Movie Poster Promo

For our next G.T. project, Mr. Sanderl instructed us to make our own movie trailer and poster. I was actually pretty excited to receive this project because it seemed pretty fun. My team consists of me, Ana, Kuumomi, and April, and we all agreed on my story for the movie trailer project, which at the same time, is honorable and terrifying. My poster shows all of the actors. (Except for a few exceptions)The characters are Calypso(Me), her father(Aedan), Artemis(Leila), Apollo(Rafael), Hera(Keegan), Hecate(Hannah), and Orion(Noa). But the poster only shows Calypso, her father, Artemis, and Apollo staring off into the sunset, which sounds pretty freaking majestic in my opinion.

My movie is called "Calypso's Journey". I called it this because... well basically a girl named Calypso needs to go on this journey to Rome from Greece. So I thought "Calypso's Journey" would be an appropriate title for this story. Another thing on my poster is the catchphrase which states: "Saving her family is harder than she thought" I chose to make this the catchphrase because Calypso goes through many tough challenges in my story that not just anyone would have an easy time going through them. One thing that I should explain is the definition of kerning and why we should even use it. Well kerning is basically is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font. I feel like we should use this because not only does it look a lot better, but it could make more room for other things I might want to put in there.

Now that I FINALLY finished my movie poster, I took the picture of me on the red brick wall, and put it in front of a picture of a forest. Of course, in order to actually make this possible I had to put some filters on it. I used a filter called film grain which made it look a bit more like a sketch and a lot more bright. I'm actually really proud on what I accomplished! Although, I could retrace my body a little better because some of the brick wall is showing up in the forest...  

  

My Not-Quite-Finished Movie Poster

My Finished Movie Poster

Book Art

For my seventh period class, Mrs. Sanderl gave us a project that required us to take large books, and fold their pages into making words out of them. The genius artist who thought about this idea was a man named Isaac Salazar. Isaac has been creating these for since October 2009, and still continues to make folded books. This form of art would be classified as visual literacy. Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning
from information presented in the form of an image. This art project is an example of visual literacy because your folding book pages to make actual words, and while your folding, you get to see some of the things that are on the pages which your folding.

I actually did not one book, but two books. My first word I decided to do was the word "Mind". I chose this word because first of all, I had to choose a 1-4 letter word, and second of all, I chose to do a word that had something to do with education, so why not the word "Mind"? I chose a video game font because for one, I love video games, and I thought a blocky font for "mind" would be an interesting challenge to fold. I chose to fold an encyclopedia because it was the only book large enough to fit the word "mind" with the font I chose. That word was about 375 pages (Not exact)The other word I chose was the name "Leo".  chose to fold the name "Leo" because I had just finished my favorite book series and Leo was my favorite character. That word was maybe about 250 pages? Once again, I'm not too sure about the exact page number it took me to fold. I chose a normal font for Leo. Nothing special because I didn't want to mess up Leo's name.

My Mind book turned out alright. The "I" was a little messed up, but it looks okay to me. The Leo book turned out better than I expected. The "E" was a little wavy though for some reason. If I had to choose a third word and do this again, I would probably choose the word "Art" to give to my grandmother who's an art teacher. And I would definitely do this again if I had the free time. I would probably end up going over the pages of my last two books and refold the messed up ones. For the Art book, I would probably do a book about...ART!    

Proactive or Procrastination?

*Sigh* Okay guys... I'm going to be honest with you. When the question, "Are you proactive or a procrastinator?" came up, I knew instantly what I was: I can be such a procrastinator it's not even funny. I even start off my day with a little procrastination: I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. I mean, at times I can definitely be proactive and get things done when they're supposed to be done, but that can be pretty rare. I procrastinate all the time...

Now when I am actually proactive, I work the hardest I can ever work. I can work through the night without sleeping, which I have done multiple times. But once I get all that I need to get done, I have so much free time that I know it was totally worth it. I would usually spend that free time doing useless things like play video games or watch the next episode of a series I'm watching. But the outcome is always this: The harder and longer I work, the more free time I get.

To get more of this beautiful free time, I definitely need to be more proactive. For me to do this, I suppose that I could NOT hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. In times that I feel like procrastinating, I think about the free time that is rewarded to get me motivated to do what I need to do. This would insure that I wake up early and get things done for once! But of course, I would make room for just a little procrastination ;).

 
 

My Visual Poem

Mr. Sanderl gave us a project that required us to think up a subject, make a poem about that subject, then film B-Roll relating to what our poem says. This was a solo project, so I was kind of worried that my poem wouldn't be as good as the professional students because I am, still in fact, a noob. Anyways, I did my poem about friends and family because those things are what make my life fun. I feel like my visuals for my poem matched fairly well with what I was saying. Except in one part, in which I had to film my family eating, but my parents didn't want to be filmed, so I just added in an unnecessary clip of me playing video games...

The mood that I was trying to set was supposed to be a kind of funny and friendly mood. I think that overall, I succeeded on trying to make that connection. For example in one clip, I filmed one of my close friends Raf with all of my friends's bags and made him walk through the pod, which resulted in him dropping all of our bags in the end for a funny ending for my clip. I also filmed my brother waving to me when I walked in. He had a funny smirk on his face so I had to put that into my visual poem.

In conclusion, I would say yes, I am pretty satisfied with my work. That one unnecessary clip of me playing video games makes me pretty mad that I couldn't get better B-Roll for that, but besides that, I think that I did a pretty good job, and I'm proud of myself.

Finished News Story

My story was about the construction of the new biomass plant in Koloa, Kauai. We did this because it was pretty interesting that Kauai is building an all new source of alternative energy for the island. The people who helped make this fantastic video was Maya, Leila, Cherish, and of course, me!

I thought this was pretty interesting because Kauai's solution to alternative energy was very smart. The idea of burning an invasive type of tree for energy is an interesting and great way for Kauai to get energy. Thanks to a man we interviewed in the video, Mario Scharf was able to make this possibility a reality.

We did run into a few predicaments on the way to making this video. One big problem we had was when it was the ending of the week and we had two interviews but all of the cameras were checked out. We all had our panic attacks until Maya saved us and was able to get a camera of her own. I think it would be safe to say that Maya saved us on that one!

Real World Report

So I was scrolling through some of the world news stories, when I came across a story that caught my attention: Australian 'terror suspect' killed in Melbourne. From what I read from the article, it seems that the man who was shot, who was under surveillance, was brandishing a flag of the Islamic State(IS) militant group. Supposedly, the two police officers that were in the incident were stabbed before they shot the man. Both of the officers have been taken to the hospital, one of which is reported in stable condition.


This story was interesting to me because someone who was under surveillance for claims of terrorism decided to act out and stab two officers while brandishing a flag of the Islamic State. It was also interesting because it made me wonder. Why would he act out like that if he knew he was being watched?


I'm telling you about this because it's a real tragedy that three people were either hurt of killed in this incident for a serious reason. I could see why most people don't care about it, or do but will forget about it later on today, but just take the time to think about these people's families. It's really sad and they deserve some of our empathy, even if it won't help whatsoever. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29331228

Lessons Learned

The most interesting thing about our Hiki NO project would have to be when we went to our first interview and our interviewee showed us around the plant. It was amazing to put on the hardhats, florescent vests, and safety glasses and to be right there in the action. There were some problems that we came across in our project too.

The biggest problem that I can recall is when we had two interviews to do on Saturday, and all the cameras and mic. packs were reserved for the weekend. At first, we all had a mini panic attack, but Maya came to the rescue by asking her dad if we could borrow his camera. I think I can speak for everyone on our team when I say Maya saved us on that one.

When we interviewed the top engineer, Mario, he gave us so much information to put in our project and we're very grateful for that. When we interviewed him, he not only had enough information for our project, but I learned so much more on our project when I thought I already knew quite a bit. 

Hiki No Behind the Scenes

Our first real group project in G.T. was making an interesting news story for Hiki NO news. So I got my friends Maya, Leila, and Cherish together and thought of a news story for Hiki NO. Our news story is about the biomass plant on Kauai near Koloa. It's going very well so far. I have a very strong feeling that we are going to do great on this already.

We have interviewed people and got some of our B-Roll finished. I feel like I can help me team by helping with the camera, or maybe my friends could help me out with editing because I'm new to filming and editing.  When the camera isn't rolling, my team could get to know the person we're interviewing a bit more and make aquatints with him. We could also be setting up the camera and looking for good B-Roll opportunities. My team actually trusted me with taking a camera and tripod home! I'm basically a professional *Flips Hair*

The first picture shows Maya, Leila, and I joking before our possible interviewee picked up the phone. The second photo was of the three of us at the biomass plant itself taking B-Roll. I had a lot of fun at the plant. We even got to put on gear like hardhats, safety glasses, and vests! The biomass workers should basically just hire us right there on the spot. *Flips Hair once again* 

The Experiment

A couple of days ago, our GT teacher, Mr. Sanderl decided to let us explore Photoshop and make our own creation. The catch was that he couldn't help out at all. I was excited and my imagination was flowing until I actually opened Photoshop and realized that I had no clue what I was doing. I have only been on Photoshop for literally five minutes before, and that was about a year ago.

My Photoshop picture contains a cat riding a unicorn that breathes fire and shoots lasers while coming out of a rainbow lightning storm. Your argument is irrelevant. There are majestic birds flying through the air and a self-drawn waterfall on a mountain. I also added fireworks and cloud bunnies. Along with the beauty of the picture, I added an inspirational message: Believe in Yourself. 

I decided I wanted to do something completely random yet beautiful. So why not get a picture of a bright blue sky and the sun and put... a cat riding a unicorn that shoots lasers and breaths fire? I loved the idea and decided to put my Photoshop skills to the test and create my most beautiful creation ever. I named it... Something Beautiful.

Back to School

So far, my favorite part of going back to school is either seeing my old friends, or meeting and getting to know my teachers and classes. Not only did I get to see some old friends from last year, but I also made some new friends. *cough* *cough* Ana and Jona *cough* *cough*. Anyways, I love all of my classes (except for one, but I'm not going to get into that. Let's keep things positive!)

G.T. is probably my favorite class, but I love all my classes, even though some of them can get kind of boring. *cough* *cough* Science and Social Studies. Although, I've already come across some challenges. The biggest challenge so far would have to be being in G.T.. All of the new technology is so new and big. I'm always afraid that I'll mess something up, but I'm trying my hardest to understand the technology, and before I even know it, I'm no longer a newbie. 

This year, I'm trying to be more successful by being more organized. Being more organized means I can be more aware on certain assignments that are due and know where all of my assignments are at all times. Overall, I've had a pretty good few days so far. Hopefully I'll be able to stay organized and accomplish some of the goals I have. Thank you, and that's all for today!