, and end, all group members must be in one shot, at least two different settings for scenes, and two other digital enhancements. In my group I was with my classmates James and Kai. During this video creation we learned how we can use actions and sound effects to tell a story without words My groups video is about a man who losses everything in a saloon and then tries to rob a jewelry store, here it is.
TIK TOK VIDEO.
For our tik tok video I worked with my friend Lucas. The contents of this video was basically up to us but it had to represent the west in some way. In our video we are punching each other in the face but every time a punch lands the background changes and we did It at a bunch of different locations. The video helped me with my videography skills because I had to set up and figure out the shots for the video. It was the easiest of all the videos to film and each day I filmed only took 1-2 minuets out of my day. It was a fun video and I had fun filming it, here it is.
The at home video was originally supposed to be about who we our in our place but it just ended up being about what inspires me. I got to think about the things in my environment that inspire me. This video was an opportunity to learn more about my self. Over the summer we all did work based about setting goals and what inspires us to set goals. I talked about how the environment around me inspires me to be active outside. I had to use video editing skills to make the video. It’s easy of telling a story of the west I get to tell the story of myself.
INVESTIGATIVE VIDEO
The investigative video was supposed investigate a story or idea about the west. We had to come up with a thesis and this was mine “people come to the west for the views but also the difference of geography.” I interviewed a man from Georgia USA who talked about how he came here because its like nothing he could ever see at home he also said the cultural experience here is different. I found that super interesting because Georgia isn’t that far away its just in the country below us. He mentioned how everyone is much nicer here witch I thought was a stereotype but I guess not.
This was a awesome project and Alberta was super fun. I’m glad the program I’m in gave me this opportunity.
