Journey into Filipino Delicacies
Hi, my name is Melissa and I am a high school student living in the Bay Area. Growing up, one thing my whole entire family was able to connect to was food. I am the baker in my family and have been creating desserts for my family to enjoy over the years. Although we had this connection, if was a little difficult for me to relate to my family who had moved in from the Philippines not too long ago. Through trying to create a passion project of my own, I realized that my own Filipino identity was lacking, making it hard to connect to that side of the family. Because of this, I will learn how to create a dish called cassava cake and create a Youtube video about it for my project. Cassava cake is a famous traditional Filipino dessert that is not as common in other places around the world like leche flan. By doing this, I hope it shines light on the Filipino community and shows others that there are many delicious dishes in this culture. I hope to be able to create this dessert and serve it to my relatives as well. There are multiple steps that I would need to complete in order to finish this project. First, I would need to do some research and learn how to make cassava cake. Second, I would need to test the found recipes and see whether or not I would need to make any personal edits. This would let me be able to serve and create a higher quality dessert to my relatives. Third is to find a location to film. Presentation is important in attracting the public eye and having an aesthetically pleasing location will do just that. Fourth is to actually film the video. Fifth is to edit the video. Sixth is to finally upload the video that video to Youtube. This project is something I am excited about because I have been baking since I was very young. Baking is something that I can say that I am passionate about (which is perfect for this project). Also, I love to learn about my culture since I know little about it. The combination of baking and personal cultural experience helps motivate me to create a final product that I am proud of.
Starting Something New can be a Little Bumpy
Even though I am just beginning my project, I have already encountered some minor inconveniences. Nothing much to make me stress and boil, but enough to make me think about how I am going to endure the next steps of this project. So far, I’ve made progress on my project by making a script for what I am going to say and a shot list for what I am going to film. So far, the most prominent lesson I’ve learned is that planning ahead will benefit you in the future.
Before I thought of making a script, I didn’t really think about what I was going to say. Obviously I would have to explain the recipe and how to make the cake, but how would I say it became the question. I realized that without a concrete idea of what I am going to say, it would be difficult for me to quickly film the best quality of video I can give. I then began to write out a script in the order of what I am going to do and how I did it. I will first introduce myself and explain that the recipe I will be using is from another source. I would then list the ingredients and tools needed to make the cassava cake. Lastly, I will explain the steps into completing the task. Having this script would allow me to film quickly and efficiently without the pause of me trying to figure out what to say next. I also created a shot list. A shot list is basically a list of what objects or people I will film at specific points in the film. In a video, you want to have different angles and shots of what your doing. This will help the viewers be able to understand what to do more easily. If I were to film with one angle throughout the whole tutorial, the viewer would get bored since they are seeing the same thing over and over again. Like the script, the shot list will help me produce the highest quality video I can. Seeing what I am going to do would tell me what happens next at the time I need to do it. I would go down the list of shots and cross them off as I go. The script and shot list work hand in hand. Both tell me what needs to be done and how I am going to do it.
So far, my project has been pretty calm. I am looking forward to actually baking and filming in the future.
How Do the Youtubers do it?
Now that I had my script and shot list, it was time to get down and dirty and actually do my video. All my preparation led me to this and I was surely excited. Thanks to my mom, she got the ingredients I needed to to bake and make the video. I cleaned the part of my kitchen that I was going to use and decorated a bit for “set design”. After that, I was ready to film. I had asked my brother to help me with the camera. Soon after that, I had faced many problems. #1 being that my family was teasing me in the background for all the silly mistakes I made. The shooting took longer than expected and it made me wonder, “How do the Youtubers do it?” Growing up, I always watched bakers from Youtube like Rossana Pansino do their thing and create delicious goods. I had always wanted to do a video of my own like that and I was excited when I finally got the chance. But actually doing it was a hassle, especially when your filming crew is actually your family who likes to joke around. Nonetheless, I persevered and finally finished filming. All there was left to do was edit. Soon, my final video will be uploaded and I am very excited to show it off.
My Childhood Dream isn’t as Easy as it Seemed
I had all my videos and audio in place and I was ready to edit. At the beginning of this project, I wanted my final video to look like a stereotypical Youtube tutorial. You know, with the voice overs and calming background music. though that editing a video like this wouldn’t be difficult since I edit and make my own vlogs for my friends to enjoy. But I soon realized that I was so wrong. This difference between editing a video for fun and for school is that I have the freedom to make the video look like what ever I want without consequence. When it comes to school I like things to have structure and look professional. After all, this is for a grade. I struggled with how I was going to add my own personal editing style to my video while keeping a professional structure to it. This was when I asked for some advice from my teacher. She recommended an idea that was perfected for what I wanted: creating two separate parts of the video. Half of the video would be the actual baking tutorial while the remaining could be the editing style I was used to. After making this decision, my inspiration took off and soon I was done with my video. Although I could’ve done better, I am proud of what I got done. It may not be my best work, but it is something that I worked hard on and I can;t wait for you to see it!
Final Assessment
Growing up in the early 2000s, I have seen and experienced the creation and implementation of different technology and what not. One of the most groundbreaking things that was introduced to me as a child was the video site Youtube. I remember that I used to watch whatever was uploaded on the website at the time. A few years after I was introduced to Youtube, I found a small handful baking channels. I felt like a door was opened up to me. Since I was a toddler, I had a passion for baking and seeing these videos was monumental to me. These baking videos were different from the shows I saw on the TV because I had easier access to these videos than to the scheduled shows on certain days of the week. Since I was young, I had always wanted to do a baking video of my own. So when I was given an assignment to do whatever project I wanted to do, immediately I thought of creating a baking tutorial. To begin, I needed to think of something to create. I didn’t want to do something popular like cupcakes or cookies. I wanted mine to stand out against the majority of baking videos on Youtube. Therefore I chose cassava cake, a popular dessert in the Philippines. I decided to make this dessert is because it is something that my culture enjoys. I took advantage of this assignment by incorporating my culture in it as well. After I found a recipe, I created a script and shot list for my video. I then began to film and edit once everything else was completed. It is through this project that I see that personal motivation and administrative motivation affects the person in different ways.
Personal motivation is easier to carry out since it was created by the person who wanted to do the action. Towards the beginning of the project, I was excited about having to create my own baking video. I thought it would be a bit easier for me since I bake and edit vlogs on a regular basis. With this, planning my actions felt like a breeze. The easiest part of the project was the planning even though it was the most time consuming. I was excited and eager to carry out one of my childhood dreams. My motivation was former desires that I had never gotten around to fulfilling until now. To be given the power to do something I had always wanted to do was exciting. I was able to incorporate all the different things that I was inspired by as a child into a school project. This was all the dialogue and camera angles of the actual process of the desert. Through this process, I was able to see that if someone is truly motivated to do something, they’ll do it with no hesitation. This personal motivation can be found in everyone if we were to put our minds to it. And it is also through this process that I was able to see that these motivations can change at any point during time.
On the contrary, administrative motivation can either actually encourage you to do your work, or leave you in an unpassionate slump. During the filming of my video, I became frustrated since filming a baking tutorial was not what I had expected it. It was difficult filming the baking in action and getting the lighting correct. However, I did finish the filming process and started to move on to editing it. It was at this part in project where I began to lose speed. Suddenly, I was not excited about the project and I lost motivation. The only thing that really pushed me to finish my video was the fact that I was being graded on this project. I believe that I was discouraged by filming my process. I usually have a lot of fun baking on my own, but I believe that stress of the fact that my peers were going to see this video got to me. What would they think of the way I did these things? It was difficult for me to edit this video because I wanted to give my best work. Instead, I lost track. I was not doing this project for me, but for the grade. Unlike the planning process, I was having a tough time trying to perfect the final pieces of my project, and only finished them to finish them. Even though I chose this for my passion project, I lost motivation and the video became something I was not passionate about.
Your passions and motivation may change over a long period of time or in an instant. When it comes to this transition, it easy to know when you are not feeling the task at hand anymore. Knowing that you are not passionate about something can be a good thing. It opens up many doors for exploration outside your comfort zone and allows you to find the things you are truly interested in.
