Digital Video

The Revenge of Willy is a digital video created and produced by Language Arts students Kevin, James, and Trent and it was a self-directed learning and enrichment activity for this project. The video is loosely-based on a tale written by James. After filming and creating this impressive video, Kevin burned it to a CD and submitted it to their teacher for evaluation. The students also sent an email to Ms. Connell documenting and explaining the equipment they used, how they created the video, and what they learned from doing this project. This information is provided below. Click the camera on the right to watch the digital video. It is quite a large file (55MB .mpg) and may take some time to download, especially if you have a dial-up connection.   What we used: The software program we used is called Studio 8 (version 8.3.17) and the maker is Pinnicle System. I love Studio 8! It's easy to use. The camera we used is a Canon ES8400 8mm. We made the crosses for the graveyard scene ourselves. They were made it out of wood and stuck it in the ground 3 inches deep. LOL We used a few simple props for some of the scenes and James wore a hat. How we did it: We do grade 8 Language Arts Enrichment projects. We do all of the regular work and if there's something else that we want to learn about or do, we discuss it with Ms. C. and then we do it. After we finished writing our stories we wanted to make a digital movie for an L.A. homework project. We got together and tried to figure out how we were going to do it. After a long time arguing about who was going to do what character, we finally got it settled. The first scene was with James, the scary old man. Trent was filming when I, Kevin, was by James holding a flashlight and shining it at his head to make a scary effect. We made it so that you could only see James but not me. The last scene was done the same way. We started the movie and the first scene at James' We did this scene many times. The first time we did it we had a lot of visual effects. The strobe light effect that we used the first time was very cool but we learned that some people might be affected by it so we took that out. The sound could be better in the first part. The next time we'll either have the camera closer or talk louder. The second scene was in Trent's backyard at night. In the program that I have (Studio 8) we made mist, so it looked like it was misty, dark, and scary. James filmed that scene. We made the crosses and stuff so it'd look like a real graveyard. The third scene, where Trent (Willy) and James (Samuel Adams) talked about how they could get rid of the tape, was at Trent's.  I filmed that one. The movement of the basket was James pulling on a rope that was attached to the basket. After James heard the knocking on the wall, a heartbeat started. All of the sound and visual effects that we used in the video are part of my computer program. I also did all of the titles and word scenes with Studio 8. Trent and James did the music for this video. Trent played the guitar and James played the drums. What we learned: We learned that it is easier to use only one camera per movie. We had no problems whatsoever except that we had some trouble with the audio. If we were to do this again or make it better, we would make the sound in the last scene sound better and make sure that we had the camera close enough to hear us!!!! Yes, this was a worthwhile project because we have a lot of fun doing it. If there was an interactive multimedia program available at the Junior high level, we would take the course!