How I got into filmography:

Public speaking...saaayyy whaaaat???

It all started in high-school, and a natural tendency to avoid anything to do with public speaking, which is hard to do in highschool! lol. I really hated “regular” presentations that involved getting up in front of the class and basically giving a speech. This usually involved reading off your paper 95% of the time, and that same percentage of people in the class falling asleep. Since I’m a really analytical person, I’m always thinking of alternatives and ways to do things different/better/worse/etc.

In our grade 10 History class (or was it Grade 11? … don’t remember specifically haha), we had to do a big end of the year project on a “world history” topic of our choosing. Since I grew up in South Africa, and not many people in my school knew much about the country, let alone its history, I decided to choose the Apartheid as my topic. However, I knew how much I hated speaking in front of the class for more than 1 minute, and I knew how bored people would probably get from my monotonous voice, so I thought of alternatives. That’s when the idea of a VIDEO came up. It seemed like the perfect medium, you can combine music and photos over a narrative, and make it way more interesting! So I approached my teacher about it, he said it was fine, and that’s when everything began.

Initially, I wanted to use my friends and recreate some scenes that would resemble life during Apartheid, but time was limited and I was lazy, so instead I decided to stick to a narrated video with photographs. I started the video out very dramatically with a climactic snippet from “Requiem for a Dream” theme, after which I played an array of old South African songs fitting to the moods of the video.

The project was a great success, to say the least, and my main purpose was fulfilled: I didn’t have to talk in front of the class for 10 minutes…just introduce myself and press play! After this, other teachers heard about my video, and many of them took the time to watch it! They enjoyed it very much, and the school even kept a copy in their library as “Resource/Teaching Material.”

Following that success, I took ANY and EVERY opportunity I could to do my projects in video format. It even got to the point where I would still make a video just for a project even if it wasn’t required, because it was so much fun! Some classics that we made were “Johnny Metis: The Louis Riel Rebellion” or our trailer for “The Crucible.” These initial projects were mainly just for fun, bunch of guys making fun of everything, parodies of historical people/plays/books/etc.

Off to nationals for video production...sayyy whaaaattt???

Things went on like that until Grade 12, where things got more serious! There’s a huge competition called Skills Canada that’s held every year. High-school (and post-secondary) students from all across the country compete in over 40 areas of skilled trades and technologies: video production, baking, cooking, hair design, web design, computer programming, landscaping, electrical engineering, drafting, etc. The list is huge!

So every year, the Provincial competition is held, and the winners of that get selected to go to Nationals and compete for your province, and then the winners of nationals compete on a global scale! It’s quite an exciting competition! Our school is pretty active in it, and they always send quite a lot of students to compete in it! Now, originally I was asked to compete in Drafting. I was a wizz at AutoCad, making futuristic bikes and custom Cadillac Eldorado designs in my spare time (lol nerd), so I figured I would enter into the competition. However, when I found out more about it, the fact that they would give us some random metal part, and have us draft it in AutoCad, didn’t really appeal to me that much. I didn’t think I would be that good at it either, since I really had no interest in real world applications of drafting.. lol!

So, my Skills Canada passion died down. The deadline to enter into the competition was fast approaching, and my drafting teacher was really pushing for me to enter into SOMETHING. He knew I was good with video, so he asked if I wanted to try out for that. I thought about it, and at first didn’t really feel like it, but after a while I realized that there wasn’t much to lose. I entered…but I needed a partner…

Who better to pick than my trusty friend Dyar…who was always in my videos, but had no clue about any of the technical stuff behind it (funny story if you keep reading below)! Either way, the two of us would go to the contest, and have fun! That’s all that really mattered at the time!

Once entered, we received the instructions for the TV/Video Production part of the provincial competition. We were free to make a video PRIOR to the contest, and bring the DVD to the contest. We had to present our video in a professional manner, so it was finally time for me to get some business casual clothes lol. The contest called to make a Public Service Announcement (30seconds) for the Canadian Diabetes Association. Not gonna lie, our video was GOOOOD! We made it look really professional, thanks to the help of my parents and my teachers. I wish I knew where my copy of the video was, since it’s one I’m still very proud of to this day.

Long story short, we got a GOLD MEDAL for TV/Video Production at Skills Canada Saskatchewan! It was exciting, and it was our ticket to NATIONALS!!! Here’s the funny story about Dyar… after everyone showed their videos we were all hanging out chatting with the other competitors, etc. All of a sudden, Dyar rushes up to me “Hey Vlad, what program did we use to edit the video with? One of the judges just asked me, and I had no idea!” lol…I thought that was pretty funny haha!

We went to Skills Canada Nationals, which was in Edmonton, AB, and competed against people that went to schools TAILORED for TV/Video Production. A few groups even came in with professional film equipment and those huge news cameras. Either way, we had quite a blast at the competition. It was 3 days long, and we had all that time to complete our video, which had to be made during the time frame of the contest! We decided to take a more laid back approach during this contest. We knew we weren’t going to win, so instead we had fun with it and made a really good music video (instead of the more serious/professional looking style they wanted). Haha, I think the judges were surprised when they saw our video! They commented on each one after seeing it, and the remarks we got was “Well, the great thing about this contest is that you see so much variety among the way people interpret things.” It was a good time, and meeting all the people at Skills Canada Nationals was amazing! Not to mention our adventures around Edmonton during off-time!

Make money by making videos....saaaaaayyyy whaaaaaaaaaat?????

to be continued… too tired to finish writing right now! haha

Equipment I use:

Canon HV20 High-Definition MiniDV Camcorder

Handy35 V5Plus – 35mm Adaptor

Canon Lenses: 50mm f1.8, 17-85mm f

Future plans: