May 4, 2015 - Ms Bonilla
Alana is writing the company profile for WWF.
April 28, 2015 Max's Visit - Room 108 Grade 1 Mr. Pak
Max Rutherford, our business partner, came to visit our classroom to get an update on how our movie is coming and to catch up on where we are on our entrepreneurial adventure. Here's some pictures of our executive team, Laila (CEO), Emily (VP), and Meetinder (VP), giving Max an update on what we've been doing these past few weeks.
We have been busy with poster creation, making and sharing announcements, filming and editing our movie, and starting to sell tickets to our school preview and our film festival event.
Max wanted to see where we are with our movie, so he got to watch it on the computer. We still need to do a final edit or two before the movie is finished. Who knew making a movie could be such hard work!?
April 24, 2015 - Ms.Davis JK/SK class
Today we made a bulletin board to let our friends, students and staff know about our film festival.
This is our A.H.F.F. business logo:
This is the graphic on our tickets:
April 24, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
Today we put up poster around the school for the film festival.
April 28, 2015
Social Media has been a part of our Albion Heights Film Festival from the beginning. Some of us with Facebook accounts have joined Sue Pfeffer's Facebook page called "Entrepreneurial Adventure". On the site, we have posted a link to our Business Blog and also, our movie trailers for other teachers and business partners to view. This is creating awareness of our program and also, highlighting the hard work of our students at Albion Heights. We hope it also will lend to some ticket sales for our film festival on May 21 at West Humber Collegiate.
YouTube has also been used to host our movie trailers and movies.
April 27, 2015
Mr. Pak's class shot a few more scenes to add more clarity to their movie. After most of the movie was filmed and edited, we realized that some scenes were missing that would make the story-telling make more sense. Also, some scenes didn't look too real, so we tried to shoot it again.
April 24, 2015
Today, Mr. Pak's grade 1's brainstormed some ideas for their film festival poster.
Here are a couple of examples of posters that were created:
We are experimenting with using the app called "Pages" to create an electronic version of a poster for possible publishing. Here's one example from a grade 1 student:
Film Festival Poster.pdf
April 23, 2015
Today we showed our movie trailers to the school at the monthly character assembly. We are trying to get the school interested in buying a ticket to our preview. Tickets cost $1 per student. By listening to the reaction of the school to our trailers, I would say that there is A LOT of interest in seeing the films from both students and teachers!
April 23, 2015
Mr. Pak's class brainstormed some ideas to put on their poster to advertise the preview show on May 13, 2015.
A grade 1 student is working on his poster.
April 22, 2015
We continue our ticket sales today! We sold another 6 tickets!
We met Sue Pfeffer from The Learning Partnership. We shared with her what we have been working on.
Mon. April 21, 2015 - JK/SK class
Joshua and Keriann are working on our movie trailer using the iPad.
Sue Pfeffer is speaking to the Kindergarten students about the Business Venture.
April 20, 2015
The Executive from Room 109, Ishita and Ghaviyaa, type a description of A.H.F.F. for our school's monthly newsletter.
The Marketing team working on posters to hang up around our school, to promote A.H.F.F.: Journeys Of Life!
Grade 1 students set up a "ticket sales booth", including a book to track all ticket sales.
April 22, 2015
212 Trailers
Our Team Has Been Hard At Work Gathering Footage For Our Films, Both Are Excellent But One Thing We Have Yet To Make Are Our Trailers. So Our Edit Team Has Taken The Task Of Making High Quality Trailers For Our Films. Today They Have Finished The Trailers And Are Ready To Be Seen By The World.
You Can Find Them Here:
- The Edit Team, Mr. Curtis' class, Room 212
April 20, 2015
The Executive from Room 109, Ishita and Ghaviyaa, type a description of A.H.F.F. for our school's monthly newsletter.
April 20, 2015
Students in Grade Seven started filming real life action of what happens during a regular day of a grade seven student. The CEO and Vice President were the first to learn how to use the camera. They pick times of the day to film our class. It was difficult for the students to not look at the camera at first but soon after they got use to going through there day without noticing. When they both got comfortable using the camera they attempted teaching the executive committee which consist of all the students that applied for the job of CEO and Vice President. When the whole executive committee learned how to use the camera we each got time to shoot and work with each other.
Two students in grade seven named Siya and Amanda have created a film called My Messed up Life. It is about a girl who goes through many difficulties in her life but learns how to overcome them in the end. It all started when Siya had an idea and decided to pursue it, she told Amanda about the idea. That same night they attempted to write a script. The next day they presented the script to Mr. Curtis, he didn’t approve of it, but he told the girls if they could fix it, it could possibly work. The next day Siya and Amanda came back with a new and improved script. To their surprise Mr. Curtis approved their script and said they can film as soon as possible. After we had enough footage we started editing.
My Messed Up Life
The film My Messed up Life is about a girl named Aria who is 18. Aria is a strong and bold leader. She has two younger siblings named Thomas age 12 and Mary age 15. Aria, Thomas and Mary have lost both of their parents and Aria is now responsible for both of her siblings. This movie shows the struggles they endure and how they overcome it. They face the bitter truth of reality. This is a family oriented movie that gives children a reality check.
A Day In The Life Of A Grade Seven Student
The film A Day in the Life of a Grade Seven Student is a documentary that shows both students and parents what a regular grade seven does on a regular school day. This documentary shows different things grade seven students do throughout the day. Our goal for this film is too show younger students what is yet to come in grade seven and parents/ older students how or if grade seven has changed throughout the year.
The edit team has been doing an amazing job. They will have the films ready for viewing by the invited audience.
April 20, 2015
Mr. Pak's class has made announcements for our Film Festival. Today, Vatsh read his announcement to the school. We should start to see sales starting to come in! Everyday another student will read their announcement. The grade 1's have been working really hard.
April 20, 2015
Our first day of ticket sales! We sold 5 tickets and already made $25.00!
April 16, 2015
The grade 1 students in Room 108 have been working on their Announcements for next week. We brainstormed on chart paper what information was important to include in our announcement. Then each student was asked to create an announcement and include the important information. Ms Bonilla will be selling tickets for the big Film Festival at West Humber Collegiate to start raising money for our two charities, WWF and StopGap.
Here is our Mind Map for the Film Festival announcements:
Here is one example of an announcement:
April 13 -17, 2015
Mr. Pak's class has been filming for their movie all week. Students were asked to bring in their props and costume this week to film the "Traps" part of our movie. We brainstormed some traps that we could do, their locations, and who would act out each of these scenes. Also, we needed to shoot some more video for other scenes to improve the story telling.
We have also begun the Editing process in Room 108. This week, we made Abreena and Vatsh the Editors of our movie. We have lots of scenes recorded, now we need to put it all together, cut the scenes, add sound effects, and do the finishing touches. Abreena and Vatsh worked on editing some parts already such as the "arrest" scene and the "skateboard-trap" scene. They came up with good suggestions about how we could improve each of the scenes.
After looking at the video we had, we realized that some students needed to add more expression to make their scenes look more "believable" and "real". For instance, Emily demonstrated what a scream should sound like. She did a great job!
Here's out storyboard for the traps:
- Mr. Pak
Thursday, April 9, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
Today the Advertising Team worked on posters for the film festival.
April 1, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
We emailed Dollarama last week asking for a donation and today we got this email. (see below)
We got this letter and gift cards in the mail.
Ms M. Davis, OCT
Albion Heights JMS
April 15, 2015
The following links are two articles about Luke Anderson, a speaker from the Rick Hansen Foundation, that visited our school to share his story with us. Our students were inspired by Luke's life and would like to help by donating some of the funds raised from the film festival to StopGap.
Luke Anderson
News: Ramp Project
Please visit the following link for the Stop Gap 's Blog!
Ms Bonilla
March 2015 - Brainstorming Ideas for our Movie: School Alone
Mr. Pak's class, Room 108, brainstormed what characters we needed for our movie and who would play those parts.
Room 108 brainstormed what steps we needed to take to make our movie a reality. Then, we looked at our chart again and numbered the steps based on what order we needed to do each action.
Mr. Pak modelled how to write a script for one scene. Students learned conventions of scripting and also got a chance to write their own script parts. Eventually, all of the script parts would be composited to make one big one for our movie.
Here's a picture of some students working on their scripts in pairs:
Students from Room 108 were asked to brainstorm some celebrities they knew as potential sponsors or possible invitees/visitors to our Film Festival. The ideas were quite varied!
Mr. Pak's class brainstormed the ending part of the story and some possible things that could happen.
The students were asked to think of different settings in the school where our story could take place and what sort of things could happen in each of the settings. This became the basis for our "traps" that make up the middle part of our movie.
Since traps were an important part of our movie, students from room 108 were asked to brainstorm a variety of traps that could possibly be incorporated into our movie. We made a mind map of their ideas.
Our initial foray into ideas for our Business Venture yielded quite an interested variety of responses. Eventually, we would vote to create a Film Festival after our big meeting with all the classes in the library. The voting was done using Google Forms as a multiple choice questionnaire and the results tabulated.
Students learned how to create a storyboard by drawing pictures, including the setting and characters, and a brief description about what is going on in their scene. There was a lot of preparation and brainstorming work accomplished before any kind of filming was started.
April 12, 2015
Mrs. Bonilla's Grade 1 class is working on a claymation film, THE DRUM, based on the oral story that was learned in class. Retelling is a major curriculum expectation in reading and writing. Ishita, our narrator, has demonstrated an excellent ability to do this, and as such, willingly volunteered to do this big task. She did a wonderful job!
Many photos were used for this process. Students learned how to save and import these photos into iMovie.
Ishita used the app Voice Pro and learned how to input her voice recordings into iMovie.
Please visit the following link to view a trailer, using iMovie, made by the children: (*Link to be added shortly)
March 2015
Shamar and Ishita voting on the type of business they wanted to venture into!
Timeline - A timeline created by Surina, our Grade 7 CEO.
List of Props - A list created by the students from room 109, stating the props needed and the students working on them.
Writing a draft - Ghaviyaa, the VP, writing a rough draft about the film festival for the monthly school newsletter.
April 10, 2015
We are on track with meeting our deadlines. Today, Alex, a Grade 7 student, drafted a copy of the tickets to be sold. It has been approved by the rest of the students. Next week, his draft will be photocopied and ready for sales. The capacity of the auditorium (West Humber Collegiate) where the film festival will take place, is 700. Our goal is to sell out! - Ms Bonilla
March 30, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
Students are making props for the background of one of the scenes in our movie.
March 27, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
Today we brainstormed a list of props we need to get and make for our film. Ms. Davis wrote our ideas on chart paper.
April 9, 2015- Ms. Davis JK/SK class
The Marketing Team is working on their movie posters to promote our film festival.
These students are setting up the scene before our shoot.
April 2, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
Our costumer designer, Zariia, is helping our actress, Lydia, get into costume for her shoot.
Filming one of the ending scenes for our movie, Muhammed is holding the baby.
March 13, 2015 - Ms. Davis JK/SK class
After our trip to REEL Canada, students wanted to write a thank you letter since they really enjoyed their film making workshop. Here is our letter:
April 7, 2015
Today we met with Max we showed him our movies I think he likes it. -Laila, CEO Room 108
We showed him our movies . We talked and we saw more movies. I like the movies. -Emily, VP Room 108
We met with Max we want outside we take pictures and we picked the best ones. -Meetinder, VP Room 108
April 2, 2015
Students brought in their costumes and props for the movie. We went out to the front of the school to film parts for the movie. Deiondre was our cameraman. Some of the different roles that the students played include parents, students, robbers, and SWAT. We filmed most of the parts for the beginning and ending of the movie, but now we need to plan, prepare, and film the middle part of the movie next. - Mr. Pak
April 2, 2015
Aaron working on his character, using clay.
Ishita wrote a list of all the characters and props needed for our movie.
Ghaviyaa writing a blurb for our school newsletter.
A copy of Ghaviyaa’s rough draft for the school newsletter.
-Mrs. Bonilla's class
March 13, 2015 - Ms. Davis's class
Yesterday we went to Reel Canada for a film making workshop. We learned how to retell stories and talked about the different parts of a story. Then, we retell the story of "The Three little Pigs". We drew pictures of our favourite movies. We had lunch and we had a little walk outside. We went upstairs and saw different Canadian movie posters. Finally, we went downstairs where the Grade 7's made a film festival for us to watch. We got tickets for the film festival and popcorn. We enjoyed the movie the Grade7's made for us. It was a great day at the workshop. Thank to all our new friends at Reel Canada.
Monday, March-02-2015 Room 108 - Mr. Pak
Casting
- Today, we selected parts for each student for our movie. Some students were selected to be the Kids, some were the police, a couple students were the bad guys, and so on. Some students decided that they did not want to be in the play, so we respected their wishes, but this also meant that some of the parts could not be filled. For example, no one wanted to be the monster or the zombie. Since so many students wanted to play the “Kid” role, we used a secret ballot to select our five winners. Students said that we did this to be “fair”. We reviewed all the parts once everyone had a chance to choose a role. Then, students were asked to draw their character in costume on paper. This was done to help the students visualize their roles. Then, we shared our character pictures in a circle.
Friday, February 27, 2015 Room 108 - Mr. Pak
Casting
We brainstormed various roles for our movie and wrote it on chart paper. Some of the roles include the bad guys, the Kids, the parents, the police, the caretaker, and the families.
Thursday, February 26, 2015 Room 108 - Mr. Pak
Storyboarding
As a class, we brainstormed on chart paper some possible endings for our movie. Then, each student storyboarded their version of the ending of our story on paper and shared it with the class in a circle.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 Room 108 - Mr. Pak
Storyboarding
As a class, we brainstormed on chart paper some possible action scenes for the middle of our movie. Then, each student storyboarded one of the action scenes on paper and shared it with the class in a circle.
February 25, 2015
Camera Movie Cutter - Winning submission! Movie Theatre
Movie 3D Glasses Popcorn
Here's the results of the logo submission:
Movie Cutter 43%
DSLR Camera 22%
Popcorn 13%
3D Glasses 13%
Movie Theatre 9%
So, our winning logo is from Mr. Curtis' class by Habeeba, the Movie Cutter. Congratulations!
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 Room 108 - Mr. Pak
Storyboarding
As a class, we brainstormed on chart paper some possible beginnings for our movie. Then, each student storyboarded their version of the beginning on paper and shared it with the class in a circle. There was a common theme among several of the students’ story, so we decided to make that our beginning theme. It incorporated all the snow that we have on the ground now.
Monday, February 23, 2015 Room 108 - Mr. Pak
Project Management
We reviewed our chart from last week about all the tasks we need to do to get our movie completed. We wrote numbers beside the tasks on the order that we need to do them. For example, step one was brainstorm about ideas for the movie. Step two was to storyboard the ideas in three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Step three was to decide what characters we needed and who would play those roles. Step four is to write the script for the movie and so on.
Skype Call with Max in California and our CEOs and VPs in Toronto - Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Our CEO's and VP's from the four classes got together and we conducted a Skype session with Max in the morning. Each class's CEO and VP gave Max an update on where their class is in the movie making process. Also, we discussed some other topics, such as our meeting with Lisa Suarez, our new theme "The Journeys of Life", securing the venue for the movie at the local high school's auditorium, and doing our logo contest.
Max had some suggestions for us. He wanted the grade 7's to keep a spreadsheet for our expenses, loans, and income. Max is loaning us some money for the REEL Workshop, so he wants that documented on paper, an I.O.U.. He also suggested that we create a timeline for our movies and stick to it. Max wanted to see our timeline and also, our business outline. Max had some good suggestions for us to keep us on track in this business venture.
Skype Call with Max in San Francisco - February 19, 2015
Mr. Pak and Max Rutherford, our business partner, conducted a brief Skype call in the evening. Max is away for a month, but he can still assist us through Skype. He wants to meet with the CEOs and VPs to get an update on how our business venture is going. So early next week, we are planning to do a Skype session with Max to give him an update and get any more good ideas from him.
Meeting with Lisa Saurez - February 19, 2015
Today the grade 7 students and the CEOs and VPs from the other three classes met with Lisa Suarez. We know about Lisa through our business partner Max.
Here are some links to check out:
Between the Lines Winery
Lisa Suarez CHCH Farewell Video
With Lisa's help, the students brainstormed ideas about a theme for the film festival, making connections between major concepts of the films created by the students.
The name of the film festival is:
THE JOURNEYS OF LIFE
Business Venture Blog
Friday, Dec. 12
Today we brainstorm some ideas for our business venture.
Tuesday, Dec. 16
We have one kindergarten class of 24 students, two Grade 1 classes of 18 students each and one Grade 7 class of ____ students for a total of ____ students for this business venture. Today was our first meeting together. All 4 classes met in the library to share our possible ideas for our business venture. All the students were excited to meet for the first time and begin this entrepreneurial adventure. A representative from each class presented their ideas. The ideas range from making jewelry, hosting an art show to having a fashion show. The ideas were endless. After much discussion, the students noticed that many of the ideas has some similarities. So all the ideas were narrowed down to 5 top choices of:
1. Art Gallery
2. Film Festival
3. Talent Show
4. Card and Book Sale
5. Play
Students went back to their individual classes and voted online to cast their vote for their favourite idea. The votes were in and with a majority of 69%....the film festival was the chosen idea for our business venture…Yeah!!!
Feb 16 - Job Interviews
On Friday, January 16, 2015, the students in Ms. Davis’s Kindergarten class held job interviews for the CEO and Vice-President positions for our class. Students who wanted to apply for the job practise the 2 questions with Ms. Davis and at home with their parents. The 2 questions were:
1. Why do you want this job?
2. What skills do you have for this job?
Our job interviews were held in the office, where our principal Mrs. Buie helped to conduct the interviews. 10 students applied for the 2 jobs. The interviews went very well! Ms. Davis and Mrs. Buie couldn’t choose just 1 student for each job. So they decided to pick 2 students for each job position. We are happy to congratulate Lydia and Joshua, who are our CEOs, and Audrey and Sehaj, who will be our Vice-Presidents
Feb. 5 –Group Meeting
Choosing the Charity
Today we had a meeting with Max to talk about different charities. Each teacher talked about one charity with the classes.
The 4 options were:
1. World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
2. Doctors Without Borders
3. A local Food Bank
4. Ramp for better wheelchair access
Mr. Pak made an online survey with the 4 options for all students to vote in their classrooms.
Feb. 5 – Ms. Davis’s JK/SK class
Today we brainstormed ideas for our logo for the Film Festival. Students drew pictures and had to include the acronym A.H.F.F. in their logo. Here are the top 3 logos from our class. (picture of each drawing)
Business Venture Link
Please visit this link, to learn about the program details:
The Learning Partnership Program Details
Mr. Pak's Class
In our class, we had some Kindergarten students from last year's business venture, including the previous CEO. The students who had participated in the business venture shared their experiences about it in a class discussion to introduce the topic.
In 2015, our class would be participating in the business venture along with Ms Davis', Ms Bonilla's, and Mr. Curtis' classes. We brainstormed a list of business ideas and wrote them on chart paper. Some ideas included selling food, hosting a bake sale, selling toys, and selling cards.
In December 2014, students were told that our business partner, Max Rutherford, would be coming in to meet them after the break and some questions were gathered from the students.
The teachers and students met with Max Rutherford on January 7, 2015, right after the break. In the library, we introduced our business partner to all of the students and shared our ideas about possible business ventures. Also, Max fielded some questions that the students had about the business venture and about himself. We did an informal poll about the most popular ideas and came up with five to choose among: Film Festival, Art Show, Talent Show, and so on.
We decided to create an online survey using Google Forms. Mr. Pak created the survey and sent it out to the teachers so that they could poll their class about what they would they like to do. When the poll was completed, it was decided that the "Film Festival" idea would be our business venture this year.
The teachers met again at lunch the next week to discuss some details and timelines. Mr. Curtis came up with the idea to host the film festival at another venue outside of the school, such as at the high school auditorium. Contacting the local high school for permission to do this went on the To Do list. We also decided that we needed some class reps, so we had to conduct interviews on the students and/or they would have to write resumes if they were interested in becoming the class CEO or Vice President.
One of the teachers spoke to the school Principal who contacted the principal at the local high school. They said that we could use their auditorium provided there wasn't any kind of scheduling conflict. The teachers went back to their classes and began conducting interviews to see who would be there two class representatives. Classes also brainstormed and researched some ideas for their class film. One of the classes even began work on their film.
-KP
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Our Business Plan
Albion Heights Film Festival
Business Plan, 2015
Designed by Surina Patel (CEO) & Karallyn Hamlyn
The proposed business:
We are organizing a film festival. An invited audience will be paying to see a number of films, produced, directed, written, performed, and animated by students at Albion Heights J.M.S. The funds raised will be donated to a charitable organization selected by the students involved: the World Wildlife Fund. The whole project will introduce the students to the idea of working together on an entrepreneurial project to achieve a common goal.
The Customers
The customers will be the friends, family, students, invited guests, and other school community members. They have an interest in seeing the results of the creative work invested by the students at the school. All students, who have permission, will be in some sense, “visible”on the screen. Customers will also be keen to support the charity chosen by the students.
The Product
Entertainment.
The development and production
Students at the school will make the films. They will contact local businesses to receive donations for the concessions.
Resources
– internal and external
Students will use equipment available at the school. There is a computer, and a teacher’s camera and tripod. Other resources will turn up as they are needed.
Suppliers
The school community, and the classroom students, and their families are providing supplies as they are needed.
Marketing
Students will design posters. A trailer will be developed advertising the festival. This will be shown to the student population, and posted on the web site.
Customers, payment
Tickets will be sold for $5. The films will be recorded onto CD’s and made available for sale at $5 each.
Advertising
Flyers will be sent home with all of the students at the school. Family members, and friends of the family will be invited to attend the screening on May 21. Local companies will be approached to support the venture financially, and with donations of their product.
Sales
Tickets will be sold at the door, and in advance through a system of ticket sales at the school. Students will be trained to receive, sell and account for the tickets as customers arrive. They will organize the advance sales.
The Screening
The films will be presented in the auditorium at West Humber Collegiate on May 21, 2015, 6:30 pm.
Expected expenses and revenues:
Venture involves approximately 100 students. Each student will generate 2 ticket sales. Along with concession sales and other revenue, we hope to make $2000. A film making work-shop will generate some costs, there may be equipment and prop costs.
Responsibilities
Students have been appointed to assume various responsibilities. As the need arises other responsibilities will be assigned.
Emergency plan.
Timelines have been designed. As the timeline passes we will change our expectations, it is hard to know exactly when something can be done. There will be a spare projector at the auditorium on the night of the screening. Students will be prepared to pick up the responsibilities of students who might be absent.
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Meeting Max
In late December, we met with Max Rutherford, our business partner. He runs a vineyard in the Niagara Falls region. Ms Bonilla has worked with Max on a previous business venture. Max introduced himself and told us that he would help us with any business decisions if we needed it and that he would help us write up our proposal for the entrepreneurial competition. Here's a picture of Max Rutherford, our business partner for Albion Heights JMS.
-KP
Welcome to the Albion Heights Film Festival Blog.
Welcome to the Albion Heights Film Festival blog. Here we will be able to stay in touch with each other as we plan to achieve our artistic goals as film makers. Our exciting venture will draw on our creative talents, our team working abilities, and will allow us to make a generous contribution to the community.