Harry Potter Studios

Harry Potter is a huge part of my childhood. I grew up reading the books, getting overly excited to go see the movies and even attending book launch parties. I dressed up as Hermione for Halloween, had a stuffed Hedwig, and even did a university research paper on the phenomenon!

So how could I possibly go to London and NOT see the studios where all the magic was created?! So I did, and let me tell you, it's an experience I'll never forget.

The Warner Brothers Studios in Leavesden (which is where most WB productions are filmed in London, not just Harry Potter) are just outside London (about 30 minutes by train), then another 15-20 minutes by shuttle (there's a special Harry Potter-decorated bus) that takes you straight to the front door of the studios.

From there, you enter in the Studios. They used two sound stages and a backlot to exhibit all the props, costumes, set pieces they could fit, as well as animatronic pieces, makeup techniques (masks, hair pieces, etc) and even Platform 9 3/4 and the Hogwarts Express (which used to be a real train, by the way)!

We even got to try some real Butterbeers in the Backlot café, which were absolutely delicious! We must've spent a solid 3 hours in there minimum, and if I would have gone alone, I'm sure I could have easily spent another 2 hours in there, really soaking it all in.

You can be sure I binge watched the entire series when I got home!

200th post!

I can't believe I have posted 200 posts already! I started this blog in 2013 and in 2 years, a lot has happened. I have learned so much from blogging, I have grown as a write and all these memories, these silly little things I wrote about are things I can look back on and remember. I'm so glad I started this blog, and I can't wait to keep on writing! I have so many exciting things happening in my life right now that I want to share, and so many things coming up that I will definitely keep blogging for a while still. Now here are some of my favourite posts!

University

Graduation

Fishing Poem

Ode to a Sugar Cube

Study Time

90 to 50

Travel

Deutschland

Wanderlust

Thailand Part 1: Bangkok

Thailand Part 2: Koh Phangan

Thailand Part 3: Koh Phi Phi

Thailand Part 4: Chiang Mai

Thailand Part 5: Khao Sok
Deutschland Part 1: Munich
Deutschland Part 2: Berlin and Leipzig

Running

WFPS Half-Marathon

Manitoba Marathon

WPS Half-Marathon 2015

Berlin Half-Marathon

WPS Half-Marathon 2014

Filmmaking

Half-Marathon Time Lapse

Night Run Time Lapse

PARTY!

Gerald Laroche documentary

Donuts!

The Silly Little Things

Horrible Bosses

Tinder Conversations

Wait, this is Harry Potter!

A Splash of Colour

Photography

Half-Marathon Time Lapse

Sunday, I ran the WFPS Half-Marathon with my GoPro strapped to my chest. I wanted to film the race so I could re-experience the run, as well as show others what it's like to run 13.1 miles. I encountered a few problems... The first being that the GoPro cameras have terrible battery life. I was only able to film about 40 minutes of the race: the first 30 minutes (5km), about 10 minutes here and there and the last 50 seconds of the race, when I sprinted to the finish line.

I ended up filming the race with a regular setting rather than a Time Lapse, since I knew that the camera would be bouncing around too much for the pictures to be clear. I found this amazing tutorial to turn a video into a time lapse and it worked! I wasn't 100% happy with the results of the time lapse; I thought it was way too fast, so I slowed down the video and it made the video a bit better. Of course, I'm still not quite satisfied with the end results, but I'm still testing out my camera and hopefully the next one will be even better!

Let me know what you think!

Night Run Time Lapse

I bought myself a Chesty (chest harness) for my GoPro so I could wear it during the half-marathon, but obviously, I wanted to test it out before I wore it while running for over 2 hours, so I went for a night run with my friend and used the time lapse setting.

A time lapse is basically a series of pictures at the interval you choose. A regular video is usually about 24 frames per second, which means there are 24 pictures needed to make 1 second of video. With a time lapse, the camera takes 1 pictures every 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 seconds (on a GoPro at least), so the video looks more like a stop-motion animation than a regular video. What I didn't realize, was that by wearing the chest harness and running, the camera was moving a lot more than I thought, which meant that my camera was taking pictures every second, capturing all the movements I was making while capturing the light... And we all know what a picture looks like when you move the camera too fast. I was disappointed at first, but then we the right music, it actually kind of turned out to be a pretty cool video!

GoPro

I just got myself a GoPro!! I'm so excited about this, as it's my first video-camera and I already have a lot of ideas for little videos that I want to make. I've been playing with the settings to try and see what it can do, and I made a little video of my daily walk to work to test it out.

So far, I really love this little camera. It's small, compact, easy to use and tough (though I haven't tested that out yet).
This video was a first try and I've learned a lot from it:

I walk with a really heavy step.
As much as I tried to steady the camera and not shake too much as I walked, the video still looked like I was bouncing up and down.... Speeding up the video helped a lot, though.

I'm going to need the chest strap or camera stick if I want to film myself walking or running.
Like I said above, the film was quite shaky from my walking and I plan on filming myself running my next half-marathon, as well as all kinds of adventures I go on in my upcoming trip. It could be as simple as walking down the streets of Dublin! But I need it to be steadier and I refuse to wear a helmet for no reason.

The camera captures sound really really well.
I've always been told that the GoPro doesn't capture sound very well, especially with the case on it, so I wasn't expecting to get any sound on my walk, but, it actually captured the sound coming from my headphones clear enough for me to be able to hear the lyrics of the songs!

The GoPro Studio is pretty easy to use, once you warm up to it.
I'm so used to Final Cut Pro, that using a simpler program was slightly frustrating... but there are some great tutorials in the program and I managed to do exactly what I wanted.

You can connect the camera to your phone! 
The GoPro App let's you see what you're filming or even control the camera like a remote from your phone. Just add WiFi.

More coming soon!

Final Film Project: PARTY!

At the end of January, I was filming my final film project and I am very excited to tell you that it is finally done!

Editing is the most time-consuming part of the job, but it's also my favourite and least favourite part of making a movie at the same time. I love piecing a project together, but editing also means realizing how much footage you don't have and wish you did. Either way, I definitely enjoy editing. I always get this thrill when I put a scene together and it fits perfectly. Editing a party movie is one of the hardest things to do, since every scene is different. We had to do a "pick up day" which is basically getting the whole gang back together to re-shoot certain scenes. But when we did this, our extras couldn't be there, so there are a lot of places where things don't match up. Personally, I think it's hilarious because these are rookie mistakes and well, might as well laugh it off!

Anyway, enough tech mumbo jumbo.... Here is my final university film project:
PARTY!



Thank you to everyone who helped me on this film! I had such a great time doing this project with all of you. :)

Behind the Scenes: Party!

Since the beginning of September, I've been working in my Filmmaking class to make my final film project. It's meant to be about 20-30 minutes long, and is worth about 60% of my final grade.
This movie is a party movie: it follows Jenny and Emma, who are hosting a party and all kinds of things happen, a fight breaks out, someone is throwing up in the bathroom and maybe even a little bit of relationship drama.

We finished filming last week and it was a blast! I definitely have to thank my actors for spending so much time working on this and being so patient with me (I'm not exactly the best director...). We got a lot of great scenes and tons of hilarious bloopers, and some that we didn't get to film, like when one of our actors face-planted while we were rehearsing!

 

 

Now I just started editing and there is so much work to be done. I can't wait for everyone to see the final product!

Sequential Perspective

For my filmmaking class, we had to do a small project on sequential perspective. This is when you take a small, usually boring action and add multiple angles to make it interesting and add emotion.
For example, someone waiting at a bus stop. Usually, that's a 15 second shot of someone waiting. But if that scene is important to the story, it could turn into a 3-5 minute scene. You do close-ups and see his foot twitching and him biting his lip, for example, which would give us more emotion and tension than a simple shot of him waiting.

I decided to do my project on putting makeup on. It's boring to watch but has the potential for many different interesting angles, so I asked my friend Nicola to be my subject and got her to put makeup on a bazillion times and film it from all sorts of angles, like me sitting in the tub with the camera, pretending to be a mirror.

When I was editing this footage, I had to colour-correct it a lot, because the whole thing was very orange. There was one shot that looked absolutely beautiful and slightly grainy, giving the whole thing a "vintage" look to it, and with the song I picked, it fit really well, so I decided to have the whole thing look like that.

Here it is! I hope you enjoy :)

Last First Semester

Via

I just finished my last first semester of university. I only have one semester left and then I will graduate. I'M GONNA GRADUATE! I still can't wrap my mind around this fact.

This term went by insanely fast. I can't even believe it's already December! I feel like I haven't done anything! I've taken five classes and I have three exams left to write, then I'm done! I thought this year would be crazy busy, that I would be in over my head, but other than maybe 1 or 2 anxiety attacks, these last three months have gone very smoothly.

Classes:
History of Film: Okay, this is the most boring class I've ever taken. I mean, yes, it's nice that we just watch movies and stuff, but then the prof spends a solid 30 minutes talking as monotonously as possible about the movie and I actually fell asleep in class for the first time in my entire educational career... This is a full-year class, so I'm stuck with him until the end of April, unfortunately.

Filmmaking 2: This class is great. It's 6 hours long, though, which is brutal, but it's so interesting! Typically, we get a lecture during the first three, and then our prof sends us out with cameras to film or do whatever he taught us during the lecture. The second half of this term was dedicated to filming a group film with the class, which to be quite honest, was awful... Next term we will be filming our own movies, with scripts we wrote ourselves and I can't wait!

Photo credit: Ervin Chartrand

Nutrition for Health and Wellness: I actually find this class super interesting! It's really useful information about nutrition (obviously) and things I can use in my every day life. The only downside is that the prof uses the PowerPoint slides provided with the textbook, and it's literally word for word what is written in the textbook... so showing up to class seems so unnecessary.

Introduction to Human Geography: I'm not sure if I like this class.... The beginning was really boring, all about the history of geography and stuff, but the second part was better; all about languages and diffusion, which I find really interesting, but the prof is just terrible at explaining the material....

Introduction to Creative Writing: By far my favourite class. Writing is one of my passions and I love the way this prof teaches the class. She'll talk about a concept, then give us a writing prompt and give us 15-20 minutes at the end to just write. I've written a lot of stuff I'm proud of, like my Ode to a Sugar Cube, for example. It's definitely re-sparked my love for writing.

I've also been working two jobs and I started running again, so I seem so busy, but I really don't feel like I did all that much! Weird huh?

It's been a great semester and I'm definitely excited for my last last semester.

Behind The Scenes

Photo Credit: Ervin Chartrand

My filmmaking class has been working on a group project these last few weeks and it's been an interesting experience. Our prof gave us a script, written by the T.A. and we were each assigned crew roles and scenes to direct, and we were divided into the Sunday and Monday crews, since we couldn't all be there at the same time, and 12 crew members for such a small film is way too much. t am the production assistant manager, which basically means I send out an email once a week, telling people where to meet and when, for what scenes, and make sure they show up.

The movie is about a young man who works at a call centre and who hates his job and eventually, he gets so tired of being yelled at, that he tracks down one of the people who yelled at him over the phone and decides to takes his revenge.... but doesn't go through with it. Instead, he gets kicked out of his apartment by his now ex-girlfriend and ends up sleeping at his coworker's house.

Photo Credit: Ervin Chartrand

Anyway, it's not the best script, but it's experience on a film set. Each week, we rotate roles, so that we can all be in charge of lighting, sound, camera and directing.

One thing I will say: filming outside? The worst part of filming. It's either way too cold or way too hot, and of course, every time you try to film outside, it will rain or snow. There's just no way around it.

Gerald Laroche: Master of the Harmonica

In my filmmaking class, we had two projects to make: a drama, and a documentary. At first, I thought that the drama (scripted) would be easier and more fun to do, since I love writing and telling stories, but I found myself enjoying making the documentary so much more!

At first, I wanted to do it on bullying, but then decided against it, since it would be a pretty hard subject to make a documentary about. So I decided to be "lazy" and do a documentary on my dad. He's a musician and I thought it could be interesting if I were to do this about him, so I thought what the hell, and I did it!

I'm actually so proud of this one. I work really hard on it, and I love it.

There it is!

Gerald Laroche: Master of the Harmonica

The Devil is in the Details

I've been taking a filmmaking class this year that I absolutely loved and our two final projects were to write and direct a drama (so any fictional movie) and a documentary.
Let's start with the drama, since, in my opinion, it really isn't as good as my documentary. There were so many problems with it, but I finished it!
In a few scenes, you could see the boom pole, in others, the colours weren't right, or it was too dark, and in the outdoor scenes, the sound was just awful, which is why there are subtitles. I spoke with my prof about it and she told me that unless I wanted to rerecord the sound, the only option was to add subtitles and understand that I learned a lot about sound editing/recording. And I did. I definitely learned a lot from making this film and I honestly can't wait to try again and not make these mistakes!

So, drum roll please....!
The Devil is in the Details.

The Bachelor Auditions

Last Thursday, The Bachelor Canada came to Winnipeg on their audition tour! They were auditioning girls AND guys to find the candidates and this year's Bachelor. My film prof forwarded an email from the casting director for volunteers to work the auditions.
*I didn't audition... Just volunteered!
I showed up Thursday morning and we got to work! I was set up at a table where the girls would be handed paperwork and then once completed, we would process it. We had a little bit of a rush at around 10 am, when the doors opened, but after that it was pretty slow, so I got to talk with my co-volunteers and have an amazing lunch provided by the hotel where the auditions were held.

Later, the casting director came to talk to me. She told me I had been the only person to drive there (we were all university students, and so everyone took the bus), and if I could maybe drive the DP (director of photography) around to get some shots of Winnipeg. So of course I said yes and we set off to find some nice scenes of Winnipeg!

That was probably my favourite part: it was so much fun to talk to a professional in the business and sneak into the Forks to get some footage of people skating and of the skyline. Even though we froze our butts off, it was a really great day!

A Beautiful Lie

I recently re-discovered the band 30 Seconds to Mars, which I used to be obsessed with a few years ago, but then it became a little too intense for me when I drifted to folk music. One thing that I remembered of this band was their music videos. They have always been really artistic and I love that about them.
I don't really watch a lot of music videos (I prefer to just listen to the album), but I looked it up and re-watched all the videos of the album I have (A Beautiful Lie), which is their second album. One of their songs, which has the same name as the album has an incredibly beautiful music video.

It's music videos like those that really make me want to do that for a living. I want to create something that beautiful one day.

There's a couple other videos that have this effect on me, here are my top 10 (that I can think of):
30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill
Avicii - Wake Me Up 
Avicii - I Could be the One
Kelly Clarkson  - Behind These Hazel Eyes
Diam's - Jeune Demoiselle
Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends
Simple Plan - Untitled
Paramore - Misery Business
David Wax Museum - Born With A Broken Heart
Miley Cyrus - Can't Be Tamed

And a bonus because it has such a great message:
Headhunterz featuring Krewella - United Kids of the World

There are a ton more great music videos out there, those are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

What are some of YOUR favourites?

Donuts!

Yesterday I handed in my first film class project and now I'm sharing it with you guys! I'm pretty proud of it, so what better way to finish off the semester than to make a great little video!

We were given a piece of music about a minute long and the goal was to make a video that would go with the music. Everyone in my class has done some really great films and I can't wait to see them all!

**Just make sure you turn your volume on high.. The sounds is kind of low and the effect is better when it's high**

Happy Friday!

High Life

In Film class a couple weeks ago we watched the movie High Life, which was filmed here in Winnipeg by a local director named Gary Yates.
The movie is about a group of drug addicts who decide to rob a bank, and have the perfect plan, but of course, everything goes wrong.

source

The director is a good friend of my prof, so she invited him to come in today and talk about the movie, and filmmaking in general.
With him, was also the director of photography, Michael Marshall who has done a bunch of other movies, namely "The Curse of Chucky."

It was really cool to be able to ask them a ton of questions and just hear what these successful filmmakers have to say, and learn about how this specific movie was made. It's really inspiring to hear these stories and be able to meet these people in person. It makes you think "man, I could really do this!"

Who have you met that has inspired you in your career?

Happy Friday!

So You Want to be a Filmmaker?

As some of you know, my goal in life is to break into the film industry. I want to eventually become a film director or screenwriter (or both!), hence the film degree at U of W.

But why? Why do I want to do this you ask? It's simple.
I have always loved watching movies. As a little kid, the Muppets movie got me through a bad flu, and before I could read, every one of my heroes were from films (who wouldn't want to be saved my Hercules and Pegasus, or hang out with Woody and Buzz Lightyear!) Once DVDs came out and we started having all the bonus material, I was obsessed with watching the "behind-the-scenes" features. I loved watching that stuff.

One year, my dad got this huge 12-DVD special extended edition box set of Lord of the Rings (2 DVDs per movie, plus 6 DVDs of special features AKA "making-of"). Lord of the Rings already being one of my favourite movies, I decided to watch the hours and hours of footage, interviews and everything they had from Tolkien's biography to the filming to the film premiere. It was a revelation. Not only was it so incredibly interesting, but it made me go "that's what I want to do."

It definitely made me appreciate the movies more, knowing all these little things about it, although I do admit it did ruin some scenes...

I love making films and telling stories. I love the creativity and the art that comes out of it. I'm no artist; I can't draw or sing or paint, but it's different with filmmaking and that's what I love about it. That's what I want to do for a living.

Film Premiere

Gabriel Tougas, a Franco-Manitoban made this incredible movie here in Winnipeg about two young francophone students who accidentally stumble upon what could be a huge oil company fraud and investigate it.
Click here to see the official trailer.

Image source

I went to help out on set (for like... 2 hours...) on the first day of production, which was really great to be a part of, even for just one day and I'm in the credits! (yay!) So naturally, I wanted to see the final product! My mother was also a contributor, so we got tickets and went to see it premiere last night!
They had installed a red carpet and background to take pictures, the cast and crew were there, CBC was there was well and it was just really fun to see all these people from the community get together and work on a project like this.

Gabriel Tougas, the director

My reactions:
OMG! The movie was beautifully shot: it made Winnipeg looked incredibly pretty, the actors were really good and the dialogue and story was absolutely fantastic. It's not an easy story to tell, and I thought it was really well done. Each character had its own distinct voice, and the plot was easy to follow and far from boring!

Super belle job, Gabriel!