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.

Scratch Game Design

My class has recently been working in a program called Scratch. Scratch lets you create and design games. It is very similar to Code.org, except it's more difficult, and not as straightforward. When I was much younger, I often played games similar to the one I made,and remembering that helped me a little to create it. From playing them, I was able to think about how most of the code would be made, and make it. Over the summer before 6th grade, I took a coding course at a nearby college, and that helped a little bit, even though we did not use Scratch in that course. I also knew that I prefer using W, A, S, and D to move instead of the arrow keys, even though I don't play many video games anymore. Some of my code is on the left.



My game is a very simple, easy one. It does have a few bugs that I attempted to fix, but was (sadly) not able to. In the game, you are a ghost and you must chase a bowl of cheesy puffs. As long as you are touching the cheesy puffs, you are getting points. Therefore, you must get a lot (235) points to win. All of which you must do on the moon, adding to the weirdness of the game. I rarely make anything this strange, but I felt like it this time.

I enjoyed making both of the featured games, but I struggled with both of them. I struggled the most with the first game, because I was new to Scratch. My introduction to Scratch basically felt like this: " Here's this coding program called Scratch, so make an account, it's similar to Code.org, now make a game". I was given help by adults, however. ( Almost all of my help came from my parents and the internet). The most difficult bug for me to fix was one in which when my square in my second game landed, it would wait a fraction of a second, then sink a little bit into the ground. I forget how I fixed it or what I changed, but it took me a long time to figure it out. The one thing in my game that I am proud of, though, is a gravity engine. A gravity engine, as the name suggests, simulates real gravity, because a box jumping from platform to platform is very realistic. I'm actually not sure if it works, but I copied my teachers, gravity engine, so it should work.

Invention Commercial

Our last GT project was making commercial for a product we made up. I worked with the same people I worked with on the composition technique project, Kacie and Adelina. Our main goal was just to make an informative (but fake) commercial for our product. The finished commercial is up above. Our product is a battery powered butter dish called the Butterquick. Personally, I am not happy with how the commercial came out, but I was absent for a day, so I could not influence it at all that day. Below is the plan for the commercial which we  didn't exactly follow. Below THAT, is the results from a poll the class took.

This section of my blog will be about our best "team moment". To be honest, I don't know exactly what "team moment" means. I guess I'll just talk about our most productive moment, since in school projects that is how I would determine if one time working with my team is better than another. I think that the most productive time in our project was when I went to Kacie's house to film. Although Adelina wasn't there, we got a lot of video. In Adelina's place, we used Kacie's brother, Austin. (Not the best actor).

In our teams post-production (editing) time, we had a few difficulties, but overcame them. One problem was the audio. In a few shots, whoever was filming was fairly far away, and we couldn't hear anything. That was a very easy fix, though. All we had to do was adjust the audio to a whatever level we wanted it at. We did the same thing if the audio was too quiet. I was absent for a day, though, so I don't know what happened on that day, other than the project was finished. It probably would have been easier if we had assigned each one of a specific task, but being the geniuses that we are, we obviously didn't, so most of it was mayhem.

Composition Scavenger Hunt

In GT class, we recently did something called a "composition scavenger hunt". The first thing we all did  was form groups of three, each with there own number. Then each group got a laminated paper with examples and descriptions of a bunch of different composition techniques. If a group had the numbers 1 through 10, they had film using certain techniques. If they were 11 through 20, they had to film other techniques. The most important technique, in my opinion, is "high angle". If you couldn't figure out what that is from the name, it an angle in which the camera is higher than the subject and gives the viewer a sense of superiority. I think that it is the most important because it is the main shot used for sports and other large events,to give the audience a good view of what is happening. It can also be used for close-up things like interviews by putting the camera close the speaker but just a little bit above them to give it the high angle perspective.

Now  I will tell you about which technique I think is the most difficult to use, and how I can use more of it. I think that POV, or "point of view", is the most difficult. POV is where you see through the eyes of the subject, or to put it simpler, you see what the subject is seeing. I think that it is the most difficult because of multiple different reasons. First of all, it is an awkward and difficult position to hold a camera in. It is also difficult to make a POV shot look good. POV is also a limited technique, as far as what you can film. For example, if you were to film skateboarding from POV, because the camera can not be placed directly in the skater's eye, (yet), the camera would be a bit in front of the skater's eye, you would not be able to see the board in most instances. The same goes for most sports, excluding, maybe, tennis. I do have an idea about how I can use it more, though. I would like to use it in more basic things, like comedy skits. That way you would be able to see everything you needed to see, and would have an uncommon sense of what the character is feeling, that you normally don't get in videos.

As I mentioned earlier, we all worked in teams of three. I was with two girls named Kacie and Adelina. We didn't really assign one specific job to each person, instead we rotated and switched jobs for each clip. For example, I would film Kacie  or Adelina doing something for one of the techniques, then one of them would film me doing something for another technique. We wanted to make sure our audio was clear, so

what we did is one of us would film very close to someone's mouth while they were describing one of the composition techniques. Then we used iMovie to put the audio over a video showing the technique matching the one in the audio. We used iMovie for all of the editing, and we did so on Kacie's computer.

Cracking The Code

In GT class, we have recently done something new, and quite exiting. We did...(drumroll please)... CODING! We didn't do the hardcore, from scratch, write the script coding, but we worked with a program for beginners. Coding is actually much more common than a lot of people realize. It's in our banking, indirectly in most industries, and many other important things. The thing is, though, that not very many people actually know how to code! Personally, I think that coding is something everybody should know how to do. Maybe not as advanced as people who's job it is to code, but should at least know how to do things like create a very basic website. I feel like that because it's in so many different and very important things. If something suddenly goes wrong with one of those things, we should all know how to fix it! And I'm sure some people would try to abuse knowing how to code, but if everyone knew how, we could all stop them.

Now, I shall tell you about my first experience with coding. It was actually NOT in GT class! The first time I ever did any real coding was in a summer course, between 5th and 6th grade. It was on a college campus, but I was learning beginner things. I was in a class with about twenty other kids, and we all had a lot of fun. Not all of the kids actually paid attention and learned, though. One kid just sat with his feet up on a chair and listened to music off of Youtube for most of the two week class. We made multiple games, all of which were fairly basic. I made a top-down shooter with different types of enemies and mazes as well as power ups, a top-down car chase games, another top-down  game in which you must fend off attacking airplanes by shooting at them, and a games in which you must guide a parachuting cow through mazes it falls through while collecting coins, and, in the end, reaching the ground. I made them by doing things like setting variables on the characters action and on what button was pressed. That means if one thing happened, it would cause something else to happen. For example, in my top down-shooter, if you were touched by a zombie or a guard, you lost a certain amount of health, which you could gain back by walking into an image of a heart you find every once and a while in a maze. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the program I used, but I had a lot of fun.

It seems my committed readers have reached the last paragraph. EVER. Just kidding! It's just the last paragraph in this post. The subject for this  paragraph is "If I could design any program or game"... I would design a social media app and website. But it wouldn't be like any social media website. It would be strictly for people who all share a surprisingly  common hobby of mine. I'm not going to tell you what the hobby is, but I will say it is legal, common, and many people make jobs and livings off of it. I would be the moderator, which means I would go through all the content and make sure it is all related to the hobby, and not offensive in any sexual or racial way. After a certain number of unrelated posts, say... 4 or five, depending on how unrelated they are, whoever posted them all would be kicked out for a certain amount of time, and if they got temporarily kicked out twice, then they would be banned permanently. Unlike Vine, your videos could be as long as you wanted, and the app would would have a built in video and photo editor, as well as multiple chat rooms.

My Humorous Monologue

MeredithC_Comedy from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

From my comedy project, I have learned many things. First of all, I learned how to use a certain kind
of camera. I used it to help film my classmate doing his comedic monologue. Mainly, I learned about writing and presenting comedy. It was honestly a bit harder than I thought, but it was quite fun. The hardest part was finding a good subject to write about. What I learned from the writing, though, is to go over my monologue multiple times, joke by joke, and try to make each one  as funny as possible. I also learned about timing while I was filming my comedic monologue. I learned not to fly through each joke really fast, and to have a rhythm to your delivery. I am also currently learning more and more about using iMovie, which I think is pretty fun. One of the most important things I learned about in filming comedy is called pad. I'll tell you about that next. OR WILL I? ( Cue dramatic sound effects). YES. I WILL.

Pad is a very important part of filming anything. It is used as a precaution for clips that are either too short in the end, or cut off, (basically meaning to short), in the begging. Adding pad to your clips is actually very easy and simple. To add pad to your clips, you start a few seconds before the thing you want to film happens, and wait a few seconds after it's happened. In my GT class, we have been adding pad by starting filming, saying "rolling", then saying "three, two, one, action." At the the end, we just wait a few seconds before we stop filming. After we import the clips, we can trim out the pad, or leave some in if it the clips are too long or short. Basically, by doing absolutely nothing for a few seconds before and after you start filming, you are adding pad.

Here is my joke plan for the making of my video.

Now don't you go off thinking "oh, I'm going to make myself a video just like that kid Callum, and it'll just take me one day!" No. That's not how it works. It had many challenges, and I'll describe some of those now, along with some other things. I think the biggest challenge was editing it in Imovie. That's because I didn't have much time to do it because of a misunderstanding, but once I was able to edit, I had to hurry, and it was difficult. I had never used Imovie before, so it  was difficult, but I learned a lot. The easiest part, though, was writing the actual script. That part was very fun, and it was something I had hoped we got to do in school for years. The only hard part of that was picking a subject to write about, then I just went to work and had fun. I do think that there could be improvements, however. I think that I could have had more stable videos, (although some shots were deliberately shaky), and clearer audio. The audio is a bit unclear because I filmed outside, but I think it is okay. In class, we watched each others finished videos, and graded them based on a curriculum that we had. Below are my grade results from the other kids. The chart is a little uneven, though, so you need to look at the numbers and grades to your left of the green bars. As you can see, I did pretty well, and I'm very glad I got the results I did. CHIAO!

Comedy Writing

Having a good sense of humor is a very important character trait in comedy. If you don't have a good and certain sense of humor, you just won't really be funny. What I mean by certain is you should have a certain theme to each skit you make. For example, you wouldn't want to have a dry, dull sense of humor then start jumping around, yelling, and acting very expressive at the end of your act. Your sense of humor is part of your act, so if people see you going from dry to expressive humor it won't be as fun to watch. I actually prefer dry humor than any other kind. Although if you are going to present with that type of humor, the jokes need to be really good, so if you are a new comedian, it would be good to be at least a bit expressive. In my GT class at school, I have been working on a comedy routine, and I have been sticking with the dry humor theme, and it's been lots of fun. I do dry humor partially because I prefer watching comedians do it to expressive and crazy humor, but also because when I am doing expressive humor, it is no fun for me. Believe me, I tried. But the jokes just aren't funny for me when I'm doing expressive humor. I'm not sure why, but it just feels unnatural and not funny. Anyway, I'll stop ranting about not being able to do expressive humor, and I'll give you some tips on writing a funny narrative!

One very important thing in comedy writing is picking your audience. For example, you would not want to tell jokes saying bikers are annoying at a biker group. You also would not want to tell sexist jokes against women at an all women group. Another tip is that you should review your work and modify the scripts for each performance. That means you should go over your script sentence by sentence multiple times. Explore every aspect of each joke, and think about what would make it funnier. An extremely important part of comedy is presentation. You should practice your routine multiple times before actually performing. That way you have something called delivery. Delivery is the way you present your jokes, like what words you put the emphases on, and your body language. However insignificant it may seem, delivery is a very important part of comedy. Another thing to keep in mind is the amount of jokes, and the build up. Smaller, less funny jokes should have less build up than the bigger, harder hitting jokes. The harder hitting jokes should be fewer than the little ones and well spaced. The biggest laugh, though, should be at the end. That helps end the whole performance with a bang. The last tip I'm going to give you is to return often to one subject throughout the whole routine, especially in the last, biggest joke. It is good to pick a common subject that everyone will know about, such as Pop Tarts, bowling, or going to the dentist. If you pick an uncommon subject, it is more likely that people won't get the jokes. I hope those tips help you with creating a comedy skit! If you want to, that is. Maybe you don't like comedy. That would be lame. But it's possible. You probably wouldn't have read this far if you didn't, but it's still possible.

I believe my comedic monologue is funny for multiple reasons. For starters, a school cafeteria is a very common thing, and it is easy to work with, so I did not have a very hard time making my monologue. A stereotypical school cafeteria has very bad food, so I made that part of my monologue. Overall, I think it is funny mostly because it is relatable, especially for kids. Also, it talks about stuff that isn't made up, which I think makes it better. Although some parts are not necessarily true, it is still about realistic things. Those are the main reasons I think it is funny. It is simple, dry, realistic, and relatable. Thanks for reading, and goodbye! ( Until my next blog).

Motivational Poster

In my GT (gifted and talented) class at school, we have made a motivational poster.For my motivational poster, I had to do many things. First I had to put my

personal quotes in a Photoshop document. They also needed to be in two different text layers. Behind them, I needed my three personal representation images from Google+, as well as a portrait of my face. The text needed to be kerned to be more visually pleasing and fit the entire page. It also needed to stand out against the pictures, so I added effects such as drop shadow, bevel and emboss, and outer glow. The whole thing needed to have a triadic color scheme, so I got help, and learned how to make one and put it on my images. They still needed to have visual balance, though, so I adjusted things like curves.

When I was actually doing it, there were many steps. First, I opened Photoshop and made a document. Then, I copy-pasted my personal quotes and manifesto into it, and kerned the text with a certain tool so it was more visually pleasing and fit the whole page. Next, I put my images behind the text as a background by saving them into my file, and dragging them into Photoshop. Keep in mind that throughout this whole process I got help from the person next to me, who was super helpful. Anyway, after that I added affects to the text so that I could see it better against the background images, and to make it more interesting. Finally, I created a triadic color scheme for the whole thing, with the help of the person sitting next to me. I had to tweak that a lot so that I could still see the pictures clear enough, but also make have a visible effect on it. For that, I mostly used my "curves" layer.

I think the biggest challenge overall was making my triadic color scheme work. That was where I got the most help from the person next to me. At first, I didn't even know how to make a triadic color scheme in Photoshop, but they had done it last year, so they knew how. It was tough for me to get the right colors, the right intensity, and other factors correct, so that it looked good. I think that I could have improved the poster, though. The way our grading worked was that my teacher looked at my poster for various things, and I was missing one. As I told you earlier, I needed two different text layers for my manifesto and my personal quotes. I only had one text layer, though, so I got 7 out of 8 possible points. That means I got an "A", which is good, but I would rather have figured out how to make it two layers and get 8 than 7 points. Even the very helpful person next to me didn't know how to do it, because of the way that my text was shaped. Part of my quotes shared a line with the start of my manifesto, so we didn't know how to make them two different layers. I think that was the only way I could've improved, and I am proud of myself and very happy with the way it turned out. Here are pictures of my text layer and image layers with no effects on them, and the final product! I hope reading it inspires you as much as making it inspired me!( Which is a lot, by the way). Thanks for reading!

Personal Manifesto

Hi! My name is Callum, and this is my blog! Here are five interesting things about me! One, I have a Youtube channel, a Vine, a Google plus, and now this Blog. Two, I have unusually long hair for a boy. Three, I like skating, soccer, and basketball, but I like skating the best, I also have a strong fandom for Harry Potter. Four, three of my top artists to listen to are The Beastie Boys, Eminem, and Nirvana. And five, I enjoy gaming, making and developing games, typing, and basically anything that has to do with computers and technology.

Here are a list of personal quotes, made by me, that drive me everyday, and I hope they will inspire you to do great things! By giving up on a goal, you are giving up more on yourself than anything else. If you are not stressed about anything, you should start paying attention to the world. If you are acing everything you do, you are doing the wrong things. You should be preparing for the future, not getting comfortable now, because in the future you will think back and wish you could be happy then, not now.

Personal Manifesto: Work hard now, tomorrow, and every day. Do whatever good you can. Your future depends on today everyday. Play hard and learn everyday. Do anything you can to achieve your dreams. Find what you like, and devote your life to it. Don't act like just one type of person, do whatever you like. A day without fun is a day wasted. By following in another's tracks, you leave no footprints. Be the black sheep in the herd. Challenge yourself. If you do something, give 100%.

I believe that my manifesto applies to you because those are the thoughts, ideas, and precedents that drive me forward in life, and I think that they are things that should inspire everyone and drive them on in life. I am inspired by them, and I hope they inspire you too. They inspire me too do things that I want to do and make something good out of every situation. One particular part inspires me to create and do something that is different and new. I want to inspire you, too, to chase your dreams and set big goals for yourself. I want it to make you an ambitious, hard working, good person by giving you that manifesto.

Here are three images that symbolize me:

I chose this because I am a bibliophile with an eclectic personality, and books tell many stories, like my personality. I specifically chose Harry Potter books because magic is real and there is nothing you can do about that. One of my four cats represents me because like him, I am small, fast, funny, and quite smart.( Not to brag. I don't like people who brag a lot).



I chose this because I prefer being on cement better than anything else, I am creative( referencing the entire skating culture, not the individual boards), and I do not break easily.


I hope you liked this blog, it was just an introduction and there is more to come!