G.T. Music Video Finale

P2T8 Johnny B Goode from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.
Hello again. Bad news, there's a new project in GT. Good news, as of today, 5-11-16, there are 12 more days of school. The new project is a music video. The biggest problem with this is that I'm the main character in it, and I'm in a walking boot and on crutches. So other than that minor drawback, everything is just peachy. I couldn't find a team fast enough, so I have to be in a team of four instead of three. And the song... the song is Johnny B. Goode. Never heard of it? Exactly. It's older than dirt. I don't mean black and white video. I mean a picture for the whole thing. A black and white picture.  But back to the point. Our story line is about a country boy named Johnny who moves to the city, and gets teased for being a country kid. Back on his ranch, he used to play guitar, but no one appreciates it in the city. So he gets mad and gives up guitar. But then the lyrics say something his mother once told him, and he gives guitar another try, and ends up enjoying it once again. A sunset and some sprinkles would have been fitting.

Our song, as you know, is not the most modern. I would say it is blues song, so it is not exactly fast paced. We were supposed to match the video to cut to the beat, so we have fairly long shots. In this body paragraph, we were supposed to describe our favorite "fast edit montage sequence". We don't have a part that I would call a fast montage, but I do have a favorite part. My favorite part is in the very start, when Johnny rolls out of bed, washes his face, and then walks down the hall. I like it because it is not glorified like many music videos currently, and it is relatable. Also, I like that when Johnny walks down the hall, he has Micah following him lip syncing. What I like about that is that Johnny doesn't notice Micah, like he's not there to Johnny.

This music video showcases our teams strength in multiple ways. Micah has very good timing and is a great lip syncer. As you can see by the clothes, it was done all in one day, but not rushed. This tells that Linden, who was the main "director", if you will, was a very good director. I acted, and I think that was my strong suit of this project. I was able to portray whatever mood Johnny was supposed to be feeling.


Song: Johnny B Goode
Artist: Chuck Berry
Lyrics: Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans

Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track
Oh, the engineers would see him sitting in the shade
Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made
People passing by they would stop and say
Oh my that little country boy could play

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

His mother told him "Someday you will be a man,
And you will be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight."

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

Animated Life Lessons

P2T2 Introvert Saves Day from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

እኔ አንድ ሰው ቅጂ እና ለጥፍ መጠቀም ይችላሉ ማየት , እኛም ሊከራከሩ አይችሉም ?

Just kidding! This blog is in English, not Amharic. Above is a very inspirational quote I came across. Don't expect much else new from this blog; new project, team, details. You know the drill. Anyway, let's talk about what my instructions tell me to talk about. In class, we have been doing a new project, as usual. This time it's animation. We learned to make a GIF in Photoshop, now were doing the same things but for a whole animation, and it's not a GIF. We teamed up for this one. I'm on a team with Linden and Shaday. Their blogs are somewhere below if you want to see them. Lindens is very funny. I've never read Shaday's. For the animation, we are supposed to exaggerate personal traits of ours. Mine is introvertedness, Linden's is procrastination, and Shaday's is hyperactivity. We are not saying that being lazy, shy, or hyper is bad, we are just using them as our main traits.

This animation is meant to do two things. One- It has to be funny. Two- It has to teach a life lesson. I think that these are two very difficult things to mix together, especially if it has to be consciously visible two a teacher and students.  Our life lesson is focused towards introverts, but I think we all have a little bit of introvertedness in us, some more than others. You are supposed to learn that there is no need to be shy, and you are never entirely alone in this world. There is always someone you can talk to if you want. It is also humorous because of how it unfolds rapidly and basically everything goes wrong. Linden and Shaday's traits would be fine for my task, but my task is to talk to people, and I'm the introvert. Their traits also make it difficult for them to do their tasks.

Working with teams is never a completely smooth ride. Working people you've never been within ten feet of before has its upsides and downsides. One good thing is that you don't want to make a bad impression, so you try to pull your weight. The downside is that you can be shy, and maybe not share all your thoughts, and it can be awkward working with new people. My team had varying skill levels. Linden has experience, and had a very easy time with it. Shaday and I were both new to animating in Photoshop, and it certainly showed. From 1 to ten, I would give our team a 4.5 on productivity. I think our best moment was the pitch, which Mr. Sanderl seemed to think was funny. Our biggest challenge was my and Shaday's lack of experience. Below are three behind the scenes photos, what the class though of it, and our storyboard.

በኋላ እንገናኝ!

Character Development

For the intro on this blog, I have been assigned to define myself, and share what "humorous or relatable imperfections" I have. Personally, I don't like these instructions. I mean, I'm in 6th grade. I'm not even sure who I am. I also don't think we should have to share imperfections. What if we don't want to talk about them, or the make us feel bad? Not only do I have to talk about them, I have to share them in this blog where anyone can see. I'll try to though, because my blog is part of my grade. I'll start with describing myself. I work hard in school, and grades are important to me. I like art, especially photography, drawings, and abstract expressionism. I like to read, especially fantasy stuff like Harry Potter. I enjoy sports like soccer, dance, and skating. I also like a lot of music. Grunge, screamo, heavy metal, fast rock, hip hop, rap, and trap. Other interests are fashion and architecture. I dislike people with big egos. One of my distinguishing "imperfections" I have is that I often stand out. I am fine with this, but many people aren't. I stand out because of the way I dress,my hair, and apparently I'm weird and a geek. I think those things are good though. I'm also either very tired or super hyper, I have no in between. I have un-severe self diagnosed anxiety. The last "imperfection" I'll share is that I choose not to identify with one single gender, instead opting to switch between boy and girl.

Our current project in class is making an animation, but the character has our traits. To make the resemblance more evident, we will exaggerate certain traits. I plan to exaggerate a few of my traits, but not all of them. Anxiety, weirdness, and geekyness, to name a few. Also being athletic at times, and very tired at others. The "unusual" types of music I like, and an interest in photography.

The process of creating a GIF is new to me, but I'm on track so far. I like certain aspects of it, but others I don't. But I'll get to that later. First, I have to explain how to make a GIF. First, you take photos of whatever you want to be in your GIF. Then you open them in photoshop and use the magic wand tool to select whatever you want from the pictures. Then make a new layer on each image, copy and past the selected area on to that layer, and turn of the original one so that you have the selected part and a blank background. Then you select window>animation. To create the GIF, you then move the selected object bit by bit, making a new layer in the animation toolbar between each movement. If you want to, you can slow down the movement by selecting pause>whatever amount you want. Then you add the puppet warp on the layers that you want. Below is my final product and some images from the process.

.MOV Film Festival

P2T7_WizardryTeachesCallum from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.
In class we have been working on a film project in groups. My group is doing a sitcom about a child becoming a wizard and his pessimistic friend. To help us focus on what we want to convey we use something called keywords. Keywords are words that relate to the subject and show our focus. My group's keywords are practice, belief, hard work, magic, and self self esteem.  We chose these because the main character, Ben, puts in years of practice and hard work, believes in magic, and has the self esteem to believe he can do magic eventually.

If you think about it, our sitcom has multiple purposes. The main motivation for me was actually the deadline. We had to put a message into it, though. To me, doesn't make much sense for a sitcom. I think the point of a sitcom is to make people laugh, not to teach a life lesson. But I think did and ok job of putting in a message. The message I tried to convey was that if you work hard enough, believe in yourself, and be openminded, you can do anything. That is not always true in my opinion, but people tell me it all the time, and it fit our story, so I went with that.

My team has faced one challenge so far. That is filming. We were supposed to film on Thursday and Friday, but we couldn't. This is due to my partner Isaac's schedule. He had rehearsal for a play, which is apparently more important than school, so we had to film on the weekend. Instead of having four days to film, we had two. It is due tomorrow, and as of march 8, we are still trying to edit it. Not precise editing to make it look as good as possible, but rough editing to make it understandable. If necessary, I will stay in at recess and lunch to finish it. Below is our script, some behind the scenes shots, and the final

Embed Final Cut, Visual Plan & 3 Behind Scenes

Tiny Spherical Worlds

A style of photography I have been using quite a bit lately is called composite photography. Composite photography is where someone takes multiple photos from one viewpoint, and blends them together later. This creates something called a panorama. A panorama allows you to see much more of somewhere or something than if they were the one standing there. Some photographers use it to be able to see all of something big, while still being close enough to see details.You can also use it to see 360 degrees. Others use it to capture large landscapes or just to create the panorama effect.

Composite photography can also be used to create polar and spherical panoramas. Spherical panoramas are images that make the world appear to be wrapping around itself. Despite the name, spherical panoramas make the world look more like a circle than a sphere to me. Polar panoramas are different. I personally think that polar panoramas look much more like spheres than spherical panoramas. Back to the point. Polar panoramas create an image that appears to be a birds eye view of a small planet and the sky around it.

Some of them are convincing, but others are not as convincing. The main thing thing that makes them convincing for me is diversity. What I mean by diversity is having multiple different land forms. I think it should have water, flat ground, and trees or mountains if possible. Having all of those makes it look more like a satellite image than if you just had one thing, like a planet made entirely of water or grass.

Hockney Style Joiners

My most recent project in class is making photomontages. Photomontages, also called joiners, are are a style of photography in which you take a bunch of photos of one thing, and put them together to make it complete.  For example, you could take a bunch of pictures of a tree, moving left to right and up and down, then print them or use a computer program to place them next to each other in rows, almost always overlapping a bit. The reason for  this is  you can use it to see a much wider view of something than if you were the one actually there, looking at it in the physical world. This is called a panorama.You can also add your own touches to the final result, like having certain parts be tilted, or repeating certain photos.  My class is using Photoshop to put them together. A man named David Hockney is very famous for his art, especially his photomontages. David Hockney's are a bit different to mine though. For example, sometimes Hockney would use no overlap, but I use overlap. Mine also had strict requirements. In Photoshop, we we had to make the opacity of the final product 60 to 80 percent. We also had to give it a certain colored background with evenly cropped edges so there isn't to much or too little space around the photomontage. The last requirement was to use a customizable effect called curves. Hockney did not have any of the requirements, and I'm guessing that is part of what made it enjoyable for him.

Images can send positive or negative messages. When I take pictures, most of the time I try to send positive massages. Sometimes I create images that create a sad mood, but they don't normally present a specific negative message. Most of my pictures go on Instagram. I sometimes like to give pictures abstract colors, and those normally convey sad moods. I also like to give pictures a grunge look, which can send positive or negative messages. Darker colors normally convey less positive moods, and lighter colors with brighter light normally create more positive moods.

I was assigned to create two photomontages in class, and it was certainly a challenge. One of them was of another student, and another one was supposed to be of something that is meaningful to us, and I chose skating as the subject, because it is very meaningful to me, and a big part of my life. My photomontage is supposed to send a positive message. It is, as you can see, of a miniramp (a small halfpipe) with a skateboard and a pair of skate shoes. I used only a single board and nobody in the picture to show how skating is individualistic, and you don't need a team for it. You don't need to rely on anybody else for anything, and you can have your own style, skating however you like. There's no coach to tell when to stop or when you're doing something wrong. I also used the crowded farmers market it the background to contrast the one board.

New Year Aspirations

For this post, I shall describe my goals for 2016. One of them, probably the main one, is to keep my grades at straight A's. The rest are mostly skating tricks, with one snowboard trick. One of them is a " rock to fakie" on the big halfpipe. Allow me to elaborate. A halfpipe is a ramp used mainly for skating or BMXing. In my case, skating. It consists of, hence the name, half of a pipe, with round metal at the top edges. The metal is called coping. There is a spot not to far away from either of my houses that has two of them. One is called a miniramp, just a small halfpipe. There is a much bigger one, however. That is the one I would like to learn a rock to fakie on. I can do it on the smaller one, but I have never tried it on the bigger one, because I only started skating them recently. before that, I had just stuck to the skatepark. A rock to fakie is a trick in which you go up one side of the ramp, get the center of your board on the coping, then come back down the ramp fakie. Fakie is a stance on the board in which you are standing switch and nollie. Switch means you are standing facing the opposite way that you normally do, with the opposite foot forward, making tricks much harder. Nollie is where you pop off the front of the board in stead of the back, so you would be going up the other side of the ramp fakie. I hope you understood all that. The next trick is a rock and roll on the big ramp. A rock and roll is similar to a rock to fakie, where you go up one side, get the center of your board on the coping, but instead going back down fakie, your turn your board and your body at 180 degrees to before you drop back into the ramp, allowing you to drop back in assuming your regular stance. The next one is a bit harder, so I'm going to learn it on the miniramp first. I can do the other two easily on the miniramp, and on occasion this, but I don't try it often. This trick is called an axle stall. To do an axle stall, you go up one side of the ramp, and get your trucks onto the coping. In skating, your trucks are the metal parts that are attached to the board and hold the wheels in place, and are used in many tricks. There is one at the front of the board, and one at the back. Anyway,you go up the ramp, turn 90 degrees at the last second before going into the air, and get both of your trucks stably on the top of the coping. Then you turn another 90 degrees and drop back into the ramp. The last trick is a snowboard trick. I live in the tropics, but I am taking a trip soon to go snowboarding with some friends. I have been snowboarding in the past, and it is very similar to skating. By the end of the time I'm there, I would like to be able to 360 off of a jump. I'm sure you know what a 360 is.

I already stated my main goal for 2016. That would be keeping my grades where they are, which is straight A's.  One reason for this is because I am hoping for an academic college scholarship. I also know that it will help in my future. One example of how it will help my future is AP courses in high school. AP courses are college courses, taken in high school. AP stands for advanced placement, meaning the classes will be designed to be more challenging, for students who are further ahead and more skilled in certain subjects. I am in a version of those in my middle school, called honors. Often known to some of my friends as "nerd class". Honors is only provided for math and english. I am only currently in honors english, however I am waiting for news on my transfer to honors math, as regular math has been boring, and rarely presented a challenge for me. The honors english has, unfortunately, been a letdown. I was told I would be treated as a real world writer, and an actual intelligent human. I feel I have been treated as neither of these, and I have sadly learned literally nothing new whatsoever, and that is not an exaggeration. Back to AP courses, though. Taking AP courses can allow oneself to earn college credit before going into college, helping to graduate earlier. You can also do less courses in college, because you have already done them in AP. AP courses are the main reason I keep my grades where they are, instead of A's, B's, and possibly C's, which I'm told is the "average" report card. If keep my grades and overall school performance where they are, I'm told I will surely be eligible for AP courses. Being in AP courses and getting straight A's will also contribute positively to my resume, when applying for a job.

In order to get straight A's, I will continue to work as hard as necessary. Unfortunately, that means homework taking up most of my free time, and a lot of stress. But I set high expectations for myself, and I make myself meet them. I try to be an active participant in class, by trying to work well with partners, and volunteering answers. I don't quit my work, and I try to produce the best quality work I can. What's your main resolution?

My class is doing a photo a day challenge. The pictures here are my three best so far.