For this activity, I created a video advertisement for a local jewelry shop in my town. I filmed the video and additionally edited it by myself. This helped me to practice my filmmaking skills as well as provide aid to the shop in advertising their business. I was paid ₹3,200 for the job, but I requested the shop owners, Mr. and Mrs. Soni, to pay the above-mentioned amount to the I M HUMAN foundation in Bardoli.
CAS strands that are covered: Creativity (overall creation of the video), Activity (holding and carry heavy camera equipment as well as moving the objects in the shop to film easily), and Service (donation to the I M HUMAN foundation).
Date: December 27 – January 1 (2018-2019).
My participation description: the purpose of this activity for me was to put my learnings and abilities of filmmaking in good use by providing a video AD to a shop so that I can express myself as a progressed individual from the filmmaking society.
Learning outcomes that I catered:
LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth (the identification of my strength and my weakness made me feel accomplished as I further understood what I should work on and what I should maintain. This is important because being unaware about it can result in an underdeveloped character. My strength was that I possessed an appreciatable amount of knowledge of editing videos which impressed the shop owners but my weakness was that I was not able to work quickly as I tended to get bored while editing. This is because the editing took me a total of eight hours which was very challenging. I worked on this weakness/challenge by constantly reminding myself that I was going to earn something which was further going to be put in a GREAT use! I was indirectly making an influence in the world through what I liked doing which motivated me and reduced the impact of my weakness).
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process (undertaking the editing challenge helped me understand that I was “unlimiting” myself to the filmmaking world by making my original way of projecting my filmmaking talent to the real world without even going to any college which was important as it inspired me to work even harder for improving my filmmaking skills. Hence I learned to manage my time during editing by learning to edit faster than the pace I held. This learning of skill is important as it will help in future to save a great amount of time while editing videos).
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience (for this activity, I organized myself by planning the hours in advance that I required to film as well as edit the videos. I am usually an organized person. Yet, initiating was difficult because editing for eight hours straight is actually much more difficult than on paper. Planning and initiating in the future will be much easier than my latest experience because I have gained experience for it. Planning and initiating are the only two components of doing which is why it is important to know how to do it).
(For further notice: I had only eight hours to edit the video because the shop owners required the completed video in that time frame urgently).
LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences (the long time that was required to edit the video made this activity to require commitment and perseverance. The commitment required to do this activity was to not ask for extension deadlines for the video’s submission to the owners and provide them the AD within the given time frame. It is generally easy for me to commit and show perseverance to activities due to my persistent nature. It is important to show commitment and perseverance in everything because these qualities increase the success rate of your work exponentially).
LO5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively (working with others is difficult as generally, the people who I work with are strangers. During this activity, it was not difficult for me to work with the shop owners by communicating with them to understand their requirements for the AD because I personally knew the shop owners. I was able to work collaboratively with the shop owners because I knew that it makes the work process much easier and quicker compared to working individually).
LO6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance (the primary issue was the hunger that people in Bardoli faced along with stray animals that suffer from food shortage. This is a global issue as many parts of the world face it such as famine in parts of Africa. As I got to know about this issue, I felt a need to contribute to the solving of this problem, hence I ended up telling the shop owners to donate my fees to the I M HUMAN foundation whose mission is to help every needy person in the best possible way regardless of their religion and caste doing this activity. On their Facebook page, they also stated that they help animals by maintaining a healthy environment).
LO7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions (the ethical issue was the time investment failure. In this case, the time given to me to complete the video required absolute respect as not giving respect could not have only resulted in my waste of time but also the owners’ waste of time; therefore, misbehaving with the act of following given time restriction would mean a time investment failure. In this manner, directly, this ethical issue positively affected me because I mentally reminded myself to do my work ethically. My opinion on this issue before this activity was that it had to be avoided entirely to avoid time waste, and this opinion did not change even after the action was completed).
Final takeaway:
Learner profile attributes that I developed as a result of this CAS experience: 1. Caring as I cared for the lives in need by helping them I M HUMAN foundation to cater their mission of helping lives in need.
2. Communicators as I communicated with the shop owners to understand their requirements.
This activity directly benefited the lives that needed any sort of help (food, shelter, clothing, etc) as I provided my fees to the I M HUMAN foundation. And eventually, it emotionally benefited me as I got very happy from helping those poor lives by helping I M HUMAN foundation to complete their mission. Additionally, I also helped the shop owners to market themselves and their product through my AD. My perspective of not being able to work continuously to complete a job has changed from condemning it to accepting it as I understood that working continuously is very beneficial and easy to adapt from practice. From this activity, I learned that helping others is not only beneficial for others but also for you. I would change the duration of this activity as I wanted to record and edit more footages to make the AD much more beautiful than what it was originally. This lesson will be applied everywhere because there will always be people in need of help and doing so will help me to contribute to society through what I like to do.
Photographic evidence:
My video AD link: https://youtu.be/OELwREkmvyY