Music Videos Rock!

Wow! Our last project this year :( To end our school year with some extra fun, all G.T. classes made MUSIC VIDEOS! Making this was a blast and was the most memorable project for me this year, my teammates and I really grew closer and bonded. I am so thankful for the members in my group (Brooke, Lilio, Noa) and how much everyone contributed. Forst off, I think that we all had an equal amount of  spotlight time throughout the video as well as lip-syncs. In addition, we all planned, filmed, and edited together.

 Above is an imgae of me editing as well as Noa being a spectator

 

 I think that the part the audience will enjoy the most is probably the humorous parts of the video. I feel this way because, our audience is middle schoolers and they usually value humor over anything else. Throughout our video, most of the humor is portrayed when Noa tries to sneak in and disturb us girls trying to have fun. In our music video, we also included bloopers which also added a lot of humor into it as well. (It showed some behind the scenes of frustration, laughs, and some real friendship)

 

Here is a picture of Noa, Brooke, and I editing and making sure everything is all good

 

As I said before, our music video is our final project this year, therefore, we had to try our best to showcase everything we've learned over this school year. This is my second year in the G.T. program and this is a way to create a high quality video as well as to just have fun making our last project at Kapa'a Middle School. To make this video great, we all had to edit very precisely because we had to make sure each and every lip-sync and dance matched with the audio. Also, we used many effects and also tried to incoorperate some interesting and creative shots/anlges to add to our video. This has been such a great last year at KMS, thank you Mr.Sanderl for all you have done for me!

Lyrical Livelihood

Our final project for Mr. Sanderls G.T. class, is to produce a music video. I am saddened at the thought that this is going to be my last G.T. project, here at Kapa'a Middle School. But, anyways when I think about music and a song with special/meaningful lyrics I become overwhelmed with joy. Although most songs I listen to make me laugh, dance, and smile, some of my favorite songs make me a little sad due to it's very meanigful words.

After contemplating for some time, my teammates (Brooke, Lilio, Noa) and I, decided to incorporate two songs in our music video. We first start off with a song called, "Watch Me," by Silento which is a fun and catchy song. Then once the audience is in the groove, we plan on putting a sound effect of a scratched record and the next song, "Girls Just Want To Have Fun," by Cyndi Lauper, will begin to play. We chose this song because it is super catchy, we could make a story out of the meaningful lyrics, and hey, it's true... girls just want to have fun! Pretty much all great music videos have a story to it and it's very important that the story is also entertaining to the audience. Now having our song chosen, it was time for us to come up with that entertainging story.



Above is a portion of our music video production plan 

My teamates and I decided that since our team is made up of three girls and one boy, we should show us girls having fun in different places and have Noa try to come in and have fun with us... but we won't let that happen! For example, Brooke, Lilio, and I will be dancing and Noa tries to come in and do the same, but all of us will push him away. Another example is, in the beginning we will show Noa dancing to his jam, "Watch Me," when all of a sudden the music changes and it goes to our song's audio and shows us girls. So throughout the song we will be displaying things such as the first example.

Our Animation Story

For our animation project, our focus statement is Keegan Bakes Perfection. We chose those words to represent our story because our main focus is how Keegan's doubt is stopping her from accomplishing things, like baking for example. In our story, Keegan wants to be a good friend and bake cupcakes for her friend's birthday party, but she quickly comes face to face with failure. But with practice, patience, and perseverance Keegan overcomes the challenge, and successfully finishes the task.  The cupcakes are meant to represent people's lives, as in we need to make mistakes in order to accomplish great things and power through and defeat any other challenges that lie ahead of us.

Above is a picture of April editing some images

The lesson our audience will learn from our story is that failure isn't always a bad thing... failure can have absolute great outcomes sometimes. But success will only come if you are patient, positive, and persevere through the challenge. We show this lesson by showing Keegan having trouble and doubtfulness in her abilities to be successful. Instead of giving up, she decides to try one last time and overcomes the challenge.

Here's Keegan animating a scene

Over-all, I think my teammates and I worked great together! One of our best moments (I believe) was when we were taking photos for a scene where Haley is overwhelmed with joy that Keegan baked cupcakes for her birthday. For this scene, Haley was to kind of jump on or push over Keegan in excitement. Another funny and good time was when Haley and Keegan were filming a voice-over, and made the funniest sounds! One of our worst times was probably when we had to turn in our two scene teaser. As in, we had a difficult time meeting the minimum time requirement and did not include voice-overs. But we soon got to work and completed all that was required. 

The making of our last scene

Animation Outtakes

In GT, we are currently working on creating a "Tell Your Story" animation. My team mates for the project are Keegan, Haley, and April. Two fascinating things about Haley is, she is a great Taiko drummer and you can also find her singing all the time. April on the other-hand enjoys anime and reading mystery books. Lastly Keegan absolutely loves to bake and also is a pro when it comes to volleyball .

Animation... there are many forms of it; Stykz, clay formations, digital, whiteboard,  and many more. But the type of animation that you, along with numerous others probably know of, is stop-motion. Stop-motion is a form of animation that is used to make a subject(s) have the illusion of movement. To portray this illusion, you first take a still picture of your subject, then have the subject move a tad, take another picture, move once more, and take a picture again. You then repeat this until you have all the necessary images to form the movement. Now, you can put your images together in Photoshop, or another digital editor you'd like to work in. Another form of animation that you might hear often is a GIF. GIF stands for, Graphic Interchange Format, which is simply just a compressed file of your animation. If you'd like to see simple examples of a GIF, you can take a look at my two that I have created.

So for our project, "tell Your Story", all teams had to choose a story that happened to one of our teammates. As a couple days passed, we finally agreed to do a story about our fellow teammate, Keegan, who loves to bake. The focus of our story is, how one has to make a couple of mistakes to make (what they believe) is perfection. Also, with patience and perseverance comes great outcomes. We know that everyone has faced this a couple times or two and we believe that this would be a good representation on how to overcome it. So, we want to show that Keegan is trying to bake cupcakes for her friends birthday but she has reached a couple of bumps in the road, but after she doesn't give up and perseveres through her struggles, she accomplishes the task. The cupcakes are meant to represent people's lives as in we need to make mistakes if we want to be ready for any other challenges we may encounter. With that, we decided to name our animation, "Keegan Bakes Perfection".And by the way Keegan is actually a fantastic baker, but everyone knows that even professionals can make mistakes sometimes.

Typography Images

Our present project in G.T. is Typography. For those of you who don't know what typography is, I'm here to tell you. Typography is the style and appearance of print. But for our project, we are to create a typography portrait which is where we use the shape of a subject as the outline for words that describe the subject. This should leave the viewer thinking and awe struck. It can be used with images to make a lasting impact because it demonstrates an interesting work of art by incorporating both an image and inspiring words. For example, you could get a portrait of a well known person like Walter Disney and use his fascinating words of joy and wisdom or words that describe him.

When we were first introduced to this project, I must admit I was afraid of what the outcome would be. During the first two trials, although the steps seemed a little complicated at first, I received strategic instructions, watched easy-to-follow tutorials, and got help from neighbors, which made the images quite easy for me to complete. But for our last picture, I ran into little bumps in the road. I was completely over-thinking all of the steps to finish the picture, which made me go backwards. I had trouble with selecting my image due to the background, and also creating a brush for the words that I think describe me. But thanks to my very helpful neighbor, Lilio, I was able to over-come those bumps.

Above are my first photos, we all had to complete two examples. On the right, you will see my first finished image and on the left is my second. For our first photograph, our innovator product, we were to pick a famous innovator... as you can see, I choose Benjamin Franklin. For the text we were instructed to copy information off of our subjects biography. For our second image, we all got to choose a teacher to take a portrait of and interview, so we could create a typography image of them. The process of making this photo was interesting because we all got to learn a little more about our teachers. The teacher my group and I chose was, Mr. David Rohrs, Kapa'a Middle School's P.E. teacher. I am actually quite happy with my final product for our teacher image! Below is my final on our last required typography image. In my opinion, this was the most difficult image to create because unlike our other images, we had to create individual brushes for each word we choose to stamp over ourselves. In addition a lot of thought had to be put into the placement of every single word. Although it was a little difficult, I really like this one because it made me think of what words really do describe me and my life. I am quite pleased with my final product!

FINAL

Double Exposed Portraits

Practice Image

Our new project is portraits that have a little twist to it; we first have a photographer take a profile picture of us and then go out and capture images that we find inspiring or symbolic to our lives. Before we were able to begin we had to learned what portrait photography is. We learned that portrait photography or portraiture is of a person that has a presentation of expression, personality, and mood. The main focus of a portraiture is commonly the person's face. It can also relate to a profile view and silhouetting because they are all focusing on a single subject and being able to recognize the subjects features. Our task is to create a fascinating double exposed portrait.

At first the process of creating double exposed portraits seemed confusing as well as difficult, but after we received a demo and also have the chance to explore, it was quite simple. To make this type of portrait image in Photoshop you must first take your profile portrait. Then you can take two different textural photographs, like s landscape photo for example, or an image that symbolizes you. Now you can open Photoshop and select the "load pictures in to stack" option and make sure you size the image to be 8.5 in. x 11 in. and the resolution to 300. Then you are ready to double click on your portrait layer and select a blend mode of your choice and experiment the different options. After choosing a mode that you are satisfied with, you can do the same for the next picture, for the last image you may re-size or adjust its placement if you'd like. Next you can play around with your two textural images until you get something you like and you can also add adjustment layers if you wish. I believe you will be amazed at how different options can make your image look spectacular just as it did to mine. These photos are really fun to make and look absolutely stunning!

For my practice image I faced towards the right and for my final picture I faced towards the opposite direction; left. I did this so when both images were completed I could position them to face each other. By doing so, I wanted to represent two different people looking at each other and them taking in their differences... just like how we should do the same in our every day lives. So for my practice photograph I captured a tree with sunlight passing through its branches and also another tree but with a different look and perspective on it. I really liked my practice image because of the position of the sun-rays... it kind of made my face look like it had a sparkle or shimmer. The two other images I took for my final was a picture of a spectacular sunset and a picture of me at Lumaha'i beach (those pictures are above).These two pictures symbolize me because I absolutely love the beach and one of the meanings for my name; Leleaka, is the light.

 

Final

HDR Photography

Our current project is HDR photography. HDR or "high dynamic range" is a type of photography that in my opinion,  is amazing! It creates a gorgeous over-all product with a great amount of detail. What is dynamic range? Well I can tell you, it's the ratio of the light and darkness in a ratio. HDR photography uses two images at a minimum, with all of the images at different exposures. After taking your images, you can then use a computer program of your choice (in this case we used Photoshop) and you can merge them together to get an amazing final product. Some examples that would be good for a HDR photo are, landscapes and portraits. But it will only work best if your subject or main focus is still. The best time to take landscape photos, in my opinion, is either during sunrise or sunset; the golden hours. For me, I would like to make all of my pictures an HDR image because it's just so spectacular!

To create a HDR image step-by-step, you must first collect all of you images. With that said, you should set up any camera you wish, ideally on a tripod or an object to keep the camera stable. Then you set the exposure to the however dark you want the first picture to be ( I set the exposure level at -2 for my first photo), you can then move the exposure up a little, take another picture once again (remember to go up in the same increment everytime) and just repeat these steps until you are satisfied with the quantity. After your finished with taking the pictures, you can upload them to any editing program you would like. If you would like to use Photoshop, open the program, click "File" (left corner), then click the "Automate" option, then "Merge to HDR Pro". Now you can select your files and let it load. When it finishes loading, you can personalize your image if you'd like.

Above are my final HDR photos. The first image is an HDR portrait of my beautiful sister; Ilihia, the second photo is an HDR landscape, and my last image is both of the pictures combined which made a superimposed photo. The goal for our photos were surrealism, so with these images I enhanced the exposure, saturation, vibrance, and gamma effects. By doing so, I made the colors in the sky pop a little more.  For the picture of my sister, the portrait, I selected an effect that I believed looked surrealistic, I increased the amount of detail, exposure, highlights and darks, the vibrance, gamma, and saturation. For the last photo; superimposed, I cut-out the picture of my sister and placed it on top of my landscape image. I edited them both once again and added a word that matched with the over-all feeling. I really enjoyed making these photos and I hope my sister likes them!

Movie Trailer Critique

Towards the end of quarter two, we had the chance to venture off into the world of movies. We were assigned to come up with a story then to share it by making it into a movie trailer. After collaborating with my wonderful teammates; Brooke Kauo, Sydney Nice, and Wailana Makepa, we decided to make a trailer named, "Letters To John". Our movie trailer is about a girl and boy; Andrea and John. But everything goes downhill when Andrea's boyfriend suddenly goes missing. Andrea then visits her "safe haven" and gets the surprise of a lifetime. My contribution to our movie trailer project was doing some writing for our trailer plan, doing the second voice acting script (presenting Andrea's emotions on the situation), and acting as Andrea. Gabe Sifuentes and Maxwell Nice also helped and contributed to our video, so a very big thanks to them! (There's a little more information down below on our trailer plan)

Like all of our projects this year, there are requirements. That included a time limit; one minute and thirty seconds to two minutes and also a movie poster demonstrating our knowledge when working with Photoshop. We also had to include effects, foley, text layovers, dialogue, a voice acting script, and five scenes at the least. I believe my team and I meet all of the requirements because we stayed on task and over-all we were very organized. We also created 10 scenes.

During the class critique, our classmates had to assess our video on 3 categories. First audience, then creativity and lastly requirements. Our intended audience were first graders, so we rated each other on how the first graders could relate or the maturity of the video. Then to creativity, well that's kind of comprehensible. Lastly, the requirements. The last category was based on how well or how many requirements we completed. The three different levels were room for improvement, satisfactory, and above and beyond! Our team's results are below.

I was quite happy with my classmates critique on our final product! The majority of the votes for the audience category were "satisfactory", "above and beyond" for creativity, and also "above and beyond" for the requirements category. I most definitely agree with the results because it was a little mature for first graders and I also believe we deserved the "above and beyond" choice because we did have creativity and also meet all the requirements. After finishing our project, I have learned that it is very, very important to plan well ahead of time (I can't stress that enough haha) and to also be very organized. One more thing is, to always re-watch your footage, you never know, you may have to re-film. I really loved this project and I hope you enjoyed our video, "Letters to John".

We were team four