.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!

Scratch Game Design

Coding is very hard. Coding is very very hard. I have created a game from "Scratch" though, in "Scratch". Now I'm not saying my game is going to be the next Mario. I personally like my game even though it has a lot of bugs. I just couldn't figure out how to get the frogs to stop moving when the knight did. Not a lot of people played my game to give me feedback to improve. I tried to make it like a game where you had to chase a bunch of frogs running away, so that's why their movements are random. Their movements aren't random though. They move according to how you move the knight, but they don't all move the same way.

I definitely got better at coding the second time. I don't know everything there is to know about code, but I did get better. Now I actually know what most of the blocks do, achievement accomplished! I still have some bugs in my second game, like how you automatically lose sometimes when you start. I just figured out you can just press the flag twice though. I haven't yet figured out how to fix it, but I probably will... Eventually. Also, you might have noticed that after you lose all of the characters stop. Unlike my first game. I also have a preset timer in the first game, but a variable timer in the second. For those of you who have no clue of what I'm talking about here is a link to help you.

The best code I wrote was the crabs code in the second game. His code is all one giant block, with C Blocks inside of C Blocks inside of more code and more code. The last part of the code, with the purple and yellow blocks repeating, is my party room. You can get there by beating the bonus level of my game. How I made it was I had a lot of different backgrounds, that are filled with only one color, and switching them every 0.01 seconds. I still have some pretty big bugs I still need to fix, but I had a lot more than I had before. I overcame my most difficult bug fixes by asking the people around me. I mainly just viewed other peoples games in progress and if I saw something that I could incorporate in my game I asked them how they did it.

Invention Commercial

P1T4_Invention from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo

We finished our invention idea! In my opinion our main goal was just to make a great, funny commercial. I think we did pretty good, and in the end we got class best! Our entertainment factor was off the charts and everything else was good as well. When we first started our project we knew what we were going to do, but not how to make it. Also, we only had about one and a half weeks to complete this project, so we filmed it over the weekend. I was personally getting anxious when other teams were half way done with their filming in school and we hadn't started. In the end though we pulled through and won best in class by a landslide!

The best team moment we all had together was when preston came out of the closet. We had to film and film again that moment so many times just because we had kept laughing every time he came out of the closet. Now I am mentally scarred from that moment, because it was my closet he came out from! Even on the critique day some people went up to me and did the motion of opening a closet door. I would have to say it was the best moment filming so far for this class. We also added another moment where I asked Preston "but wait aren't ornaments only used on christmas?". Then Preston shoved my face away and said "Silly Boy".  We added a lot of funny things in our video, like when Preston was running away because technically he did sneak into my house.

During the editing stage of this project Raiden and I did the main editing, while Preston searched for a song. Editing wasn't too hard for us. It only took about two class periods for us to get this all done and exported. I thank the plan for that, without it we would have to figure out where everything went. I guess Mr. Sanderl was right, the plan actually does help you. Preston was searching up the song for the team because in our very beginning shot, which we didn't add in, Preston was singing the song that you can find in our video. At first we were thinking of just leaving Preston's "amazing" singing voice in, but then we found the actual song. There wasn't much to do after that other than place the clips into the right place and add some voice-overs if needed. Raiden and I placed the song as well, but it didn't take very long. We didn't use any sound effects from iMovie so it was easier on our part.

Composition Scavenger Hunt

P1T4_Composition_2015 from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

The more random votes the worse

Oh hi, didn't see you there! We are now in groups of three people and in my group are Preston and Raiden. We did a composition video about several different techniques. The composition techniques were Birds Eye, Ants Eye, Low Angle, High Angle, Flat Angle, Macro, Ground Level, Forced Foreground, Point of View and Eye Level. I think that the most important composition technique is leading lines, even though I didn't use it in my composition techniques video. I think leading lines are the most important composition technique because they lead you to the subject. We took a survey in class which showed us two images side by side and we had to state whether or not they had the technique or not. Without leading lines your eye would be taking in the whole picture without seeing what the artist really wants you to see.

The most difficult composition technique, in my opinion, is ants eye. I think that is the most difficult technique because it's just so hard to get that low on the ground to make it just low enough so it's not a low angle, and angled just right to not make it a ground angle. I think ants eye can be used more because it is an unusual angle. The film producers use unusual angle all the time because it keeps the audience's' attention.

My team was made up of Raiden, Preston and I. In our composition technique video we all did everything. For example you see everyone at least once in our video. You can hear all of our voices as well. Some people did more than others though, like how you saw me in most of the shots. Anyway, since we all did everything we all did editing. Preston did the main editing, getting all of the shots on the board, Raiden labeled the shots on which composition techniques were showing and I did the transitions. The project was pretty easy overall, it took us about 2-3 days to complete it and if you're a film maker out there you know that's nothing. Well, that's all for know folks!