Finished News Story

P1T5 GMOs from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

What was your story about & who contributed to it?
My story was on GMO's and Pesticides, the effects of them and the battle going on about them. Ana, Keegan, and Mikela worked with me on it.

How did the final turn out? Are you happy with it?
Our final turned out alright, not very good, and not very bad. It definitely wasn't our best work and I'm not proud of it.

Conclude with your critique results, do you agree?
I got

Music Videos Rock!

Mr. Sanderl recently assigned us a project to make a music video behind a song. My team is Aedan. Ana, Kiara, and I, and we're doing "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin. In our work, we've all done separate tasks. Aedan, Kiara, and Ana are all the major actors because they have all the screen time (I have a small portion, but barely any), and to make up for my apparent lack of acting I have directed and filmed essentially all videos, and am likely going to be the most major editor. Aedan, Ana, and Kiara have all split the rest of the work evenly, all of them working hard. I am happy and proud that I have a functioning team that works evenly.

I think the part that my audience will enjoy the most is my facial expressions and gestures and costume in the few scenes I am in. I am very rowdy and expressive, highly exaggerating my jerky/evil character. I believe this will be the most interesting and provide a lot of entertainment.

My music video shows what we learned this year in several ways. We provide great effects, transitions, shot types and sequencing, perfectly synced lipsyncs and more. I think we did well, and met all requirements perfectly. I'm sad now. This is my final project of the year. I will miss my favorite class.

Lyrical Livelihood

My favorite song is "Gotten" by Slash. The lyrics in the song make me feel understood in my current predicament of life, which has to do with feels. When I listen to Slash or this song, I always think better, and that helps me sort out my emotions. It's a great song for thinking about things and making decisions, and that;s why I like it.

The song we're doing for our project is "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite bands, and "Ramble On" is one of my favorite songs by them. We picked this song because it's catchy, loud, fun to use, and a legendary rock concert.  Ramble On is a relatable and exciting song about a guy who was cheated on and is trying to find a better girl who's worth his time.

The visual story of our music video is telling the tale of a guy who was cheated on and seeks a better partner. Because we only have 90-120 secs available, we're going to change it to have the main character already suspect cheating. Our music will tell the tale of poor Aedan suspecting and discovering that his beloved Kiara is cheating on him with me, and how he seeks to achieve the fair maiden Ana.

"Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin.

Our Animation Story

In my group, my team did a story on Kiara's past, when she was moving to Kauai. We started off with our first scene being a Stykz animation of her stretching in gym and being called outside and getting asked to help her teacher gather the important papers for her leaving. The second scene was them doing so using stop-motion animation. The third scene was her being surprised by a goodbye party for her, done with more stop-motion animation. The fourth scene was her friends carrying her to a car and her leaving in the car, and this was done using PhotoShop stop-motion animation. The fifth and final scene was her leaving on a plane and opening a letter sent by her friends to let her know that they still care about her and miss her.

Our focus statement was "Kiara Receives Party" and this tells the truth considering the entire story is about a party that was made for her by her friends before she left. The point of this story is to show that your friends care about you and that can't be broken even by completely moving where you live, and this is shown through her friends' letter to her. This is our way of helping the audience understand the moral of the story.

Our best moment as a team was near the end when we were completely synchronized in our work and trying desperately to meet or exceed the requirements. This was our best moment because we worked together perfectly. Our worst moment was when none of us had certified jobs and we didn't know which parts each of us should work on. This was the worst part because it was chaotic.

I was not satisfied with the results below, and I hope to do better in the future.

Animation Outtakes

Recently, our G.T. teacher, Mr. Sanderl assigned us a new project. We're supposed to make an animation that describes a life event of one of our team members. My team members are Iris, Aedan, Kiara, and me. All of the people in my team have cool facts about them. Iris enjoys anime and can read some Japanese. Aedan's favorite food is pizza, and his favorite novel series is Dragonlance. Kiara is a female gamer, which is rather rare. Kiara also a secret passion for Netflix. I am very good at basically all ranges of video games, and have a secret passion for the Soul's series of video games.

What is stop-motion? A stop-motion animation is an animation done with stop-motion. Stop-motion is taking a picture and then moving the object of imaging and taking another picture to show the motion. What is a .GIF? A .GIF is a short video or animation that loops and plays infinitely.

Our story for this assignment was on Kiara, and it was about a going-away party thrown for her by her friends when she was moving. You should care because it is a clear example of the bonding between friends that occurs naturally in society. Even though she moved thousands of miles away, they continued to stay in contact and be friends.

Typography Images

What is typography & how can it be used with images to make a lasting impact?
Typography is the practice of using words or letters in art. It can be used with images to make a lasting impact in several ways. One way it can be used to make a lasting impact is by making it relatable to the audience. Another way it can be used to make a lasting impact is through inspiration, and showing the audience a new approach or goal to something. It can also be used to make a lasting impact through information, spreading knowledge and such.

Describe your biggest challenge during this project. What did you do to overcome the issue?
One of my biggest challenges with this project was following the goals without screwing up, because that is a frequent mistake of mine. In order to overcome such a dilemma, I focused harder and tried again 2-3 times, and at that point, I knew exactly what I had to do. I finished my project exactly how I was supposed to. It also helped to watch several tutorial videos and listen to Mr. Sanderl and his instructions on what to do.

Explain each of your 3 examples, what makes them different, which one is your favorite & why?

My typography innovator picture was done on Nikola Tesla. He is a Serbian inventor from the 1800's, and the father of modern science. I idolize this man.

My typography image of a teacher was done of Mrs. Sanderl. I did this because Mrs. Sanderl is one of my favorite teachers, and the colors match her personality.

My final typography image was done on me. I've been filling in my spaces with words that describe me, like "music" or "intelligent".

On my fully finished image of myself, I used numerous colors, a gradient overlay, bevel & emboss, and the words 'Music, Nerd, Intelligent, Gaming, and Youtube'.

Double Exposed Portraits

Portrait photography is photography of a person, and it relates to profile view and silhouetting in several ways. Profile view is the angle of which a picture is shot of a person, where they're looking, what's captured in the image, background details, etc. Silhouetting is the lighting and shadowing in an image, and both are examples of profile photography. Profile photography always has to have a profile view, and every photo has silhouetting (lighting and shadowing) in it.

Double exposure is the act of blending multiple images together to make a transparent image that shows all/both images inside of it.These images are simple to make, and very interesting to see. You can make an image like this in Photoshop by taking a picture of something, and something/several other things. Next, you take the first picture and use the dodge tool, paintbrush tool, or quick-selection tool, to make sure only the pieces that you want of the first image are there, and everything else is white. Next, you make the background white, and use the blend mode function to show everything. The final step is to alter the details of the blend mode and the images and make adjustment layers to perfect the image. You would want to use this kind of image for expression and professional photography.

Explain the symbolism in your 2 visual examples AND how your quality of work could’ve improved.

The symbolism in this picture is to shed light on what kind of a person I am. There's darkness and anger and sadness in the colors, but also a bright green flower, showing the kindness I exhibit.

The symbolism in this picture shows that I have a lot of natural calm in me, despite how I frequently act (I am very hyper sometimes). There is nothing like plants and a small wave crashing to describe serenity.

HDR Photography

What is HDR Photography, what is it used for & what do you like or dislike about it?

HDR photography is photography using (a) converged high-dynamic range photo(s). This means a photo with a lot of bright light and dark shadows, a large range of brightness and darkness. It is used to capture these images for a prettier picture with both included, and I like how good it can make certain scenes look. Using HDR at around sunset can create beautiful images and I like the function for its function.

How do you create an HDR image step-by-step? Is this different from automatic HDR functions & why?

You can create an HDR image step-by-step manually using the exposure function that most professional cameras have. Automatic HDR photos do this too, but the speed is much quicker, the effects sharper, and much less camera shake. This makes HDR pictures much easier to take, and preferable to manual.

Conclude by explaining in-depth the thought process behind at least 2 of your HDR examples.

Getting surrealism into photos was rather difficult. I  decided to take this picture because the sky looked beautiful, and its contrast with the water I believed would be very good. It allowed me to have both the bright sky and the dark, shadowed land in the same picture. I took this photo from a rock, and did my best to capture the full landscape of this area.

I took this photo because I wanted a better picture than what I previously had, and I wanted to capture Seth and the color and background behind him. I did my best to capture his shadowed face, the bright light and sky, and everything in between that. 

In this photo, I moved Seth into my landscape photo and altered him and the "Inspire" text layover behind him to provide a dreamy, philosophical mood for my assignment. I believe I did well with the photo editing and the contrast between Seth and the landscape, keeping his colors vibrant and surreal without messing up the landscape's contrast and vibrancy of its own colors.

Movie Poster Promo

Recently our teacher, Mr. Sanderl, has tasked us with making a movie poster to match the trailer that we're making. My team consists of Michael, Russell, and I, and we're doing a story on forgiveness. My main characters are Wyatt and Preston, and you'll see them in the trailer. Wyatt is bullied by Preston, and you'll see a lot of bullying going on. There's a rather important lesson that isn't exactly a hidden fact, and the lesson is forgiveness, and don't judge a book by its cover.

My movie title is "Forgiveness", and the name is self-explanatory, the story is about forgiveness. I have the production team's names down, and that's to give credit, and call people in through reputation, kinda like how a Samuel L. Jackson movie tends to be very well done, same with Quentin Tarantino's movies. The last thing I have on my movie is famous viewers opinions or rates, such as "10 out of 10 -IGN", to persuade the viewers to watch it. Kerning is the control of space between words, and you could use it to make a movie title more interesting, and provide a feeling of awe or interest as well.

My filters and effects had an interesting role to play in my overall project. I made the background dark and very outlined, which provided a nightmarish feeling of despair, and myself bright blue, contrasting Russell's red, and that makes an interesting effect. It seems to imply that Russell is a bad guy, and I'm a good guy, and we're at an opposition in the movie. Overall, think I did well.

Movie Trailer Critique

              

Describe the project, your teammates & your Trailer Plan document… Tell us how you contributed.

My project was to make a creative movie trailer based upon stories we wrote, while keeping it interesting and suitable for all audiences. My team was Russell, Michael, and I, and we did Michael's story called "Amnesia", but it wasn't kid-friendly so we took out a large portion of his story and ended up renaming it "Forgiveness", and we did a trailer of that. Our trailer plan document was done fairly well, and we filled in all of the blanks. I contributed with filming, acting, documenting, I did all of the jobs, and participated considerably, but there's no way I could have done any of it without Russell or Michael, so credit to them.

What were the project requirements & did you complete all of them? Why or why not?

The project required us to have at least 1:30 minutes of video, showing a story, B-Roll, audio, dialogue, text layovers, effects, our movie title, and a movie poster advertising the movie. I completed them all because I extremely wanted to get a good grade. Our project didn't turn out just how I had planned, and some things definitely could have been improved, I wasn't very satisfied, but it turned out alright.

Conclude by describing the class critique & if you agree with the results. What did you learn?

My class's critique on ours said that we got a 3 on everything. It concluded that we did a satisfactory job, but a lot of people said there was room for improvement. I agree with the results, but I wish I really could've "wow'd" the crowd. I learned that I should really start my projects the very second that it becomes possible, or else I'll stress out and rush, and not go above and beyond because of that.