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 

Movie Poster Promo

In G.T we have a new project that has been assigned, which is creating a movie trailer and accompanying
it with a movie poster. After collaborating with my amazing team we came to a conclusion and decided to name our movie trailer, "Letters To John". The main characters in the poster above are Andrea (myself) and John (Gabe Sifuentes). In my movie poster, I have us sitting on a dock; which was one of Andrea and John's favorite place to be together. In this I have faded Gabe's body. This symbolizes how John has disappeared out of Andrea's life and how she is left alone to handle with the hardship.

Included in my poster is also the movie title, reviews, the media production, characters names, and a brief synopsis. We titled our movie, "Letters To John" because it is the main idea of what our story is about. Andrea is stranded in her own perfect world when her boyfriend suddenly goes missing. She is relieved when she finally gets a letter from him telling her that he's okay. With that message, she decides to send letter after letter to John and helps him with his depression. I also included, "A story about persistence, love, and courage" which is giving a little hint and an attention grabber to the audience. Oh, and one more thing; the reviews! I added reviews from movie critics around the world to show my audience of what some experts think of the movie.

To add interest to our text, we were taught about kerning. Kerning is used to space out words or letters and also has the ability to make a phrase, sentence or word more eye catching and intriguing. This technique is not only interesting but it also makes words easier to read. Kerning can be used in movie posters or anything that you want... you could even use it in an essay's title. Kerning is very helpful, for example, if you have a sentence and the color, size, and font is perfect but the words are over-lapping each other or squished, kerning spaces the words and/or letters out for you.

The layer effects and filters I used in my poster had numerous effects on the over-all feeling and final product. For example, I made the background darker than the main characters because I wanted Andrea and John to be the main focus. I also made John a little faded to represent that he is not in Andrea's life at the moment. In addition, I tried to stick with two colors for the text so it wouldn't be too overwhelming but I also added some effects on the text to make them a little more noticeable than before.

Visual Literacy

During the second quarter in our seventh period class, we were given a amazing project to complete. Mrs. Sanderl, the art teacher, introduced us to an inspiring art form; book folding. Book folding is when you come up with a word of your choice, choose a font, print the word out on a template, and then start folding away. Trust me, it's a very complicated process. At first I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, but I soon came to realize that I may have to restart a few times. We got inspired to do this project from a man named, Isaac Salazar. This American book artist, reuses books that are going to be disposed or are not in use and later turns them into a work of art. Visual Literacy is the ability to receive  meaning through an image and is the belief that meaning can be produced through reading. This project is an example of Visual Literacy because after the individual picks a meaningful word, image or number, it forces thought and interest upon the viewers mind.

With this opportunity, I decided to fold a book that read "Sing". I chose this word because I have been singing for as long as I can remember and I just simply love to sing. The font I incoorperated, I believe really matched my word. It's a simple font, but it also has a special flow to it that really went well with my word. Singing has a flow of melody, words, and meaning. Singing does not only help me but I know how it also connects to a lot of other people; I wanted my word to have a special meaning not only to me but also to others. For the book, I folded around 337 pages.


I believe my book turned out pretty good and I'm inspired to create a new one. Although I was quite satisfied with the result, I noticed that the I and N were a little smaller than the S and G, so it was a little difficult to read it. If I were to do this project again, I would probably fold the pages more accurately and I would also choose a image next time. Even though there was a lot of frusteration during the process of folding, I had fun and I'm sure that people will want to inspire others to do the same.  

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"