May 2019
Squamish Montessori Upper Elementary students have created a documentary of our new school.
Thanks to Synergy and SET BC for the equipment loan!
We have learned how use Padcaster Ultimate Studio for iPad Pro, DoInk Green Screen App and Explain Everything Whiteboard App.
*See Trailer of Documentary below.
Overall Goals
In the documentary we made sure that everyone was involved and no one felt left out. Our goals were to make sure the documentary was a captivating film and interested all audiences. We were anticipating to have the first showing of our documentary at the schools open house on April 27th, 2019. During the filming and editing the main curricular themes that we learned were communication and applied skills such as working with all the devices and apps. The main devices used during the production were 5 Ipad Airs, 1 Ipad Pro and an Imac. The apps we used were Imovie, Explain Everything, Do Ink green screen, Splice and Multivista. We also used film cases, tripods, microphones and more from Padcaster. Set BC donated a grant for all the Ipads and Padcaster equipment.
Main Successus
The main successes of creating the documentary were when we were finally able to present it at the school Open House on April 27 and learning how to use all the apps and devices quickly and efficiently.
Main Challenge
The first main challenge in our Documentary was when we were attempting to edit and save the broadcast. We accidentally deleted our Documentary and it was very stressful for the editors. Another problem was when we were interviewing couple people and the background noise made it so we could not hear the people talking. Because of that we had to subtitle the interview. We figured that it was better to use the microphone for close range talking later on in our Documentary.
"Deleted the documentary!! What???"
Training Process
We thought the technology was amazing and it took a bit of time to get used to. We slowly got into using the following; Imovie, Splice, Multivista, Do ink Green Screen and Explain Everything. We got a little training with some of the filmers like showing them how to set up the Tripod, Ipads and Green screen. Director Gavin Chelswick and Crew Supervisors James Foord-Kelcey, Finley Raffaele, Maxim Akbulatov helped organize everyone, but with out everybody we would have not be able to complete this project.
Project Recommendations
We recommend for future groups to make it so your documentary is interesting through until the end. During our initial showing of our documentary we had to cut it shorter due to people losing interest. To make it more interesting we cut it shorter to allow for some more variety and so that the interviews did not drag on. We chose to show our best parts and got rid of the parts people were losing interest in. We also had some clips that we didn't use.
Final Advice & Suggestions
The students were able to navigate the apps and devices very quickly. First off it was really important to set some guidelines for the students to use the equipment.
- Students were trained on how to use the ipad, apple pen, and apps by a student training team. (The training team was made up of three students who reviewed everything with me prior)
- Students had to have two training sessions before they could use the equipment independently.
- They had to ask to use an ipad and we limited it to certain tables in the classroom in order to supervise the equipment use.
- We really stressed the importance of internet safety, image searching and privacy.
- Students set time limits prior to using any device as to not get carried away and balance their work throughout the day.
During this project we discovered that we could use some of the things we were learning for our special needs students. Some have a harder time showing what they know and their learning. Some students used Explain Everything to show their learning and were the able to show it to their parents at parent/student led conferences.
Students have been experimenting with Explain Everything and Do Ink Apps to demonstrate and explain their learning. Videos and slides are being created to cover curriculum outcomes and explain core competencies.
April 2019
The documentary is wrapping up. We are doing finishing touches such as; sound quality checks, consistency of sound between frames, adding subtitles as needed, trail runs, and ending credits.
Challenges. We were trying to save the documentary off of the imac computer to an external hard drive. After some research we attempted to save it and it deleted!! Yikes!! Luckily we had all the clips and files saved onto the ipad pro and the clips were all saved onto the computer. We had to reorder the entire documentary and reorganize the clips and sound. Thankfully Finn and Maxim were able to quickly do this which only took an hour or so. Documentary is saved to Google Drive, emailed to Catrin and saved successfully to the external hard drive.
A short preview was created by Gavin, our Director, James FK and Finn to show the Board of Directors of our school. After this was previewed in early April we have released this preview/trailer to the public as a promotion of our final film.
Here is the the preview/trailer....
We are excited about the feedback as so many people have been sharing the preview/trailer and it had gone global.
"Omg so amazing!" I'm so excited to see the whole film!"
"This is so special. Wow!"
"It is mind blowing. Best school ever!"
"Amazing!! Epic sound track. Kinda in tears over here."
March 2019
Date has been released for our School Open House April 27. Goal is to get the documentary complete for this date. Airdrop has been successful for all videos and photos. We have used Splice App to help support making slide shows and time laps. Splice was easy to use, had a lot of great features for our documentary.
Splice Video Editor App
All the photos, time laps and videos have uploaded to imovie with ease. Explain Everything App, Do Ink App and Splice App all easily combined into imove to create our documentary.
Multivisita is a construction photo and video documentation service that was used during the build of our school. https://www.multivista.com/ Multivista is the world leader in construction photo and video documentation, offering high-quality photo, video, and webcam services worldwide. We used some progressional photos and drone footage in our school documentary.
February 25, 2019
Our Documentary Director, Gavin, and some dedicated helpers have been working hard to ensure that everyone in the class has been able to participate in the documentary. It has been a challenge with 36 students to get a part for everyone. Students have been helping to choose photos, edit, make some cuts to the original still frames, suggest music, suggest endings and view some special sneak previews. We are working hard on a date to release the documentary. We hope to have everything finalized to be shown at the Squamish Montessori Schools Open House/Grand Opening in April!!
February 8, 2019
We moved!! We survived!! We love our new space!! Thank you to everyone for all their help and support!! The grade sixes brainstormed and wrote a press release about the new school. Look out for that and more information from Jason Wood in the newspaper. Check out the Chief online click here for more information https://www.squamishchief.com/community/squamish-montessori-students-move-into-new-school-1.23623071
We are in our final stages of putting the documentary together. Our crew has been busy working on the final video and uploading to imovie. Final phone interviews with Cardinal Concrete and Architect Brant Murdoch will take place next week. Photographers and other helpers will be taking some final new classroom photos.
January 15, 2019
Documentary is going well and filmers need to do two more interviews. We trialed imovie with a few parts to see how all the interviews, photo's, voice overs will all come together. We also tried another App called Splice to make a time laps of the front of the new school over the construction period. We couldn't get imovie to do it fast enough so we used Splice and it worked well. We are unsure how this will upload to imovie. Stay tuned... There may be a delay in us posting on the blog as we move to our new school on January 30.
December 12, 2018
Students have been interviewing up a storm and taking current photo's of the new school for their documentary. Finn, James FK and Maxim have also been teaching all the other students in the classroom how to use Explain Everything, DoInk and some basic editing strategies.
November 7, 2018
Students have been experimenting with Explain Everything and Do Ink Apps to demonstrate and explain their learning. Videos and slides are being created to cover curriculum outcomes and explain core competencies.
The Film Crew and Director of the school documentary learned that you should not wear greenish or blueish green colours when being filmed. Using the Padcaster with a green screen they realized that the person disappears into the background and they were left with a floating head and legs.
October 24, 2018
Everyone had a great site tour of the new school. Lots of photo's were taken on the new ipads. We have begun using the Padcaster and green screen to practice filming. The writers, director and filmers have collaborated to begin the shot screens, order of the documentary and interviews.
October 2018
We set up all the ipads today and uploaded the Apps. Thanks to all my helpers! We have begun learning how to navigate DoInk and all the cool features it has to create and edit videos.
The grade 5 & 6's will be heading up to the new school on Monday October 22. Students will tour the school and try out the new iPads!