Music Video Finale

P1T4 Nice Guys from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Our newest project is music videos! On my team are Raiden, Tim, and Kynan. I like my team because it consists of my friends, who also turn out to be hard workers, so I think it will be a fun time. The storyline of our music video is guys believing that nice guys finish last, which is the title of the song we chose. However, in the end the guys turn into the "nice guys" and realizing it's not so bad. Our storyline relates to our lyrics because the song starts off by saying nice guys finish last, which is how our minds think in the beginning, but as it nears toward the end of the song it starts to talk about how the girls want nice guys, so in our story we turn into nicer people.

My favorite fast edit montage sequence is the sequence in the very beginning, where Raiden follows the script and bullies Loren, who plays Raiden's girlfriend. The reason I like this is because I think it was well executed in having a different variety of visual effects that match the theme of the shot. For instance, you wouldn't put an upbeat light colored filter on a sad shot, and you wouldn't put a sad looking blue color on a happy shot. I also think the timing is good because it matches the lyrics sung in the song. I have to say a big thanks to Raiden for that though, because he did all of the editing. Literally all of it, while Tim, Kynan, and I were working on our music video poster.

This music video showcases my best work because we put in different varieties of shots and lots of effects. I also think we did a good job acting and syncing up the lip syncs with our song. We also used a bunch of different composition techniques. It also shows our photoshop and editing skills. I think we did a good job on the poster because it shows we have an understanding of visual effects and the quick selection tool.

Animated Life Lessons

P1T9 Student Enter Game from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

For our new project we are doing animation. My teammates are Arianna and Raghav. We are doing an animation about students entering the internet, or entering a game they created. The goal is to try to escape while their other friend doesn't know it's them playing the game. Raghav is the friend playing the game and Arianna and I are the ones in the game. The personal character trait I feel we are most exaggerating in this animation is procrastination. The character traits Arianna has, and the ones we will be exaggerating, is her leadership and her attempt to work hard.

This time around I don't think we were really aiming for humor. Although we did add some funny parts. For example, I tried to keep the theme of Raghav crying. In the story he was supposed to feel left out and sad, so I thought 'what shows sadness? Crying!' We also tried to make it funny by using expressions in our voices. Like, Raghav at the very end said "What the heck that was actually you guys?" Except his voice sounded almost expressionless.


Considering we have never worked together I would say we did…Okay. Our level of productivity was not very good. We were the last ones to get our script approved, but we still needed to make adjustments. We also cut it pretty close to the wire, by finishing our scenes on the day our project was due. One of our teammates was out during the two days we had to animate. Overall it was a lot of stress. Although the best moment we had would be when we finished it and we could sit back, relax and submit it. Sorry I don't have any behind the scenes pics, I was more focused on turning in the project, after all a 3/4 on my blog is better than a 0/4 for our animation.

Character Development

For our new project we have to animate ourselves in a GIF. To do this we have to exaggerate some personal traits we have and what type of person we are. For example if you are usually a loud person you can exaggerate that by making yourself a lot louder than everyone else. Personally I think I'm a type a person that follows the crowd. I usually don't go off on my own, I always try to work with people I know. I am also a quiet person, which means I usually don't talk to other people other than my friends. Since becoming a teenager I have also found I am a genuinely lazy person. I have become a pretty big procrastinator, but I'm trying to get out of that habit.

The character traits I plan to exaggerate in my animation are my laziness and my quietness. I'm going to exaggerate my laziness by showing myself on a couch. I am going to exaggerate my quietness by showing myself walking through a hallway and making no noise. Although I won't be making any noise the hallway around me is going to make lots of noise. For example, If I open a door the hinges are going to squeak louder than they usually do. To do this I will make foley of a door opening, then raise the volume bar in iMovie. I know this is the same paragraph where I said what I would do for my animation, but apparently I didn't get to it. Just a showcase of my laziness... No just kidding. I actually didn't get to it, I didn't have enough time. Sorry!

They way we made our .GIF's are by first taking pictures of ourselves from the front, back and side (we didn't take the pictures though, our teacher did). Then we used photoshop to quick select our bodies and cut it out from the background. Next, we took our bodies that we cut out and put it into one photoshop layer and put it into animation mode. Once we have our bodies moving through the screen we can use the puppet warp tool which allows you to move any part of a picture that you want. Animating is a very annoying and slow process, since you have to go frame by frame, so I don't like it very much.

.MOV Film Festival

P1T4 People Stereotype Hawaii from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

In our new G.T project we are creating either sitcoms, movie trailers or animations. I chose to do a sitcom with my team Kynan, Raiden and Tim. Our animation is about a group of friends stereotyping Hawaii. Our keywords, which are the words we based our story around, are Hawaii, Stereotype, Local and Friends. I feel the keywords connect with my audience because everyone knows what a stereotype is or knows of a stereotype. Our overall message is not to be mean to your friends or your friends culture. The culture we are stereotyping is the Hawaiian culture, not saying it's okay to do that. Oh yeah, and none of the jokes are true about Hawaii. Yes Hawaii has all the things we said, but Hawaiians are civilized people.

Our overall message is to not make fun of peoples cultures. Sometimes you may not even know what you're talking about. In our film we have Kynan, or Kawika, rage at our jokes because they weren't true. This connects with our audience because sometimes we hear things that may not necessarily be true. Yes, it's ok to make fun of it, well maybe sometimes it's not okay, but you still need to honor their culture, or whatever you're making fun of, with knowing that it is a lie.

The biggest problem my team faced was probably that our team had different opinions on how to do things. For example we had different opinions on the script and how to resolve it. Another challenge we faced would be getting distracted as well. Since we had a PS4, no brand loyalty Xbox1 is good as well, we got distracted very easily. Especially because we had to be playing video games in the video. Anyway, thanks to Raiden because he basically played team leader and told us to get working when we were just being no life people.

Tiny Spherical Worlds

The point of composite images are to make a different unique picture, that is more interesting and captivates you more. For example would you rather try many different slices of pizza to try, or just one big pizza pie? Okay, maybe some of you would stick with the same pizza, but what I'm trying to say is that diversity is good. Multiple images gives you more to look at and if you have lots of great images, then you have a great piece of artwork. It doesn't always work that way, but for the style of art I'm making it works way better to have lots of images.

The difference between polar and spherical panoramas is the way they look. The spherical panoramas are the ones with the sky on the inside of the tiny world, and the polar panoramas are the ones with the sky on the outside of the world. I've had very many struggles on remembering which is which. Whether the polar panoramas are the images with the sky inside, or the spherical panoramas are the ones with the sky on the inside. I had a moment in class where I completely brain farted and made two polar panoramas to turn in instead of a polar panorama and a spherical panorama. Another difference is how they were made. The spherical panoramas were made by flipping the image upside down.

My finished tiny worlds are very convincing. I feel that way at least. I have done the best job I could playing doctor and making the seams go away in my tiny worlds. What makes them convincing is the overlap that I took in order for them to work perfectly in photoshop. Instead of the 20% overlap that was recommended I did around a 50% overlap. So, my worlds might be a little smaller, but they're more realistic. I also tried very hard to get sky and horizon lines in my pictures. I sometimes forget and the panoramas sometimes come out with trees extending into space. I also think I did a good job keeping my hand steady, for the most part, so you don't see gaps of the floor missing.

Hockney Style Joiners

David Hockney's photomontages are different than my photomontages because to me, his photomontages look a little cartoonish. What I mean by "cartoonish" is that they don't have a real looking quality. If you look at them most look over saturated and the colors look unnatural. You might have a different opinion, but to me his colors look like he edited it to look like computer generated colors. I created my photomontages with the intention to look real, but still have enough color to pop out at you. Look at my photomontages and comment down bellow to give me feedback on my work!

Some images can send positive and negative messages to the person looking at the art or a picture, and they wouldn't even know it. There are some colors that just make you feel good, bad, happy, ecstatic and so on. For instance, what do you think when you see black. Do you see evil? Death? Comfort? Try that with all of the colors you can think of like green. Usually, green, you associate with good. For me white is associated with clean and neat. You can also use symbols to make people feel things. Look at some photos on the internet, see if you can find a symbol.

In my final photomontage I took a picture of pine trees. The message I wanted you guys to see in my photomontage is that I do well in groups. I am also sharp, or smart, and that's why they're pine trees. The last thing I wanted you to see was, I am tough on the inside or I have a strong will. I edited the pine trees to make the colors pop out at you even more, because in the original picture it looked a little dull. I changed the saturation to make the blue look bluer, (is that a word?) and the green greener. I don't like the look at the bottom of the trees though, for me it's too colorful and the colors just look too random. That's me though, I'm a colorful person.

2016 Aspirations

It's 2016 and I have some goals I would like to share with you! The first goal is to get a 4.0 Grade Point Average (GPA) in school. I would also like to try to be more social in 2016. For those of you who know me, yes I might seem social but, with people I don't know I hardly say a word to. My third goal is to eat healthier. Yeah, I know, it's cliche but I eat a lot of junk food. My fourth goal is to go on the computer less, because it ruins your eyesight if you stay on it too long. Finally, I want to try to be less of a procrastinator. Literally I procrastinate at almost everything. Sometimes I even procrastinate at procrastinating... If that makes sense.

The most important goal to me is the second goal. I want to be more social because it seems life an important life skill. If you're not social then I don't think you will get very far in life. What I mean by that is you'll never get that big breakthrough that's always in movies. You know, the one that you're at a special event and someone of importance comes and introduces themselves to you, and you rise to fame. Then again in movies it all comes crashing down afterward. I think that's just in movies though. I think you would probably keep your fame and glory in real life. Maybe.  Hey, I'm just a kid so I don't know.

The steps I will take to ensure success is first, to get out more. Even the little things like going out to run errands with parents. Next, I will try to keep a small talk going. I have a tendency to shy away from conversations. Third step, I want to start some conversations. Do you remember when you were a kid and your parent used to start random conversations with strangers in line with both of you, and you used to ask "Who was that"? I want to be that adult to be nice to people and start small talk. Lastly, I want to actually do things! Instead of sitting at home in my pajamas all day watching television I can get a hobby. Like taking pictures or even sports!