Invention Commercial

P1T9_Invention from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Hey guys!! It's me again and we're working on another project and this assignment has to do with inventions!! Our project for GT was to create a commercial that represents an invention that my team and I had thought of. Our invention idea was Track- Attack; here's a little rundown of what our invention does. The track- Attack is an app that hooks up and connects to little tracking devices that you attach to everything you'd usually lose. After you've hooked up the little devices to your object you set up all of the settings to your preferences and you're ready to use the TRACK-ATTACK!! When you lose your object just go to the Track-Attack app and it'll tell you exactly where your object is. My team consisted of two people Lani and Asha to whom I know very well. My team's main goals in this assignment was to finish off strong with the best effort we could possibly put into the commercial and to edit our hardest by working with each other and communicating our own ideas so that the commercial turns out better than it would've been with just one person's ideas. To accomplish these goals we worked together, put in our own ideas, edited continuously while listening to each others opinions, etc. Personally, I think we accomplished each and every one of our main goals because our commercial video turned out pretty good.

While this project was very successful there were also a lot of complications that we had with each other and each one of our ideas, but thankfully we communicated and didn't give up and solved most of the situations.We had a lot of spectacular moments working as a team. To be honest I think the best "team moment" was when we actually went out and filmed all of the b-roll shots and footage to import into our video because it was just really fun coming up with different ideas; for me acting was pretty cool just because it was interesting to come up with a scene and use my professional acting skills and create something amazing. The effort that my team andI put into this project really shows the determination we have when it comes to work. I just think that the filming part of the project was really fun and exciting just because I got to work with my teammates and especially because I got to climb into a dryer; actually that really hurt and was very difficult.


During the post-production editing we each had a job and tried our best to accomplish the job we were assigned. The jobs we were assigned were because we had the best profession at it. Lani's job for this production was to do most of the filming of me acting out the different shots we needed for the video. She also edited most parts of the film while it was in imovie and she supplied the setting for the video to take place in. We decided that Lani should do the most editing because she was more experienced with editing and the imovie tools. Asha did a very good job at recording my voice overs and also helping Lani out with editing the commercial she also helped come up with excellent ideas for our plan. My job was to of course act. I think I did pretty well at that. Then I recorded voice overs that would be placed over the Audio roll above the B-roll. Finally I helped Lani edit the entire commercial as well as Asha and that's basically the jobs we had.

Composition Scavenger Hunt

Hey guys!! It's me again and guess what.... we have a new project! COMPOSITION TECHNIQUES! Well I'll continue to write and hopefully you will continue to read. To me I think that all of the composition techniques are very important in their own way, but if I had to choose just one it would probably be Rule of Thirds.  First of all, if you don't know what Rule of thirds is than here ya go because i'm going to explain it for you. Rule of Thirds is basically a grid on your camera and there are three lines intersecting with each other from a horizontal and vertical way. What you do in those lines is, for rule of thirds (subject), you place the subject's eyes in one of the intersecting line. For rule of thirds (scenery) you fill one third of the grid with either sky or land and so the other 2 thirds are filled with the opposing scenery. Basically that's what rule of thirds is and now here's why I think  that this composition technique is the most important one out of all of them. I think that this composition technique would be more useful than any other composition technique because you can use it in multiple ways and for different imagery. For example, Rule of Thirds is usually used when shooting an interview, you place the subject in the rule of thirds. You can also use Rule of Thirds for scenery which really adds interest in the video or image.

During this project there were a lot of difficulties within the composition techniques and I think the most difficult one is high angle. I just think that if you were to shoot something that involved the composition technique, high angle, you'd have to go through the struggle of finding something to stand on or place the camera on so that you're above the subject, but not to high that it's not even high angle anymore, but it's actually a birds eye camera angle. Trying to find a spot to place the camera and the difficulties of operating the camera as it's in that weird position is just too much to handle when you can just ease the struggle and find a different composition technique to use in your video. You can use this technique more in when you're trying to go above and beyond and you're just trying to find that one spectacular shot, but eve though it's a little struggle if you use it correctly it could enhance your video by a lot. In my opinion I just think that high angle would be the most difficult to use, but you could use it more to enhance you video.

My teammates are probably the most incredible teammates you could ever have. We play around a lot with each other, but we also work really well as a team just because we all have different personalities that combine together really well; my teammates are Luscious Lani and Amazing Asha. If I had to describe Lani in three words they would probably be krazy, I used k instead of c because she's that krazy, i'd also use the words adventurous and goofy.  I chose these words because Lani represents all of them she is definitely krazy because she can just go and do something extraordinary like if we're playing D.A.R.E and I give her a really stupid one she'll actually go for it. She's determined because if she has her mind set to something and wants it done than she'll go the extra mile to accomplish her task, but also putting her 100% effort into it. Finally, she's goofy because she cracks me up and I die laughing when i;m with her and that's everyday so I basically laugh everyday. Asha is hilarious, a good friend, and very daring. She can do a lot of stuff if she  is ready to do it and she just makes me laugh. What Lani did in this project is she was the subject in some of the shots and she read some of what the composition techniques were and she also put the clips together in imovie. Asha was the subject in some parts f the video, she read some meanings of the composition techniques, and she adjusted the time and audio levels in imovie. Finally, I was the camera operator and I recorded the subject, I was in like one shot of the video, and I added the text layovers on the composition techniques in imovie.

Cracking the Code

Hey guys!! It's me again and I have a brand new project in GT that the entire class will be working on. I'm pretty sure that most of you have had some experience or at least know a little bit about the project and if you don't than stay tuned because i'll be explaining my thoughts and my opinions on wait for it........Coding!! Yes I know, coding, it's pretty important, but not a lot of people have interest in it because they think it's boring or unnecessary to have. Well I think that if we didn't have coding we wouldn't have most of the technology we have right now. For example, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Without coding these websites and many more wouldn't be able to be seen. I think that people should be learning code because first of all it would be a great experience because you'd have an idea of what it takes to create and come up with electronics. Coding can help you better understand the process of what and how your electronics read the coding put into its system.  I am actually very excited to learn the ways of coding and I hope that you stick around to see the finished project.

I've actually used coding before , but it wasn't an entire project to work on it was just a little activity that my teacher made the class do because she thought it would be a good experience. My first experience using code was in 6th grade in my English class surprisingly, but i'm not totally sure of why we were working with code. Anyways I was in 6th grade when I first came face to face or should I say face to screen with coding. We used the same coding website where it created coding activities and you had to figure out how to solve the problem or situation. Over the two years i've done that they've created many new activities like frozen and angry birds. Back then we used halloween types of characters because of course it was in the time of halloween. As I used that website I sort've got the understanding of how coding works, but of course those were just the minor steps in coding and not the advanced stuff because the characters and actions were already set up for us we just had to put them in order which isn't that hard not that I look at it. Well, yeah that was the first time I used coding. I hope this time while i'm using coding I'll become more advanced than I was two years ago and I can achieve higher levels of work.

If I could create a game it would have to consist of watermelons, trampolines, and of course an Australian Shepherd. Basically in this game you get to pick either a female or male character and you can design the character any way you'd want to; there would be hair styles, makeup, facial hair styles, and of course clothing. Once you're done customizing your character you'd be ready to PLAY!! The main object of the game is that you get a pair of Australian shepherd puppies and you take care of them until you reach the set goal which is at 15,000 points. Once you've hit that score you move on to the next level and in this game there are 5 levels. Anyway after you've hit that level you go on to the next level which include trampolines and WATERMELONS!! You keep leveling up and when you hit level 5 which is the hardest level of all. This is what I would love for my game design to be of

My Humorous Monologue

Hey guys! It's Talia again and here's a continuation of our current project in GT, a Comedic Monologue. In my last two post I wrote a couple things about the project that we're working on in GT. Here's some thought that I had and what I personally though of this project. Well anyways I hope you enjoy this blog post and continue to follow me through out my last year as a middle schooler. From this project I have learned how to write an excellent narrative and come up with most fascinating shots of B-roll, and I now know how to engage with my viewer a little better. To find out how to write out a good narrative my teacher, Mr. Sanderl, had the entire GT class research and look up jokes, phrases, how to videos, etc. And he just had us do a lot of researching and observing on how those people wrote their narratives and jokes. As we came up with the requirements yesterday I realized that I should probably reshoot some things because they could've been a little more interesting and have a little more effort put into them. For instance, one shot of mine was very boring and it didn't really view as interesting, so I checked out a camera and reshot that specific clip and some other clips as well.

PAD! It's very important when shooting video especially when the video has a voice in it. First of all I think I'll tell you what pad actually is before I start explaining some details about it. Pad is when you record video more likely with voice and you record about five seconds of dead silence before the actual voice or action starts to happen, so that when you're in your video editor program you'll have some space in that clip to make adjustments and cut out some unnecessary things. Pad can make your audio sound amazing or it can make it sound kind of bad it just depends on how you edit the pad in to making it pretty good. In my humorous monologue I attempted to use pad and succeeded at most of them so that my audio sounded excellent. When I used pad it made my audio for my monologue flow together since they were all the same audio levels.

During this project I had a lot of strengths, but I also had some weaknesses. Some strengths I had were that I had great imagery and very nice clips of a beautiful background which was the beach. I really liked how my clips turned out and I thought that they made the story look real instead of having the setting in my room with a fake background. A weakness I had was that I didn't have a mic pack, but I mean neither did anyone else except those who really needed it. My audio was ok, but I could've improved on it. Something I can improve on is my composition techniques I didn't really shoot a lot of interesting angles or have much composition techniques which would have made my video way better.

Comedy Writing

Hey guys!! It's Talia and here's another blog for you guys:)) Well our current project for GT is a pretty fun one and it has to deal with humor and comedy. I think that you guys will be very excited for this project because obviously it's going to make you laugh and your going to be amused by my amazing humor; well enough about me now about the actual project. Sense of humor is a very important character trait because it symbolizes what your like and your personality. Just the way you tell the joke and the type of joke can say so much about you like if it's simple it can mean many things like your simple and you aren't to complex to deal with and many other things. With out a sense of humor you'd just take everything seriously and wouldn't laugh at anything; that is a major problem because to have a successful, happy, and healthy life you need to smile or laugh or else you'll just be gloomy and down every day. If you ain't got no sense of humor than you ain't got no life. Sorry I just had to put that because come on it can crack you up.

This project consist of us writing a humorous narrative that's pretty much the base of the entire project because in order to film we need to have something to film off of which would be the humorous narrative. Here are some tips that you can use to create an excellent narrative that is quite funny to your audience. The first thing to do when writing a narrative is finding something to write about, so the first tip is going to be about how you can find what to write about. The first tip is that you should probably write about something that your audience can relate to like if there middle schoolers or any type of people with homework than you can do that. Another tip is that you should probably make your words very descriptive and detailed because you want your listener to actually visualize what you're saying so that they have an idea and react to your joke or funny saying. Tip 3 is that you can always switch up your wording to make it funnier or whatever. Here's tip 4 make your joke clear and understandable don't have one part that talks about  a fish and another part talks about a dog unless those two objects have a relationship with each other in the monologue or joke. Number 5 is Just have fun with writing your narrative because either way if someone doesn't like the narrative you can always say that at least one person liked it even though that one person might be you.

My comedic monologue is about my entire family and how one day just a couple weeks ago we went to the beach right next to this really fancy and nice restaurant. Anyways we jumped in and cooled off from a pretty intense day. My dad and mom along with me decided to get out and just cool off. My dad had just gotten a new hammock like a week before and this was going to be the first time we were using it. Anyways my dad and I decided to sit on his brand new hammock I asked him to pass me my gatorade, but he disagreed with me and told me to get up and grab it myself. We argued for a couple of minutes, but I then realized that I was being stubborn too and just got up and grabbed it myself, but before I could walk over to get my gatorade I hear a huge CRASH! I turned my head and see my dad on the ground with his hammock on top of him. I think that my narrative was funny because just the fact that my dad had a hammock on his head cracked me up. I think thatr since he fell over on something, but also not getting hurt was pretty funny because it usually is pretty funny when people fall down and other things.

Music Videos Rock!

P5T6 Single Ladies from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Hey guys!! It's me again and I hope that all of you guys have or had an amazing day:)) Are current project for GT that we are working on are MUSIC VIDEOS!! Hope you enjoy reading this weeks blog post and stay tuned for next weeks blog post. My team contributed really well. Lani and Asha were excellent when it came to the music video they both helped out a lot. For example, Lani had the MPD (Music Playback Device). Asha helped me with the production plan she came up with some pretty interesting things and she also helped with shooting asome shots when we were recording the clips. She even helped out when she was in the shot. Lani helped put a lot too, she did most of the editing and she got some incredible shots when we shot video. Without Lani and Asha, I probably wouldn't have been able to shoot a music video better yet edit it all by myself. I would suck and it would be terrible. I mean, I would have put a lot of effort in and tried at least, but it still wouldn't have been as a good as all of us working together.

 I think the audience will enjoy the beginning of the music video because it's the best part of the video, it's where we're all synced to the music and it has the best shots which are wide, medium, and close. All of the shots we used for the beginning are extremely interesting and we were kind of brave to do some shots like the close up on our mouths for the lip-sync. Most of our shots in the entire music video are pretty synced and all match together, but some parts are unfocused a little which kind of makes our music video a little bad at times. Even though some of our shots are unfocused it's not the whole video that is blurry, so it doesn't really affect the entire music video. I think the audience will also like the parts of the music video where Asha is remembering how it used to be with her old "guy friend" because it just matches with the story we're trying to get out there.

Our Music Video shows what we learned this year because we as a team decided to add a band poster at the end of the video and we did some other incredible things with the video:)) Some things we used were composition techniques; we used some really Kool unusual angles (I used a K instead of C because it's prettier:!!).We also used a lot of special effects which are really Kool because they make us look a lot more weird and pretty fantabulous... If you know what I mean:))All of the special effects that we used were super helpful they created a version of us that was surreal and creative which really made our shots interesting!! That's the end of this blog post and guess what, pretty soon it's going to be the end of school and I won't be a seventh grader anymore:))!! I'm so so so happy well I hope to keep up with you guys during the summer because this is my last school blog post!! BYE!!

Motivational Poster

Hey guys!! Today i'll be writing about what i'm currently working on in GT which is, a Motivational Poster as you can see, it is the title for this blog. Well anyways I hope you enjoy this post and the rest of my story will be below!!ENJOY!!

If you're wondering what the requirements are for this motivational poster is you're in luck because i'll be explaining what they are right now! For this poster there will be a total of 4 images in the motivational poster one portrait of yourself and 3 symbolic images of what represents you I chose a small little plant because in the world Im just a small part of it, but i’ll go a long way and grow as I get older; I’ll achieve many of my goals and become what i’ve always wanted to be just like a plant i'll get stronger in the future and like the plant's many leaves I as well have many talents. My second image is my soccer cleats because they're so dependable for me and i'm dependable when it comes to someone needing my help. They're bright and have sharp cleats like I have a sharp mind. My final symbolic image is the sun. I think that the sun represents me because I need people in my life. The people who I care most about are like the ocean I reflect on them and they shine right back onto me and I need them because without them I'd have no purpose in life. In the motivational poster you also need a total of 2 text layers, one is going to be a your personal quotes and the other o-manifesto. Those are the layer requirements now for the design requirements. All of your text should be Kerned to fill up the entire page with absolutely no blank space All text should be KERNED to fit across the entire page with no holes or blank spaces. We need a triadic color scheme which consist of 1 dominant color and 2 accent colors. There should also be your Text layer blending options which are drop shadow, stroke, outer glow, and bevel & emboss. Finally there should be adjustment layers over the images.

 The first thing I did when creating the motivational poster is I wrote down some personal quotes that I live by and hope to accomplish by the end of the year. Then, I opened PhotoShop and added the personal quotes in there and personalized them to fit the entire page and I just played around with the fonts, text size, and the width of the spacing. Next, I added my manifesto in there and did the same thing that I did with my personal quotes. Then, I took 3 symbolic images and added them to the PhotoShop document that I was working on. Speaking of images I also had Kyler my photographer take a portrait picture that I approved on and added that to PhotoShop. Finally, I worked hard and just edited the layers to make it appealing to my eye; I did that by adjusting the text the images and some other things that I thought looked excellent I followed all of the requirements and made sure that my piece of work looked like the best work I could do. I am actually very proud of my work

 This project was a struggle at some points, but I managed to get though those difficulties and finish with a strong meaningful piece of work. The probably most struggle I had was when I had t choose the colors for my triadic color scheme and probably when I had to arrange the text and images to fit perfectly with each other. It was pretty difficult because some images were bigger than others and I also had to find what fonts I wanted to put over my actual text, that was a struggle too, but I think the most struggle I had was KERNING!!! I just could not figure out how to kern the text so that it would fit perfectly in the photoShop document, but I just kept playing with the adjustment tools so that it would actually fit and guess what it worked and the text fit perfectly. I also wouldn't have done it with out Mr. Sanderl's tutorials on how to Kern, butI also used prior knowledge from last year .