Proactive or Procrastination?

Recently I asked myself, "Am I proactive or a procrastinator?" Well really, I'm both. At times I can be quite the procrastinator; not really with schoolwork, but with home priorities. After a long day of school, all kids want to go home and just relax, maybe take a nap, go to the beach, eat some ice cream accompanied by a movie, or we may just not feel like starting up our school brain again. And sometimes I feel like that. But usually right when I get home I begin my homework so I can finish it ahead of time and don't have to worry about the assignment later on. But it's another thing when it comes to chores. I usually put it off and wait until my parents remind me about it. Trust me I do plan when I'm going to do these things but sometimes it just slips my mind. But over-all I think I'm more proactive than a procrastinator.

The amount of free time I have always depends on how proactive I am. For example, I sometimes put my work aside so I can have free time for the afternoon but that always back fires. I then have heaps of homework to do the next day, from putting my previous assignments aside. But at other times, I'm really determined to finish my homework right when I'm assigned to it so I can have extra time during the afternoon or weekend.

If I were to change my work habits, I would most definitely try to be more proactive. Although I always find a way to finish all my assignments in on time and get good grades on them, it does cause me a lot, and I mean a lot, of stress. If I were to finish my assignments right when I got home, all of that stress would slip away. To fix my procrastination, I would try to forget about all of my distractions, and just focus on what had to be done. I will now try my best to always be proactive, and hopefully have a lot of free time after making my homework my first priority.

My Visual Poem

During the second quarter we had to create a Visual Poem. With this opportunity, I decided to write a poem about a place that I cherish; Hanalei. I was excited to film footage for this project because I got to remind myself of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place like Hanalei. I decided to revolve my poem on my outlook of this amazing place and what others may think of it too. I know that everyone has that one special place where they could just go and forget about all of their problems, so I choose a topic where people could relate upon.

Throughout my video I applied several effects to bring out the feeling I was trying to create. For example, with the clips of the sunset I enhanced the colors so the audience could feel like they were at the beach watching the enchanting sunset. In another clip I slowed down the motion and towards the end, I included a transition that fades so my last lines and picture could linger in the audience's minds.

Over-all, I believe my project had a great end result. I thought my poem had a good feel to it, my visuals accompanied my wording well, and I believe I edited my footage accurately. I am quite satisfied with my result, but there is a couple of things I could improve. With a little more time, I could have re-filmed my poem lines so it would sound more clear and it could have also been read a little slower. But again, I think I did a great job and I'm glad that I could share my love for my home with everyone.

Please feel free to watch my video down below

AnakaleaL VisualPoem from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Finished News Story

Yay! My group and I have completed our news story; Hurricane Iniki. I believe our finished product was great and included the required criteria. Our story was about the *horrible hurricane that hit the island on Kaua'i on September 11, 1992 and how the Kaua'i people were affected. We really wanted to reach out to people of all ages and educate them about the dangers of a hurricane and how to be prepared. We also wanted people to hear first-hand about what could happen to you or your family doing a hurricane. Although it took us quite some time to film the interviews, gather b-roll, and edit, my team and I worked very well together and got the task done.

 I must give a big thanks to my teamates; they went above and beyond and I couldn't do it without them.. so thank you Lilio, Russell, Seth, and Noa! I also really appreciated all of the people who agreed to contribute to our project and  were willing to be very open towards my team and I. We were able to film six interviews in all and learned a lot from each individual. With-in the six interviews we got information from all different ages; three ten year olds shred their knowledge, as well as three adults. My teamates and I loved getting to hear the stories and advice from each interviewee... we greatly appreciate all of their help!

I am very pleased with our final product! We worked very hard while trying to make our video the best it could be, and with overcoming any problems that we faced by resolving it as a team. I liked how we got information from several people of all different ages, so all audiences could connect to each interviewee.

After completing our video, the class critiqued each film one by one (All of the videos were amazing!) When getting the heads-up of our video being next; I must admit we were all afraid at first, but after the first couple of seconds we realized that we didn't do too shabby. We were also more than happy with our results; I did agree with everyones votes and kind comments.

Down below is our final product, please feel free to watch!

P1T6 Hurricane Iniki from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Real World Report

Picture By: Getty Images

While searching for an interesting story I came upon the headline "Police Worry Over Copycat Attacks". This story was about an 18 year old man with wicked intentions, who had been one of the authorities many concerns for his connection to rigorous Islamic groups. Many authorities are keeping a watchful eye on the community. They have been forced to act in this behavior due an attack on two officers outside the Endeavour Hills station in Melbourne's western suburbs last Tuesday night. He planned to cut off their heads and post the gruesome images online. He was then shot after assaulting the two policemen; a Victorian police officer and an Australian Federal Police officer (AFP). Using a small knife he stabbed the AFP officer unfortunately in the face, neck and stomach. The Victorian officer was also stabbed in his arm. After his vicious actions, Numan Haider was shot by a single round, fired by the Victorian officer and later died.

My opinion on this topic is that I believe the police officer did have the right to shot the man because he assaulted the police officers first. Although I think this, I am still sadden at the thought that such a young man was killed. I think they did this because they didn't want anybody else in the community to get hurt or even killed again.

We should be well informed and aware on this subject because we don't know if more people have the same intentions or even worse. Also this was a human life that was killed and more people should be aware of this. One more thing about this event is more violent interactions can occur as well as terrorism.

Here is a little more information about this topic. Video By: "The West Australian"

Lessons Learned

So far this project is going quite well and we are producing great work. During this project my team and I are becoming well aware of how preparation is key when warned about a hurricane. I find it very interesting that we are getting feedback from people that actually experienced Hurricane Iniki. The stories just amaze me! From these stories I believe my team and I are going to be well prepared if a hurricane does happen to approach Kaua'i.

Our biggest challenge that we had to over come was editing our interviews and filming applicable
B-roll.  It took us quite some time to edit, due to filming seven interviews; when editing these interviews we had to cut out any mistakes including the little ones. So, when editing our interviews there were numerous cuts in them so we had to film lots of applicable b-roll. We didn't only need b-roll to cover the interviews but also for our voice-overs. So, my team and I are still planning to go out and film more. Most of our b-roll are pictures of the destruction from Hurricane Iniki and we need a little more video for our b-roll. We also took b-roll of the roads and places that were hit so it was pretty hard to keep the camera stable while traveling down bumpy roads.

I believe the most valuable part of the film making process was going out to the community and getting information from several different individuals and a wide range of age groups. I also loved getting to work and edit with my group because we got to work problems out together, get great ideas from one another, and got the work done by cooperating. I can't wait to finish and produce our final product

!

HikiNo Behind the Scenes

Our new project is to complete and produce a great video for Hiki No. My group; Lilio, Seth, Russel, Noa and I decided to compose a video about hurricanes, its negative affects, and how people should prepare for the worse. By doing this video, we are not only teaching others about this storm but we are learning as well. We decided to base our project on hurricanes because we wanted to raise awareness to everyone about how hurricanes can change your life. Fortunately we haven't been hit here on Kaua'i during this 2014 hurricane season, but we are all definitely keeping our eyes and ears open. We are trying to persuade people that this situation should be taken seriously; they should stay tuned in to their local weather announcement centers, prepare for the worse, and hope for the best!

 I believe my team and I are working very well together. But one thing I think we can improve upon is communicating with each other and planning more ahead of time. Although we are doing good as a team, I think we can work harder to make everything close to perfect! We all know that the only way we will stay productive and complete our task is by working together as one. A couple ways I can help my team is by trying to complete our pitch sheets during my free time, encourage my team to keep filming (You can never get too much footage), and I will also do my fair share through-out this project time.

While the camera is not rolling my team and I are editing our interviews, thinking of what we can improve on, and planning on what we can film next. Our interviews have gone very well along with our B-Roll. We have been transcribing our interviewee's comments; by doing so we are able to brainstorm about what B-Roll would go good with the replies. I love how we have five students in our group because we can all get great suggestions from one another and also learn how to overcome obstacles. Everyone in our group has their own special talent and is more then happy to share it with everyone; which has really helped us as a team. I hope you get the chance to tune in to HIKI NO, every thursday night at 9 to support schools from across the Hawaiian Islands, and I also hope you will get to see our video!

The Experiment

Our very first project was called, "The Experiment", which we could do anything we wished to create in Photoshop. So with this opportunity I decided to make an appearing drawing of myself. With-in this process I first, took a picture of myself in Photo Both, then opened the picture in Photoshop, where I traced myself in different layers and slides to create the "magical" appearing picture. After I completed the tracing step, I colored in my school shirt to create a contrast of content effect. How is it contrast of content? Well, everything was back and white, where as my shirt was green.

Although this task was difficult, it was a great way to test my prior knowledge of Photoshop and the accurate steps to complete my project choice. Even though I had some trial and error, (by some I mean a lot), I think my finished project was pretty good.

My finished product