Music Video Finale

Hey, I'm back once again! So, this project is my favorite to-do project of the whole year. This project is all about music videos, where you can work with your friends and fun while doing it. Last year if you look back far enough, my last music video was Dangerous Woman by Ariana Grande. We worked in a team of 4, and my teammates were Isaac Dubey, Raja Counts, and Coral Haeger. We all had a blast doing it, and I'm excited for this upcoming music video. This year my teammates are Malia Alo, Jb Araula, and Raja Counts. Here are links to their blogs in case you want to take a peek (; Malia: http://maliakai.blogspot.com/ Jb: http://jbproductions808.blogspot.com/ Raja: http://rajacheers.blogspot.com/. Back to the point, this year our song is Drop in The Ocean by Ron Pope. We chose this song because, the pace is perfect for lip synch and we all like the song so, we all agreed.

The storyline we created for this specific song hits you right in the feels. In the beginning, I have 
all of my friends and we're all hanging out together, happy as can be. Then, the next part of the storyline is where Akasha and I start to yell at each other. These shots are done in a Point of View (POV) so, you can see the other person yelling at you. The next sequence is of Akasha disappearing out of our whole group, and so one with everyone else. When everyone has left, I'm am now all alone. Then, Raja comes out of no where and accompanies me. After that scene, all mu friends start to return by my side once more, and everyone is happy once again.

As you can see above, we are doing the last project of the entire year, the Music Video project. I have learned a lot throughout this year and last year as well. Considering that 7th grade is almost over, and I'll be returning as an 8th grader, I'm actually excited to be working in this class. We're on top of everyone at middle school, the big kids. Anyways, GT this year has taught me a lot more about PhotoShop, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and many more. In this last project, it will most likely be showcasing what I have learned about editing not only imagery, but video clips as well. We were asked to create a Music Video band poster that relates to whatever song we are doing. That show our PhotoShop skills and what we can put them to use for. Cutting out people, editing words, adding layer effects. All of that is shown in just one image. As for the rest of our project itself, it presents all our skills we have learned throughout GT. The effects we put on the clips, text layovers, etc. It really has been fun working with so many different people and I can't wait to see them all next year. 

A Drop In The Ocean 
By: Ron Pope

A drop in the ocean
A change in the weather
I was praying that you and me might end up together
It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert
But I'm holding you closer than most 'cause you are my heaven

I don't wanna waste the weekend
If you don't love me pretend
A few more hours then it's time to go

And as my train rolls down the east coast
I wonder how you keep warm
It's too late to cry
Too broken to move on

And still I can't let you be
Most nights I hardly sleep
Don't take what you don't need from me

It's just a drop in the ocean
A change in the weather
I was praying that you and me might end up together
Its like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert
But I'm holding you closer than most 'cause you are my heaven

Misplaced trust and old friends
Never counting regrets
By the grace of God I do not rest at all

And New England as the leaves change
The last excuse that I'll claim
I was a boy who loved a women like a little girl

And still I cant let you be
Most nights I hardly sleep
Don't take what you don't need from me

Movie Trailer Premier

P3T2_Still Here from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Our current project were working on right now is the Movie Trailer project. This project is all about making a Movie Trailer with basically no actual movie going along with it. This is my second time doing this project and it's honestly one of my favorites. Last year, my movie trailer was about a girl who is scared to surf again after wiping out. I'm excited for this year's project because, it's horror mystery and those are my favorite type of movies. Ours is about two best friends that get into a disagreement about one of them being followed. In disbelief, the other girl storms off. A couple days later Malia, the paranoid girl, mysteriously disappears. What really excites me about this is filming it. You just feel so professional and you feel mature being able to successfully film a movie trailer. I contributed by acting and filming. As much as I liked both parts I liked editing the shots too. 

To be honest, there was quite a lot of challenges filming this trailer. We had to plan transportation, some people couldn't make it, and some of the locations needed permission for filming. There was some challenges we faced and succeeded with, and others weren't successful. The biggest one we had so far was importing scenes 4 and 5. The reason is a mistake I should've noticed before importing. The file that I imported the scenes in was a BDMV file. Some of you may or may not know what it is, but I'm telling you right now that was a day's work flushed  down the drain. Since it was is a BDMV file, I was able to successfully upload both scenes into Final Cut Pro. So yes, we are back down to one scene, but I'm hoping we could film both scenes soon. On a positive note, we were able to finish editing scene 1 with no mistakes what so ever. We lined up all the audio, added some transitions and text to it, and we were done. Now, we need to plan sometime this week to make up those scenes.

The critique this past Thursday (April 6), went well for our group. The rest of my piers had outstanding Movie Trailers. My favorite was "El Demonio Begins" by my friend, Lucas' group. As for ours, we had great shots, and it went just as we planned. The only feature we left out was the music.I also learned quite a lot during this whole project timeline. I learned a lot about team work and editing in Final Cut Pro. The biggest thing I learned was honestly, team work is key.

Metamorphosis Animation

P3T6 Metamorphosis from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

The new project we are currently working on in class is called the, "Metamorphosis Animation" project. We are using a freeware called Stykz that allows us to animate objects. The goal for this project is to create an animation basically about metamorphosis. The idea of it is to make an animal, or an object turn into another animal or to another object. If you didn't know metamorphosis is when an animal changes into another version of the animal. The difference with our project is that the animal we are using has to turn into a different species or a object such as a car or motorcycle. So, the overall goal is to metamorphosize something to something completely different. There also has to be a story behind the change of the animal or object. My teammates for this animation project are Anthony & Raja. As of this moment, Raja is currently in Florida for her cheer competition. Other than that, Anthony and I have come up with 2 ideas for this and out of the two, we picked, Bunny Attains Wings. 

Our focus statement for, Bunny Attains Wings, is to accept other's dreams and follow your own as well. The first scene is, Bunny and Cat taking a nice walk in the field. They have been friends for a pretty long time and they are basically inseparable. Bunny takes a look at the sky, and sees some birds flying overhead, happy as can be. He then tells Cat about the birds, and she responds saying, "Flying is dumb, you're better off here with me. You can't even fly in the first place." After that, the rest of the walk was silent.

Returning to the field, Bunny and Cat are doing the usual. Hanging out under the birch tree. After a while, Cat says, "Let's go it's getting dark." Bunny notices a Hawk flying near the forest entrance to the Great Tree. He decides to follow the Hawk into the forest, curious about his actions. Hawk, notices Bunny and gives a smirk. Hawk then lands and starts to talk to Bunny about flying which sparks Bunny's dreams. Bunny then runs back to the den to tell Cat all about Hawk's stories. By then, Cat finally allows Bunny to go and follow his dreams.

The critique went better than I thought it would to be honest with you. We ended up landing in 2nd place for overall best animation. This is my 2nd year in GT and I'm telling you now my 1st year wasn't the greatest. Yes I would get my work done on time, but the hardest part was quality. Every group I was in always had some problem with the project. I'm currently working better this year and I love that. I originally thought this project was going to be a big fail, but I had the best teammates I could ever ask for. We all worked great together, and we were always on task. I think being able to communicate with each other is the reason behind all of

this. Last year, since it 

was only my first year, communication wasn't my favorite thing in the whole world. I'm just super happy we were on task, and was able to land second place. The animation itself turned out pretty good as I should say so myself. The two types of animation we used were Stop-motion and just plain Photoshop. I'm really proud of me and my teammates, hopefully my next project will be just as good as this one has been.