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.

Geometric Portraits

Facial expressions are most likely universal because, siting the evidence from "Are There Universal Facial Expressions", explain how facial expressions are universal with a quiz. A New Guinea man is shown making 4 different reactions (facial expressions) to whatever scene he is told. The first facial expression he was asked to make was, "If his kids had died", by taking to quiz you can tell that he was sad because, sad facial expressions usually have a frown and droopy eyes. Next, he was asked, "If he stepped on a smelly dead pig", and of course his face could tell you he was disgusted by that. This quiz goes to show, facial expressions are universal and doesn't just apply to one person.

The project we are making this quarter is called a low-poly portrait. A low-poly portrait is an image created by 3-5 sided geometric shapes. For our project, you activate the grid on PhotoShop and create a red line (or any color you choose) down the middle. The goal of this project is to make a symmetrical low-poly portrait of our faces. The next step is to create all the triangles on your face. Since this project is called a "low-poly portrait" your going to simplify the image by using bigger triangles. After making your triangles, you're going to go to filter, blur, then average to fill the triangle with color. To do so, click on the polygonal lasso tool and outline your triangle. After filling in your triangles, take your low-poly and copy it. After doing so, flip the copy to make the other side of your face and, you're done!

After finishing poly-1 and poly-2, there were obviously many different tactics to them. In poly-1, I had to split my face down the middle and make triangles to fill my face. As for poly-2, all I really had to do was make straight up triangles and filling them in right there. For poly-1, I had to average the color of the triangle with my skin. It was pretty easy to do but was very time consuming. For my poly-2, I could just make the triangles and fill them in with color straight away. That was easy to do but, it was difficult not to get the same color as the other triangles. Poly-1 was also kind of difficult to do because, you couldn't really tell if you overlapped other triangles or not. If you did, you had to redo the triangles. Poly-2 you had to make sure you didn't do your triangles too small. As you can see, there are some good and bad things about doing these ways, but I personally prefer poly-2 because it made me feel more challenged and I always like a challenge.

                  

Verbal Landscapes

Nature can impact every one's lives in many different ways. It can make you feel a variety of emotion and feeling in general. For me personally, nature makes me feel at peace. Nature makes me feel free and relieves my stress. I love to go outside everyday and sit in my big mango tree in my backyard and just think. Sometimes I even have friends come over and sit in the tree with me. Most days though, I love to just sit in my tree and do my homework. I feel relaxed and at peace, there's no other place I would rather do my homework. When I'm done I usually ask one of my friends if they wanted to join me. When they would come over we would sometimes take pictures, eat food, do some homework, just anything really. This big mango tree really impacts my life because, It's been growing ever since my family moved to Anahola. I have always climbed the tree and just sit in it. This tree is one of my happiest places ever and I love it. 

Although time lapses and slow-mos are beautiful, they are sometimes pretty difficult to take. Time lapses are more on the easier side though. For a time lapse, there is going to be 2 parts sky and 1 part ground. The camera has to also be stable enough during the time lapse so, when you edit the video it won't be too shaky. For a slow-mo you want to be really close to what you are filming. You also have to make sure that you don't move too much in your slow-mo or the outcome won't really be that high quality shot you're looking for. Overall, for a time lapse make sure your shots aren't too shaky and your horizon line straight. If it isn't very straight, then I suggest you fix the horizon line before you start to film your time lapse. For a slow-mo get up close and try and also make an environmental tripod.

There were many bumps along the way of creating my time lapses and slow-mos. There was also a problem that I had along the way with my poem. At first, I had absolutely no idea what to write about. There were so much ideas running through my mind but somehow I didn't have one for my poem. So, when I went home I read some nature poems and bounced off some ideas. I ended up writing a free verse poem with the 5 senses. Next, was to get my time lapses and my slow-mos. You see, these were difficult because, you had to think of a place and what you're going to do. I thought this part was the hardest because, I had to film the sunset at Hanalei for my final time lapse. The difficult part about this is, a lot of people go to Hanalei to jump off the pier so, it's basically a huge tourist attraction and everyone goes there. Instead of going all the way to the pier I stayed on shore and filmed my time lapse there. Then, cars were passing people were passing, it wasn't what I wanted in my time lapse. So, to solve that problem I angled the camera up and filmed the sky. I may have not gotten the whole beach but, I got a beautiful Hanalei sunset. Even though there was bumps along the way, my favorite part was filming my slo-mos and timlapses.

Critique Reflections: I agree with the results 100%. The only one I honestly don't understand is the 2 but, maybe it's because 2 of my shots were shaky. I think some people might have given me a 4 because of my scenery, or maybe it was just a good poem, or it's just good overall. I think I could've stabled some of my shots a little more and maybe have read slower. Also, I think I should've made the music a bit louder but still quieter than my natural sound. Overall, I think I did a very good job with my ReTime Nature video and I will do the highest quality possible on my next video project.

Poetic Personal Statement

Poetry has a lot of meanings to different people. It can be calm, soothing, frustrating etc. It's all about your mood and the way your brain is flowing. To me, I think poetry is art in the form of words. It can represent your emotions and all the thoughts going through your head. Poetry can also teach you life lessons in a rhythmic way. Words that relate to your life in a way can affect the way you feel about the world around you. Poetry can also show you how words can be turn in creative expression.

Best friends are there for you FOREVER and ALWAYS,


They're Kind, Caring, Compassionate and, they have your back


Sometimes they can be crazy like they lived in a zoo but,


If YOU were their Best Friend, you would have their back too,


be crazy with them! They're your BESTFRIEND boo (;


Rhyming can be easy at times but, the rest of those times, rhyming and getting that rhythm down can be very hard. If you're a creative and open minded person, doing something like a poem shouldn't be that hard for you. If you're a intelligent thinker, it could be kind of hard for you because, it has to make sense to you. I'm a thinker but, I'm creative as well. We had to do a poem as you can see above, it was very hard for me to think of a theme that I can rhyme easily with. It was difficult for me because, I am also an intelligent thinker and everything in the poem had to make sense to me. It became easier once I figured out what to write about and found some words to rhyme with. After that, I finished off the poem and got to move on to the next step in this project.

Music Video Finale

P2T1 Dangerous Woman from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Okay, this is the last blog post of my 6th grade school year. One of my favorite things to do is listen to music. In GT we have a chance to make a music video with a song of our choice. In my team is Isaac, Raja, Coral and, me. The song we chose to do is Dangerous Woman by Arianna Grande. It's one of my favorite songs to listen to so I was obviously excited about this project. So, the lyrics in the first part is "Oh, yeah don't need permission made my decision to test my limits cause it's my business, God as my witness" Our storyline for this part is a business scene. It's suppose to match up with the part "Cause it's my business, God as my witness." Obviously because it says business in it :). Since the title is Dangerous Woman, we decided to pretend that Raja and Coral both go crazy but in a good way. It was suppose to show that they are independent and do what they want to do. The only thing I do not advise doing is throwing papers around at your job.

My favorite fast-edit montage is probably the part when Isaac is lip-syncing. It started out as Isaac just lip-syncing to the song but we wanted to put some humor in it. So, instead of making Isaac 'disagree' with the girls, we just put him in a wig! The first wig was pink and black for his first lip-sync. For the second time he lip-syncs we put him in a bright pink wig wit a cute little hat on top. I think we did a pretty good job with putting him in a wig, it was also for humor but, also because it made our music video more interesting. For an example it added more surprise to it. You'd never expect to see Isaac in a wig for our project. To be honest though, Isaac didn't want to wear the wig but we said it was for GT purposes. After a long time of convincing, he complied and agreed to put the wig on. So, that's how we got him to wear a wig and it's my favorite fast-edit montage because, it has some great humor in it. We also made him do a hair flip. :)

This music video showcases my best work because, of all the edits I had to do. I finally learned how to pad correctly and, make sure all of the shots make sense. It shows what I'm capable of doing in iMovie. To be honest, it was kinda hard in the beginning of the year to work with iMovie because, I haven't worked with it before. Doing this music video, it was my chance to show that can do better than last year. That I know what I'm doing and, how I'm doing it. The best part of making this music video was being able to work with an amazing group. We have had our disagreements and arguments but, we have worked through it and was able to make an awesome vid for GT. Our music video also shows how well we worked together. Dubey ( Isaac ) was hesitant about putting on a wig but, for the team's sake he put it on. I had a blast in GT this whole year and I also had some tough times but, I know I always had my friends there with me.

.MOV Film Festival

P2T6 Malia Finds Courage from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

My keywords connect with my audience because, they can relate to it. Our keywords are inspire and courage, people can relate to them because, they know what it means and they at least have to have it happen to them. The first keyword is inspire. There are many different ways to be inspired by something or someone. For an example, I was inspired to do art when my brother started drawing. He is an amazing artist and I look up to him a lot. Our second keyword is courage. You know when your teacher tells your class is doing a project and you have to present? What about speaking in front of an audience for a talent show or for a campaign? All of these take courage. Sure you may get anxious and not want to go up but, courage keeps you going. You have to have courage in many things or else you may not succeed.

Our overall message for our movie trailer is kind of simple honestly. The movie trailer is about how a friend can help you through some tough times. It is called "Akasha Inspires Courage." It's about how Malia surfs and gets wiped out. She doesn't want to surf anymore but then she meets Akasha. Akasha is a horseback rider and she loves what she does no matter what happens. Since Malia doesn't want to surf anymore, Akasha talks to Malia and inflicts courage in Malia. The next day when Akasha and Malia go back out to the ocean again, Malia surfs well and she makes it. Akasha is proud that Malia will continue surfing and is proud she helped out one of her friends.

The biggest challenge we faced so far was filming. It was the biggest challenge because, our schedules are way different from one another. I am free almost everyday, Malia sometimes has practice at different times and, Akasha has soccer games and the arena is used on Tuesdays and Fridays. So, this made our filming pretty hard. When we finally found a day all of us were available, its was still pretty hard to film. The reason is because, we used a GoPro Hero to film our water scenes. This was hard for me since I had to film and I didn't have a board. We also couldn't see what the GoPro Hero was filming (I knew that) so I didn't know if I captured the right shots or not. 

Animated Life Lessons

P2T6 Reality Meets Animation from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

My teammates' personal traits are a leader, weird, fun, quiet, kind, shy. My personal traits are artistic, creative and, clumsy. All of these traits are very different from one another. Some how, we actually got to animating and got to exaggerate our character's traits. So in the beginning, Cody is planning to go for a walk and suddenly Jason and I walk up to Cody. Cody then asks if we wanted to join him. We agree but I ask where we are going to go because, if your gonna go for a walk wouldn't you have to know where? He suggests we go to the forest because, he heard about a new path there. Then, he goes the wrong way and I tell him it's the other way. Then when we find the portal and I fall in, Jason insists on going after me. Once all of us are in the portal, I'm creative by calling the new world we find the "Animation World" since all of us are basically animated. Then, we meet an all powerful computer that makes us do 3 trials. When all of us finish the 3 trials together, the computer sends us back the reality.

We used humor in our story by first making Cody accidentally go the wrong way to the forest. Second, being the clumsy person I am, I fall into the portal that appeared out of nowhere. Jason then tells Cody that they can't leave me in a magical portal in the woods because, obviously it's not right. In the end, I then have to pet a snake. I overreact but, Cody then convinces me to finally pet the snake. Our life lessons relate to people because, it tells us that friends are always important. No matter what happens you can always get another friend but, you can't always get another best friend.

I would say our level of productivity was pretty low. Since we haven't worked with each other before we were all really, really shy. We would only really chat with one another on the computer. The biggest challenge was probably talking to my teammates. Since we had to do a slide, we had to talk to each other to be able to actually do it. It was hard for us to do the slide since all of us were too shy to talk.We were the last team to present but, since we didn't talk to each other much we had to redo the presentation. You could probably guess that it didn't go well. The consequence of being the last team was less time to work on the actual animation. As I said before all of us were very shy. It was very difficult to wok together but at least we got some of the animation.  

Character Development

There are many different ways to define me. I am unique, funny and that person who you can talk to and trust. One reason why I say I'm unique is because, everyone is different. No one is perfect and no one is un-perfect, we are who we are. I say I'm funny because, I make a lot of my friends laugh whenever I can. They also tell me that I'm funny :D. You can also trust me for various things. Another way to define me is clumsy. I have a lot of imperfections, everyone does. Such as me tripping over almost everything xD. One relatable one is I can't fix my bed perfectly. In the morning when I have to fix my bed, I feel like the sheets are just too heavy to lift up and it feels like it's gonna take forever to fix it. Another relatable imperfection is brushing your hair. Sometimes my hair doesn't want to cooperate with me and just wants to stay down. When I try to brush my hair, sometimes the brush catches some of my bangs and it just  messes up everything about my hair. Same thing happens when I try to put my hair in a bun or ponytail. I think these imperfections are somewhat relatable :) 

I don't really plan to add much traits to my animation of myself honestly. I plan to add the main traits about me like how I'm very weird or how I'm funny. I could also be sociable and happy. I could do this and add all of these by simply the way my character acts. Maybe I can make myself talk a lot and, just that person who wants to talk and meet everyone. I could make myself very clumsy, like I am 24/7, and trip over a lot of things in the path. There are many traits about me and I could put all of those traits into my character. The only problem is, its might take a while to put all those traits into my character. 

The step-by-step process of creating my GIF is kind of confusing to me. First you have to crop it the correct way. If you don't and, it ends up being 640 in by 720 in when it's suppose to be pixels... Your PhotoShop might crash. So, your have to make sure you put pixels and not inches. To be honest, I don't really enjoy making a GIF animated character because, it's very hard and confusing. After you make it the right size, you have to start animating. Honestly, the animating part was actually pretty easy. The only hard and confusing parts about making my GIF was everything else, even putting in the background.  

Tiny Spherical Worlds

The point of composite images is to go beyond the limitations of a camera. For an example, the camera's viewfinder isn't able to take a picture of the scene in different angles at once. By taking more photos you could capture more of the scenery. As an example, taking multiple pictures can include more detail of the scenery itself.         

Polar and spherical panos are two different images. A polar pano image is almost like a snow globe. The image is basically turned inside out. For an example, the ground becomes the frame around the globe and, the sky and objects smashed inside the frame. A spherical pano is when a scenery becomes it's own miniature world. The ground becomes the world while the sky is surrounding it.   

The one thing that makes my tiny world convincing I the way I edited it. I made sure all the colors matched each other so it wouldn't look like a line was going through my world. Another thing that made it convincing is that I made hopefully everything even. For an example, I had to even out the shape of the water in my sphere world. 

     

             

Hockney Style Joiners

David Hockney's photomontages are different than mine because, he uses more photos to create his. His photomontages are also more what a photomontage would look like. Different angles to make a pretty cool image. Mines doesn't have that much angles of the camera put into it. For my photomontage, I didn't have that much angles to work with. Some of the pictures I took were straightened out. In other words, I took pictures of how you would normally take it. One other thing that is different is that he added more background than I did. 

It depends on what the image is. It can send positive messages if someone can relate to it. A image can send negative messages if someone thinks that the image is offensive. For an example, cyberbullying. Images that are posted about a person can send negative messages about the person. They can be offended and hurt. that's a negative message. If you post something good about them it can send positive messages.

The message I want the audience to see is, even a stuffed animal can be one of the most important things in your life. I have had my panda since 2005, I named her Lovie because, I felt like she loved everyone (I was only 1). When I was little I refused to go anywhere without her. When we went to the store, I had to leave her in the car because, apparently you can't bring a medium sized panda in Walmart >.<. Back to the message.. I don't think taking a picture of a stuffed panda as one of the most important things in your life is a childish thing. That stuffed animal could mean the whole WORLD to you. For an example my panda as you see above ^^^ I have had her since I was 1. I have had her for 11 years! I want people to see that even the little things can be the biggest thing you can ever care about.

2016 Aspirations

I have many goals I want to do but, I picked five of those many goals that I want to do. My first goal is, to get higher grades. My grades might be good but I always get at least two B's. I want my grades to reduce down to at least one B or all A's. My second goal is to, eat healthier and work out more. I used to be active a lot but then I turned into a couch potato. The third goal for me is to, clean my room more often. My fourth goal is to stop watching Tv for the whole weekend. I would literally tell my mom to get me snacks for my Walking Dead marathon. The last goal for me is to convince my mom to let me have a cat. I don't know why but they're just so cute and fluffy. I understand why my mom won't get me a cat though. It is because, we have two dogs and two birds.

My most important goal is probably to get higher grades. The reason why that is the most important is because, I want to be in a good college. I don't want to have bad grades. Mainly because, my parents get mad sometimes and i get grounded :/. I also want good  grades because, I feel accomplished whenever I get good grades. The last reason why is probably because, it makes my parents happy and they are very proud.

To make that goal a success, I will do better in my classes. In class, I sometimes don't get to finish my work and when I get home, I sometimes don't end up doing it. So, one of the ways to fix that is putting my homework some place where I will remember where it is. Another way to accomplish that goal is to pay attention more in class so I know what to do. I honestly don't know what else I should do to accomplish that goal si i'll end this writing session here :) Have a Great Day!!! :)

           

Scratch Game Design

This game is where two ghouls are chasing Nano. I made this game from the experience I had from playing so much games when I was younger. I started to play games when I was around 5 years old. My brother taught me how to play this one game on his Gameboy. I eventually got better at playing it and I grew up playing video games since. This chase game was based off of this one game when I was around 8. I had experience from playing that game and used for my own. I tried to make one ghoul chase Nano from the beginning then  the other one come out of the corner. This was based off of the game I played when I was younger. It was my favorite game so I thought I should base my game off of this one.

So my first game I made was a Chase game. It was pretty easy because, all I had to do was make the Nano move, respond to the Ghouls and deduct points if they came in contact. The Ghouls was pretty easy too, I basically just made them chase Nano and if the points reached 10 they would teleport to a specific place. The background fit the scene that was happening. Nano was being chased by Ghouls in a dark forest then, when 10 points came around it switched to a happy scene. My second game was a Platformer game. I have to admit it was kind of difficult because, trying to make the unicorn jump took a lot of code. The gravity engine to make the unicorn fall when it didn't touch the platforms was hard. The reason why is because, just taking out at least one block of code could ruin the whole concept of the game. I made that mistake by taking out the block "forever". So, the unicorn only jumped once. The background honestly didn't match what the scene was. A unicorn trying to obtain a blue orb in front of some bushes and a blue sky. Not that exciting. 

My most difficult code as probably the unicorn's code. The reason is because, I had to put a gravity engine, make my unicorn jump and, whenever I tried to make it change to level 2 it never worked. Whenever the unicorn got the first orb, it would switch to the next background then switch back. Another reason why my unicorn's code was probably the hardest because, since I put the gravity engine the unicorn would only touch the tip of the black with one hoof while the other one was not touching black. When I finally figured out what was going on, I fixed the problem. I thought it was funny because, I one forgot one code in the unicorn's code. It was still kind of glitchy but, at least I had something ^-^. 

Invention Commercial

P2T7_Invention from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

My team's main goal was to at least do some of our clips at school and the rest at my house (Miranda's House). The reason why is because, each day at least one of us can't come. This led to us not being able to film. Until we were able to film on a Wednesday. Well at least me and Akasha were able to film. Raja couldn't come to film because, she had gymnastics. There was some confusion too, Raja was able to come and sleepover my house. That sounds like a good thing but it wasn't. The reason why is because, Akasha couldn't sleep over while Raja could. Now heres the bad part. All of our shots included Raja in them but, some were with Akasha. Somehow we did it but we didn't have time to download it. By that I mean while the videos were loading my grandma exited them out. :( So, we didn't get any film for our video but at least we tried our best. :)

Our best team moment is probably when we were writing the script for InstaSmooth. I believe that was our best "team moment" because, it was the only part of our production when we never fought. What I mean by that is, when we were doing everything else in our film, we fought about what we thought. For an example, Akasha and I wanted to do one thing Raja didn't wanna do. Then the next problem is that when Raja and I wanted to do something or it was just me, none of us agreed with the other. Before that we had to write the script. When we were writing the script we had no problems at all. None of us disagreed with anything. We all agreed with each other and took turns on the script.By that I mean when Raja had to say something she would type what she would say and etc. Same thing with Akasha and me. We would also make each other laugh and it was hilarious.Long story short, I think our best team moment in our production was the script.

During our post-production, it was kind of ok I guess. The reason why I say that is because, we were arguing about who should do what and why. Once we finally worked it out, it was almost time to clean up. So, I put the title for our commercial InstaSmooth. I also did the transition for our title and then the transition for the next part. The reason why I did the transitions and the title was because, I was the only person who knew how to do that. While I did did that, Raja was in charge of what film goes first. We argued about that because, Raja was fooling around the whole time and we weren't sure if she knew how or not. So, after that long arguing "session" we finally agreed that Raja could do it. Akasha was in charge of the music and audio. She would put the audio into the film that best suited it and play it to see if it sounds right. The reason why Akasha got that job because we only went through more arguing. In my mind I was thinking, "Why are we arguing so much? We have everything we need its just that what each one of us wants to do is not the job we wanted." I was so confused so I just talked about our deadline and that we need to work together. Apparently that didn't  work. We ended up not finishing it but, luckily our teacher did some of the work so we at least had something. :)  

Composition Scavenger Hunt

P2T7_Composition_2015 from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

I think Leading Lines is the most important because, leading lines is difficult to do. For an example, a lot of people in my class chose lines that aren't from the photographers point of view. To make that last part easier to understand, basically the lines have to start from where the photographer is taking the shot. So, take a road for an example. The photographer takes a picture of the road. There would be leading lines in the picture because, the road got smaller in the distance. If you were to draw something at the end of the road, the road will show leading lines to the object you drew. My last reason why I think leading lines is the most important is because, a lot of us struggled to show leading lines in that form. For my team, I don't know if we did a good leading lines of what but, at least we did something for that subject :) .

I think the most difficult is probably forced foreground. It is the hardest because, you have to focus the camera on the object right in front of the camera. Sometimes the camera will focus on the object in the background. For an example, when someone forces and object to the camera, it will sometimes focus on the person. We can use forced foreground for other things too. In movies you can see forced foreground when someone in the background in talking to the person closer to the camera. The camera will first focus on the background then the object in front of the camera.

My teammates are Akasha and Raja. We had some problems at first but, we eventually got the hang of trying to film our shots. One of the ones we had to do was leading lines which you can see below. We also had some problems on reading the information about the composition. For leading lines we used a window cill for our leading lines. Akasha was in charge of transitions and music. Raja did the editing for our shots. She put them together and did the audio. I did the titles and our B-roll filming. I liked my teammates we all helped each other. 

Cracking the Code

I think everyone should learn to code because, coding counts as learning something. For an example, I played a coding game and learned how to code. I enjoyed it very much and would love to play more. My second reason why I think everyone should learn how to code is because, coding can also increase your computer skills. It can increase your knowledge on computers and can also teach you how to program. My last reason why I think everyone should learn how to code is because its fun. You get to drag and drop, type, or move the object. There can also be many other ways to code such as actually making a game.

The first time I coded was fun. At first I thought since it was lesson 1 it was going to be easy all the way but, I was wrong. After about lesson 12 or so, it got harder and I had to take my time to make sure I didn't miss anything or did anything wrong. I wasn't mad at the fact that it got harder. I was actually fine with it and I loved it. When I realized that it got harder for me I was kind of happy that it wasn't easy all the way. I had fun the first time I coded and I hope to do more in the future. :)

If I could design any game, I would make a game something similar to pac-man but with a twist. In stead of making the ghost chasing the pac-man, it would be the opposite. Instead of pac-man, there would be an animal hunting for prey. So, the ghosts would be turned into the prey for the animal. Then, you could control the animal and hunt for your prey! As you pass the levels, the prey will start to be come bigger and try to chase you. There will also be difficulties and levels and etc. That's the kind of game I would design.

                                   

  

Comedy Writing

Sense of humor is important because, without humor your audience could get bored and might not like your performance. Your audience also might give bad comments about the joke. For an example, they might say that the joke was boring, not funny, not humorous or even awkward. Humor is important because, humor makes your comedic monologue or your joke funny. Another reason why it is important is because, humor is the reason why a joke is a joke it's hilarious!

Tip one, you have to make sure your joke makes sense. It also has to relate to something that matches the joke. Tip two, your joke has to have HUMOR. You can see humor above :P Tip three! Make sure your joke is appropriate for your audience. You wouldn't want to be talking about anything offensive or inappropriate. Tip number four! In a joke, don't talk in the same voice the whole joke. For an example, a robot voice is the same voice. You can make your voice high or low and make it squeaky or weird. Last tip! Number five! Just have fun! In iMovie you can add transitions and sound effects. You could also edit your clips.

I think my comedic monologue is funny because, who doesn't do chores for money. Say you mom tells you she will give you $50 at the end of the week. When she gives you this so called $50 you dramatically flip out because it's only $49. Then you try and call your mom at work and she says that's all the money she has right now. You then flip out again and say "ok" and don't do chores anymore. That's basically what mines is about. I think it's funny because it happens to almost everyone who does chores.

My Humorous Monologue

DuarteM_Comedy from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

I have learned a lot on this project. I learned how to make a joke funny and, how to make people laugh. I have also learned A-roll and B-roll. Sure this project was easy but it had some hard parts in it too. I had to learn how to make a joke. A joke can be about anything you want it to be. I mad mines about chores and why I WANT to actually do them. I also learned how to time my joke. That part was hard because, you don't want to get your time wrong. I also had to make sure it was between 30 and 60 seconds. A-roll wasn't hard either. I just had to record me saying my monologue. All thats left to do is B-roll. I honestly don't know why I waited till' the last second to do this. Even after I got the camera, I waited till' 11:00 to do B-roll. When I finally uploaded my B-roll, I felt better about my grade. I learned to always do things on time!


Ok. Now that you know what I have learned and what I experienced, it's time to talk about what padding is and why it can be crucial. Padding can be crucial because, if you pad your clips too much there can be a big pause in your video. Padding can also make your clip have no noise and can cover your clip. If these are not the answers I'm sorry I couldn't find the meaning.


To be honest, I think I could do better with my movie. I could add sound effects and also transitions. There is a lot of things I could have done. There was also some strengths too. My clips were pretty good and my voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. Everybody had some strengths and weaknesses in their joke too. I thought my weaknesses was my shooting of the clips. Well to be honest I did wait till' 11:00 at night to do all of them. I should have asked someone to help me in the day. Well as long as I got the project done I should be fine. Thanks for reading my blog!

Motivational Poster

In Gifted and Talented or GT, we are working on a Motivational Poster. I had some challenges and, easy parts too. The first thing we had to do was make a text layer. The first text layer was my quotes. The second, my manifesto. After setting up the layers came the kinda fun part. Kerning. Now, kerning is to practically change the sizes, shapes and, font of the word or sentence. After that long period time of kerning I was finished I was very proud of myself. Once I finished, I needed to add my pictures. I was absent so I couldn't add color to my words or pictures. That was pretty much it :)


Now comes the hard part... telling you how I did it. The way I did my Motivational Poster was trying to do things the easiest way possible. But no. I followed everything I was suppose to do. It turned out amazing. First off, I made a Photoshop document under my name in the finder. After finishing that, I opened up my Photoshop document and made the first layer. My quotes. When I finally finished trying to figure out how to work the TYPE tool, I started typing my quotes. Then, I copied and pasted my manifesto into the document. All I needed to do next was kerning. Let me just tell you now, it took me a long time to kern. Plus I was absent and went home sick the same week. Well, after the kerning, I added pictures. My portrait and #gtsym 1,2 and,3. I had to then drag them into my Photoshop. Figure out how they would fit and BAM! The pictures was finally arranged good! After adding my pictures I, combined my pictures and my words and they.Were. AMAZING! I was really surprised by what I did, I'm not kidding. Let me just tell you this... BELIEVE AND YOU CAN ACHIEVE!


The biggest challenge was probably kerning. I thought that kerning was the biggest challenge because, you have to figure out how all of your words are going to fit on one page. You either had to make it bigger, smaller, wider, skinnier and so on. When I finished with kerning, I felt like something was missing. I needed to change the FONT. Once I've done all of that I was finished. (I missed two days of GT so basically I didn't add color to it.) That's it from me! For now... ;)