There’s a museum I love that’s situated in Burnaby, Canada by Deer Lake Park. It’s called the Burnaby Village Museum and it’s an open-air museum reconstructed to look like a typical tram stop village in the 1920s. I must have visited this place around four or five times already now. One of the main reasons I am so attracted to this museum is because I love old things – especially vintage. There’s a certain nostalgic charm to things that used to be, like the old Kodak cameras and model T Fords.
The sign in the window display says the large iced cake would have cost only 35cents!
The museum itself has recently become free for all visitors (another reason to go visit if you’re in the area!), and features a 1912 CW Parker carousel as well (this you do have to pay for if you want to ride – only a few dollars!).
I decided that this museum would be a perfect spot to film my next video. I started to envision a little story where the main character would be riding on a modern day train, fall asleep, and then be suddenly transported into the 1920s! So I started to plan. Once I knew what the storyline would be like, I had to ask someone to be my main character. Luckily, one of my friends was eager to volunteer, and we soon set a date for filming. I really wanted filming to go smoothly, and I knew that I didn’t want other museum visitors in my shots, so I decided to head to the museum a few days before we were scheduled to film so that I could take a few photos and remind myself again what the layout of the museum was and which shots I wanted to get.
Outside the ice cream parlour, where you can actually buy ice cream from.
In the museum, there are typically a number of people dressed in period costume who will interact with you and explain things to you. One of the ladies in the houses was kind enough to try and give me some tips on when to come after I told her what I was planning on doing. Once I went home, I wrote out a shot list and ordered it in a way that would be the most efficient (by getting the most difficult locations to film without other people out of the way first – which I was betting would be in the tram).
Interurban Tram #1223
The day of filming came, and my friend and I arrived at the museum before the doors opened. Surprisingly, there were already a number of other people also waiting for doors to open. When 10am arrived, the doors opened and we zoomed in, heading right for the Interurban Tram #1223, a beautiful restored tram from 1912.
Interiors of the restored tram.
Outside the Vorce Tram Station.
For the most part, filming went quite smoothly. A few times, we had to stand and wait a while for people to pass or we had to retake shots because we didn’t realize people were in the background. Once we were done, we rewarded ourselves with some ice cream from the ice cream parlour.
After a week of editing, this is the final result:
I would love to know what you think of the video! If you like it and want to see more, please follow as well as subscribe on Youtube! Thanks for reading!
Question of the day: If you could be transported to a different decade/time period for a day, what would you pick?