HDR Photography

Hello Everyone! I'm so excited to share with you today a post about photography! We just began photography this quarter, so this will be our first project! Right now we are mainly focused on HDR photos, which I will do my best to explain in that next paragraph, but if you want to know even more, visit the link below, because that will probably give you a much better idea. It's the same link we used, so it should help you a bunch. Ok my pretties, enough introduction! On to the interesting stuff!

HDR photography is short for High Dynamic Range. Not High Definition, or anything like that, though it's a common mistake. Basically what you do is take several different photos, all from different exposures, then put them together to create a super cool surreal looking image. It takes the best details from all the photos, then puts them together to create beautiful images! I love the ending look, where it's very detailed, and colorful, and just looks stunning! What I dislike, though, is the horrible ghosties you get if the camera moves. I'm really scared about my final project, I'm worried that there was too much movement, due to the fact that we didn't have a tripod. Wish me good luck!

In order to create HDR image manually, you need to take several photos, ranging from the darkest to lightest exposure. Then take them into Photoshop. From there, you need to hit file, automate, then merge to HDR Pro. Once you have them arranged, you can customize them. There are many different settings to choose from, and also other customizations such as exposure compensation, gamma, detail, and vibrance and saturation.

The thought process behind my landscape was to capture the colors of the sun on the mountain, and the interesting cloud formations. The clouds looked surreal even before the editing, and I thought that would come out really well in the end. My superimpose was the combination of my experiment (Kasiah's Face) and my landscape. The word I used to describe it was Inspire. I thought she had a sort of far off gaze, and the view looked inspiring, so I thought that was suitable. Anyway, that's all for now, I hope you come back next time to read about whatever crazy project we have next! Also, make sure you check out the link below, I'm sure they explain HDR way better than I ever could!

HDR Photography

Movie Trailer Critique

Hello my loyal followers... or whoever reads these. Hellooo fellow G.T students, and of course Mr. Sanderl. I'm very sorry for the lack of posts, as many of you guys know, it was winter break! Since Christmas is a time for spending time with family and friends, I tried to connect with humans more than screens. Impressive, I know. Comment below with what you did this break, and if your glad to be coming back! I have mixed feelings... Anyway, today's post is, if you hadn't guessed by the title, a critique of our last project in Mr. Sanderl's class before the break- Movie Trailers! If this is your first time reading a blog post, and if your not in a K.M.S GT class, then you should head over to the post all about the project, I'll link it below.

This project was really fun! We wrote, filmed, and edited our own movie trailers with teams of four. (Team will be linked below... check their blogs out!) Our trailer was at first a murder mystery, but do to the audience we were supposed to be gearing it to- 1st graders- we made it a comedic take on a mystery. It's about a young society dame who's amethyst ring is stolen. She and her friend the detective must find the ring before it's to late. If you want more information, check out the links below to see my other post about it, and of course my wonderful teams take. My teammates were all seventh graders this time around, and they are all good friends of mine. I felt we worked really well together despite the tension and pressure that working under a deadline inevitably brings. We all had really good ideas, and we tried to use as many as we could, but it's impossible to use all of them. Despite that, we pulled it together in time, and finished with an extra point on our finished projects, bringing all of our class averages up.


Our trailer's success I credit to our trailer plan's flexibility. We would be filming a scene, and one of us would, like, jump up and be like, "Oh, I have such a great idea." We did our plan in a way that made it easy to change, and thanks to Google Drive, we were able to check it constantly. I narrated our video, so I wrote most of the voice acting script and snyopsis, with help from Talia, and Arianna and Kasiah mainly worked on writing the script. We all contributed equally with the plan, and I think our movie reflects the plan almost perfectly. We got a little lazy with changing the plan towards the end, but their close enough. I actually had swim practice on the first day we filmed, so I had to miss most of the filming that day. I felt so bad, but they did great, and the next two times we filmed I was there, loud opinions and all. We all contributed to our team's success, and clicked as a team, and that was a major factor in our sucess.

The project requirements consisted of length, and technical things. All together, it needed to be about 1:30- 2:30. Technical requirements consisted of having five scenes, a voice actor, dialogue, foley, text layovers, and our Movie Posters. We ended up using Kasiah's, which you can see by heading over to her blog, or checking out the video at the top of the page. (Please, Please, Please check it out- it's funny, and won't disappoint, even though it is geared to a younger audience. It will also make this post a little clearer.) If you would like to see mine- you do, it's fabulous- check out my Movie Posteine, I lor post, linked at the bottom. We had quite a lot of scenes, so that was a breeze. I was the voice actor, and that was really fun. Our characters were creative, and their dialogue explains them, and gives them life. We had foley, which I will link an explanation of at the bottom, of typewriters, thuds, doors slamming, and screams. Our text layovers, were, well, text layovers. You can check them out below. (Shameless video advertisement) We did complete all the requirements, and even went a little further, which earned us great grades!

Our class critique is always my favorite part of the video process. I love seeing other people's finished work. On the other hand though, I get incredible anxiety about other people seeing my work, so sometimes it's not as fun. Our video was fairly critiqued, and we did very well. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought we would get marked down. However, that was apparently just nerves, because we did great! I do agree with the results, we did a lot better than I thought we would. I like hearing my work critiqued, it helps me improve my skills, and makes me a better film maker.

Movie Poster Promo!
Kasiah, Talia, and Arianna's blogs!
Foley

Movie Poster Promo

Hello everyone! Today I am writing about our new project, Movie Posters! We will also be creating a trailer to go along with it. The main characters you see in our film and poster (My team consists of Arianna White, Kasiah Vercelli, and Talia Washington) are Rebecca, the rich and beautiful society dame, the detective Thalia, otherwise known as the best friend, the detective's assistant, and of course, the Thief! The robber, played by Arianna, breaks into Rebecca's home, then steals her precious ring, which just happens to hold the key to her bank account. Then Rebecca and the detective must find the ring before Rebecca's fortune is stolen. There is a great surprise in the end, a little bit of humor and drama.

The character in my poster is Rebecca- well, part of her. You will see her hand, positioned exactly as it was when she fell, after being knocked out, right before the robber takes it off her hand, cold and still against the rich colors of the rug. You see the chicken, draped around her hand, freshly dropped by the thief. The jewel of the poster, (pun intended) is the ring. It sits nobly on her hand, gleaming purple. I really tried for contrast. The gleam of the purple against the neutrals of her skin and the chicken look really cool.

Our title is the Great Chicken Heist because it is about a lady getting hit in the head with a chicken, then robbed. Some other text on my poster include reviews from Mystery Magazine, SpotlightMovies.com, and other fake reviews. There is also the actors and production studios. Getting all that to fit on the page and look good was hard. So to make it look amazing, we use a technique called kerning. Kerning adjusts the space between letters in a word or sentence.Want some first hand experience? Check it out!

The overall impact of my layer effects and filters have is actually rather subtle. I tried to use layer effects to make the eye travel to the ring. I also used a slight color change, I made it a little more red, because I wanted to add drama, and romanticize the scene. I also blurred out part of the rug, using a radial blur. I feel that that helped put all the focus on her hand, the chicken, and the ring. Anyway thats all, I hope you enjoy my movie poster, and when it comes out, (probably after break) my Movie Trailer. Bye!

My final Poster-

Proactive or Procrastination?

Hey Everybody! What's up! Today I'm writing about something that challenges a great amount of people, and it's called Procrastination. I admit it. I am a total Procrastinator. I know the effects this can have on me, and I have always wanted to be Proactive, but well, it's harder than it looks. With my very busy life style, putting things off is pretty dangerous to my grade. I always have at least swim after school for two hours, school itself, and usually something else as well. Robotics, which just ended, was an hour and a half, so I would need to go right to swim afterwards. Then, in a little while there is paddling, and my moms many classes scattered around the clock, so I'm booked around the clock.

I feel that because I have so little free time most days, when I do have free time, I feel like I need to use it the best I can. I am usually going all the time, so when life actually stops for a little while, I seize the moment. However, I do realize when I procrastinate, it leads to nothing but stress and fear, and I end up with less time anyway, and I'm often unprepared for things. I also find myself with less time all together! Therefor, it is important for me to get things done as soon as possible.

For me, the hardest part about being a procrastinator is the fact that it makes me feel like I have no control over my life. It's hard to control things, which as a control freak is an important thing for me, when you are busy doing things last minute. I really need to step up my game, especially if I would like to see that shiny 4.0 on my report card this semester. Semester grades are the ones that really count, so I want to stay at the top.With the end of Quarter 2 coming up I really need to keep up my hard work and stay with the program.

I would certainly work on my time management skills, and be prepared for everything that is going to happen. I will also take more time on things, to make sure I have perfect, quality work. I would also like to learn how to keep that laser focus that helps you get things done. I really need to learn to prioritize a little better, and be more organized. These are the kinds of things I need to hold my 4.0 average, and that is what is important to me. If I could learn about these things, then practice them, I believe that I can finally overcome my procrastination and become a proactive person!

My Visual Poem

Hello everyone! I am excited to share with you my newest project, which we just completed last Monday. It was called Visual Poem, and we wrote poems, then read them on camera. We then spent a week collecting B-Roll, then slapped it all together in Final Cut. (I say slapped; I spent three days editing and making it perfect!) We used effects, transitions, music, and transformations to make it excellent. My poem was about writing, and all that it entails. I explained how writing makes me feel, how ideas bounce around in my mind, how tools of the trade, notebooks, pens, feel in my hand, how they work for me, under my hand and spell.

My visuals make an impact because they correspond with my poem. While I read it, the visuals show you exactly what I feel. It's like a personal view into my mind. I really challenged myself to show passion in both my visuals and my poem itself. Writing is a special part of me, and I tried to showcase that in my video.

For special effects I used an film roll filter on the very first shot, and an old paper on a different shot. I think that it helped me create the right mood, a kind of dark, deep, but still warm place. I wanted to show my feelings and really help you get inside my head. I wish I had added some more, but with a deadline looming over my head, getting it in seemed most important. I am happy, however, with how it turned out.

I am satisfied with how my video turned out, though I wish I had added more effects. I could have made it better by maybe spending a little longer on it, but I really believe I able to convey my story, which is all I wanted. Another is to maybe use my technical knowledge a little better by refining it in final cut some more.  Despite that, I am very excited for the critique, and I hope others enjoy watching it as much as enjoyed creating it. I enjoyed watching my final video, and am looking forward to sharing it with others.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next time! Enjoy my poem at the bottom, and in case you were wondering, the visual is my poem plan, the backbone behind my video. Anyway, farewell, and enjoy!

Finished News Story

What was your story about & who contributed to it?
How did the final turn out? Are you happy with it?
Conclude with your critique results, do you agree?

Hi everyone! I'm back from vacation, with a post about it on the way, and I'm excited to share with you our finished Hiki'no video! For those of you who know my blog, you know that I write first and put videos in last, kind of like the seal on a letter. So to get to the video, you'll need to read my awesome info before you get to it. (Yes I realize you can just skip over it, but don't, otherwise you don't get to read my humorous account of creating the video you see before you.) Anyway, I better get started, I already need to write an extra paragraph because I spent this whole time rambling on to you. Oh well.

Our video was about health and wellness in Hawaii, and it turned out really good considering that I left three brand new sixth graders, Denae, Jhoanna, and Kyla, alone to finish it themselves. (I feel really bad about leaving. I was  supposed to be teaching them!) There were some shots that weren't three shot sequences and other technical difficulties, but they did amazing! Contributors were Missy Hoesel, my mom, Josh Nations, co-owner of the Kauai Athletic Clubs, Heidi Tokuda, Computer Teacher at Kapa'a Elementary School, and of  course Mr. Sanderl.

Our critiques were pretty good, I wasn't here for them, as I was still on vacation, but from the chart below I'd say people thought we did fairly good. Comment with what you think. I agree with the majority, that we were in the 3 range. I do think a 1 is a little harsh, and a 4 is pushing it, but 3 seems fair. It could have been better, and I wish I could help the girls with some of the more technical things, but really, their naturals. I mean, this was their first project!

Anyway, thanks for reading through my writing, I really appreciate it, and I promise that soon I will have a post about this summer (so overdue) and I'm thinking another book review. Also, I wanted to ask if anyone would read my writing, and maybe a friend of mine's writing if I started posting it up here. Let me know. Then maybe, if your interested in posting your writing,  I could set up an address for you to send it to me. We'll see. Comment with your thoughts, and enjoy the video! Bye till next time!

-Maddie

T6: Health & Obesity Rate in Hawaii by Maddie, Kyla, Jhoanna, Denae

1	1	4%
2	7	26%
3	12	44%
4	7	26%

Real World Report

Hey everyone, today I'm writing about an article I read about at Google News. Liberia, among other countries, is suffering from a Ebola epidemic. Because of limited beds, many people are being left untreated. Ebola is a disease caused by an Ebolavirus. The US is attempting to build more treatment centers, but no one wants to help. “People are afraid to come — that’s it,” says World Health Association's leader Jean- Pierre.

I believe that people need to volunteer to help these people. But I also believe that the people need to understand that their government is doing their best to help them. Instead of panicking and hiding things from the medical people because they are embarrassed is really stupid, and jeopardizes their country. Ours as well. I just found out their has been a case of Ebola in Dallas, Texas. Scary, right!

We should care about this issue because as it spreads into a epidemic, there is less and less we can do to help these people. As I write this, to many people are dying because of this awful disease. Also, the more this spreads, the less chance we Americans have of protecting ourselves from this disease. There are medicines for Ebola, but they are not cleared yet. The longer we wait, the more people suffer. 

Thank you for reading, I hope you learned something, and even if you didn't, that's ok, come back again soon ands I'll see if I can do better! Bye!