What does it mean to make change? In our latest project, we tackled a number of questions like this one. Such questions included how you can truly innovate, how you can turn dreams into reality, and our driving question: How do creativity, collaboration, technology, influence, and design create experiences that change how we see and engage with the world? Come with me on my personal journey through answering these questions at the happiest place on earth, Walt Disney World!

I’m sure you’re wondering how we learned anything at a place specifically designed for fun, and for children. However, there’s a million opportunities to understand design and purpose within the park. In our latest project, we were tasked with making a video on some aspect of Disneyworld that we were interested in. We were divided into four groups, and each focused on a different aspect of the Disney magic. The four groups were called People Power, Under the Influence, Designing Dreams, and Making the Magic. I was assigned the Designing Dreams group, which focused on the environment. This included architecture, smells, sounds, and careful placement of attractions. 

I decided to focus on the audio throughout the parks and in different rides. This stood out to me because I find the hidden speaker systems and directional audio to be very interesting. I was actually interested in this subject before our trip. I recently went to disneyworld with my dad, sister, and uncle. My uncle works at disneyworld, and was showing us some of the stuff that he works on, as well as how the speaker systems work and how music fades from different areas.

I started by taking videos and recording audio from diffferent areas throughout the parks and on rides that were especially impressive. I made sure to do some research ahead of what I wanted to include, and if I didn’t get clear audio, I made sure to find the official music to layer it over. 

Personally, I don’t have a ton of vieo editing skills, and I don’t normally use IMovie. However, after following a few toutorials and a lot of trial and error, I was able to finish my video editing process. Editing videos is always a fun process with a lot to learn. While recording voiceovers and editing them within my video, I learned a lot about pacing as well. Expanding on my skills is always valuable, and every opportunity allows me to produce better products in the future.

I learned a lot on my trip, but most importantly I had a ton of fun! I wanted to add a thank you to all of the PLP teachers who arranged for us to be able to go on our trip, and to all of the parents who supported us. It was really valuable to look at disneyworld with a new perspective, and I look forward to using this method of thinking on future endeavours. Thank you for reading!

“Welcome to the 1950s, where everything looks perfect, but in reality it isn’t.” This was one of the most influential lines of our radio play in our latest project, Hey Boomer. In this project, we took a look at post WWll Canada, and the reality of not-so-perfect “perfection.” Come with me as we dive into Canada’s history and deep issues, while leaving a little bit of room for comedy. 

In the first part of our project, we took video notes on three different videos. They were all based on different parts of post war Canadian history, and its treatment of citizens, other nations, and certain groups of people. While taking video notes, it can be very difficult to get everything down that’s happening in the video. That’s why it’s important to take a few sentences and combine them into one short bullet point. This was a huge struggle for me, as I’m not very good at summarizing quickly. However, I think that practicing how to do this was very beneficial to me, and is something I will continue to use for the rest of my life. Below are the links to my notes.

Canada, The Story Of Us

A People’s History Of Canada

Creating Canada

Secondly, we watched a movie called  Pleasantville. This movie focuses on how the 1950s were full of flaws that people today don’t like to admit. When two teenagers are thrown into a 1950s tv show, they are determined to make change, and help the town of Pleasantville and it’s citizens evolve and see the world in colour. After watching the movie, we were tasked with creating a paragraph summarizing how the movie satirized the 1950s. For this paragraph, I focused on how uninformed of the outside world everyone in the show was. The characters were all trapped in a routine, and when they broke out of it, they realized just how beautiful the world really is. 

Last, as our radio play! Our play was basically a Canadian version of Pleasantville. Our radio play had five acts, each with two scenes. In between the scenes, we had adds for modern goods or services, in the style of the 1950s. My group wrote act 4 scene 1 in which we focused on the men’s reaction to women getting jobs. This was one of the most realistic scenes in the play, as it focused on a reaction very similar to that of what it was like when women really started getting jobs. In our scene, husbands complained about their wives not doing the most simple tasks for them, and how hard it was for them. Although it was satire, even today it’s not completely unlike some situations women face, which makes it all the more important to point out.

After we had finished writing our play, it was time to try a runthrough. Being the only America in my class, of course I was assigned the only American character. She only had three lines, but they were with an outrageous southern accent that took me many tries to get correct. However, during the actual livestream, I think I did a pretty good job. During the radio play, we had a few technical isssues, and some issues with lines. But overall, we were able to tell a very important story, while keeping the comedy. Click the video below to listen to our final radio play.

Reflecting on this experience, I think we could have definitely done more runthroughs so that we could perfect timing, figuring out how to use our microphones properly, as well as making sure that nobody forgot when they were supposed to be on. If we were to do this project again, I would have spent less time on script writing, and more time on practicing our actual play. However, overall I think our play, as well as our project, were a huge success. I think that it was valuable to get the chance to collaborate on such a big final product, and I had a lot of fun. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!