Personal Manifesto

Hello Everybody! I'm back!!! I know, it's been a ridiculously long time. All summer, in fact. Well, I'm finally back, and it's hot out, and the end of the day, and I'm so ready to go home, but not before updating you guys of everything that's going on here in room F-101. Keep on reading, and I'll see you at the bottom. :)

So, first G.T project of the new school year... exciting! It's going to be a personal manifesto motivational poster thing, and it's going to be awesome. Before I give you all the details on that though, I'm going to tell you a little about myself. One interesting fact about me is that I've completed several sessions of junior lifeguard training, and although I haven't been to a state championships yet, my district, Kauai, has been undefeated for 12 years! I'm also a swimmer for Mokihana Aquatics, and have gone to several state invitationals off island. I live in Hawaii, which is pretty normal for me, seeing as I've lived here my whole life, but to the readers who live in Germany, or wherever, I suppose that could be interesting. Another fact about me is I have actually only been out of the country once, on a cruise to Alaska. We stopped at a port in Victoria, Canada at 10:00 p.m, and stayed there for about an hour and a half. It was really nice, although everything was closed. How many facts is that? Three? All right, two more. Let's see... I keep lots of journals, not the kind where you make daily updates about your life or anything, just composition books that I use to write ideas down in. Heres a fact that goes with that one; I write a lot. Just stories that I make up, whether short or long, and I love to create charts that organize different characters. I'm really into character development and all that.

Thank goodness we're done with that. Let's move on to writing a personal manifesto. So, for those of you who don't know what a manifesto is, let me give you a short explanation, and then if you still don't understand, or you want to go deeper with that, then you can check out the lovely link I'll be leaving for you below. A manifesto is a basically a creative, public declaration of your goals, beliefs, and ideas. Now, without further ado, my 2015-16 manifesto!

Be true to yourself. Live your life like nobodies watching. Do what makes you happy. Surround yourself with people who love you for who you are, not who they want you to be. Be the best version of yourself. Laugh often. Be happy. Love who you are. Love others for who they are. Appreciate what you have, for there is always someone who has it worse. Push your self past the limits set for you, whether by yourself or others. What you put in is what you get. Never give up on your dreams. Do something creative every day. Appreciate the people who care about you, and who help you grow as a person. Learning is crucial. Make mistakes, learn from them. Have courage. It's your life, take control of it. Live your passion, and find the joy in it.

So that was that. Manifesto has been written, and I actually have more than the required amount of sentences for today... but I have yet to explain why my manifesto matters to you. To be honest, I'm practically making this up as I go along at this point... lets see. My manifesto should matter to you because I believe these are things that everyone should strive for. I think that anyone who tries to find something that relates to their life in this list will. Everyone should have a motto, or something they live by, wether you publish it in a manifesto or not.

So, that's all the wise advise I had stored up over the summer. I'll see you all next time, and don't worry- I'll be keeping up with blog throughout the school year, as it's a school assignment. I'm not quite sure what will happen next year, when I move up, and leave K.M.S, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I have enclosed two links, one to a google image search that explains manifesto, and a link to Mr. Sanderl's blog, which has links all GT student blogs. Until next time my darlings!

(Pssssst- here's the links for today)

• MANIFESTO
• Mr. Sanderl's Blog

Music Videos Rock!!!

Hello Everyone! Today I'm going to elaborate a wee bit on last weeks post. So, I'm going to start on that, might as well get right to it! Sorry for the lack of a long, winding, distracting entry paragraph, but I'm tired, so we'll all have to make do with what we have. Maybe I'll come back later and rewrite this. (I say this every time and never do... I'm such a flake.)

As you all know, my team consists of the wonderful, beautiful, and talented Julie Castro and Kasiah Vercelli. We have all contributed to the project so far, with Julie and I focusing mainly on filming, and Kasiah being our fabulous movie star. Kasiah also did a band poster for us, showcasing some of her Gt student skills. The editing of the video was done mainly by Julie and I, with the occasional constructive criticism from- who else- Miss Kasiah. We all contributed to the creation and completion of our music video. 

I think our audience will enjoy our story. We interpreted Taylor Swift's song in a way we felt was relatable and fun. Our story is about a girl who is explaining how she overcame adversity to love herself for who she is. There is, of course a lot of dancing! What would a music video be without it?

Our music video shows what we learned this year by showcasing the skills we've gained. We did our best to use composition techniques and interesting and creative camera shots. Kasiah made us a beautiful band poster, with assistance from the rest of us. Julie and I got to explore iMovie's many effects, and use them to enhance our story, not take away from it. Finally, all three of us used the skills we gained this year to edit our long, winding clips into 2-4 second scenes!

Thank you everyone for reading! I just noticed I'm not in any of the pictures above... oops. Oh well. This is the last Gt post for the year, so I might not get a chance to write again until August! I'll see you then! Or maybe before? We'll see! BYE!

Lyrical Livelihood

Hello Everybody!!! I'm really excited to inform you all that It is the last five weeks of school for us on Kauai... or at least KMS! the countdown to summer begins! And those of you who consistently read (Hello Mom) will know that this time of the year means one thing... MUSIC VIDEOS!!!! Read on to find out more.

Now, for those of you GT students who know the inner workings of these blogs, you know that we are given specific questions to answer. Most of the time these are answerable, but this time we have been asked to do the impossible. Mr. Sanderl wants us to choose our favorite song, and share it with you. It is not physically possible for me to choose a single song. I love music. I mean, I can't play music, but I love listening to other people's music. Some of my favorite artists are Queen, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, The Clash, Led Zeppelin, Panic! At the Disco, 5 Seconds of Summer, The Beatles, Ed Sheeren, Hozier, Plain White Ts, AC/DC,... lets just say there are too many to list here. My favorite songs are my favorites because they make me feel things, whether those feelings be happy, sad, inspired, or impowered. If I connect with a song, then it goes on my playlist, where I repeatedly listen to it. I don't really get tired of songs I love.

For our Music Video this year my team, which consists of the wonderful and beautiful Kasiah Vercelli and Julie Castro, will be doing "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift. Yes, I know, we've been made fun of plenty by our friends already. You have to admit though, it's a pretty encouraging song, and it's fun and easy to dance to. I do love Taylor Swifts music, most of the time, and we wanted a song that would be fun to dance and sing to, so we could be inspired. The video for the song is really fun, with lots of different forms of dance, so we want to express that through our video. We also really like to dance.

We have a very eccentric plan for our video. Our idea is basically to follow the lyrics, and make it one big dance party. For those of you who have seen the video for "Shake it Off", you've seen an example of what our video is going to look like. A lot of dancing, that's for sure. I don't want to reveal too much yet, because there will be another post soon, and I'm pretty sure that it will go a little more in depth, as the second posts usually do. Until then, read the production plan, and enjoy the sneak peak!

That's all for today folks! Thank Y'all so much for reading, and I will see you next time! Bu-bye!

Our Animation Story

Well. Hello everyone. I'm here today to inform you all that our animation is finished. There has been some rough patches, but we pulled it together, and finished it. It's been a hard week, not just for me, but for all the G.T students, so I want to say that I'm really proud of all of us. Today I'm going to explain our story a little better, because I know last time I didn't really go in depth with it. So, I'm going to start writing, and I'll see you at the bottom.

Our focus statement was Julie Overcomes Writer' Block. It was about our teammate Julie, and her struggle to overcome the wall in her head, and finish her essay. We show Julie struggling with her blank paper, which morph into paper soldiers, and the archers that the wall produces to force
her back. Her pencil becomes a sword, and she uses it to fight off the soldiers and the wall, and finally the wall collapses, and Julie is free to finish her essay. Our focus statement tells our story because throughout the project, that was our guiding idea, and we would always come back and look at it to refocus.

Our audience will learn that even though writers block does happen, and can feel like a battle is going on in your head, it always ends. Creative juices aren't frozen forever, and soon you will be back to normal. The best thing you can do is remember this, and just do your best. I know that in GT, our creativity is put to the test, but I think sometimes we get a little too frantic. Sometimes we just need to take a step back, and breath for a little while.

Okay, now I'm going to tell you all about the best and worst moments with my team. The best moment was easily when we got a four out of four on the rough cut, it was like all of our hard work finally paid off. The worst was definitely not making the deadline for the two scene teaser. I'm not going to get into that to much, because why dredge up ickyness? Anyway, we've had our moments, both good and bad, and the important part is that we've grown as a team.

Thank you all so much for reading, and I want to give one last shoutout to all us G.T kids, because you know what? Animations are over, and know it's time to get excited for the music videos! Okay, see you all next time! Bye!

Animation Outakes

Why hello my evil army. Today we will be learning all about animation. I can hear you all saying, "But Maddie, you've already done a post on animation!" My answer is yes, I have, but it's a new year, and a new project. I will link that project down below, so you can enjoy some fetus Maddie. Yay fetus Maddie! Anyway, let's explain this project and my lovely teammates, and I'll see you at the bottom.

 This year, my lovely team consists of Julie Castro, Jayse Matsuyama, and Denae Sacramend. I have worked with Denae before- don't tell Mr. Sanderl- but I have not yet worked with Jayse or Julie, so I got to meet some new people. Which I actually survived, which is surprising seeing as I'm terrified of people. Now, for some interesting facts about my lovely team. Let's start with Miss Julie- she dances hula, and she has two brothers. Now for Mr. Jayse. Jayse is a surfer, which is one of the many perks of living on a small tropical island. He also paddles for Puu'wai, the canoe club that we both belong to, so we're teammates. Finally, let's move on to Denae. Denae loves animals, and she is a very random person. Which is a very, very good thing. 

Now to explain stop-motion animation. Basically, stop-motion is a type of animation that you create by taking pictures, then putting them all into I Movie, or Photoshop. This creates video that can look like your doing the impossible. The next thing I'm going to explain to you is a .GIF. These are small animation files used mainly for the internet. By mainly I mean entirely. You have probably seen a .GIF before if you use social media sites, but I have a couple here anyway, for your viewing pleasure. It stands for Graphic Interchange Format.

We are telling Julie's story, and it is all about writers block. You should all care, because I'm pretty sure most of you reading this are G.T students, and I know that if you are in G.T, creative juices can be a stretched a little thin. In our story, we exaggerate on how it feels like there is a battle going on in your mind. I know when I have writers block, I feel panicked and desperate, as well as frustrated. I hope to convey relatable feelings through this, and also remind everyone, though it may seem like you'll never be able to write again, writers block doesn't last forever, and eventually the ideas will come back to you.

All right loves, that's it for today. I hope I've cleared up some of the mystery about animation, and I hope you'll check out the linksI have posted! bye, and I will see everybody next time... if anyone bothers to read these besides Mr. Sanderl.

Links!
Julie Castro
Jayse Matsuyama
Denae Sacramend
.GIF
Stop-motion
Last Animation

Typography Images

Hello Everybody! Today I'm going to tell you all about Typography portraits. I'm feeling a little distracted today, so I won't go on and on with the humorous beginning paragraph like I usually do. I'll just jump right in and tell you all about them. They happen to be incredibly interesting, so listen up. A typography portrait is basically a portrait of someone that looks like it's made from text. Now, you can make these really personalized by using text that represents the person you are doing, or you can just find some text that makes no sense and copy and paste it in. This all depends on how well you know the person, so if it's a really good friend of yours, write down things they love, or things that represent them, and it will really have a message, an impact.

My biggest challenge so far throughout this project was figuring out how to actually make them. I realize this sounds confusing, just wait, I'll explain. The thing is, these portraits can be really technical. There's a lot of complicated procedures in Photoshop, and so it can get a little overwhelming. That being said, now that I understand the process, I'm excited to do it again, because this is a really beautiful project, and it can be so meaningful if you let it. We've done three, one of a great innovator, one of a teacher at our school, and one of ourselves. For the self portrait, we answered these questions, and so it was a really personal message we shared, and I just loved it.

For the first image I made, I really was just trying to figure out the steps, and get the basics locked down. I got a portrait of Marie Curie online, then went to Wikipedia and got information on her. I copied and pasted the information to a textbox in Photoshop over her portrait. My second portrait was of my math teacher Mr. McHugh, and it turned out pretty cool. We got a lot more in depth this time, which I enjoyed because it was a challenge, and I love pushing the boundaries of what I can do. For my me portrait, I really felt like it was a representation of me, and I really liked it. I am a little bit shadowless unfortunately, so it's a little hard to see my features, but I still enjoyed the experience. Thank you for reading, comment below if you enjoyed, and if you didn't well, keep it to yourselves, no one likes a hater! Bye!

Double Exposed Portraits

Why hello innocent viewers. I am here to explain the mathematical equation of.... wait, don't go, I swear I'll stop talking about math, I swear! Now, moving past my daily dose of weirdness, (and math issues) I can explain what this post is really about. In class this week, we will be covering a little something I like to call Double Exposed Portraits. Don't know what the heck I'm talking about? (Don't worry, you're not alone, most of the time I have problems understanding myself!) Just keep reading, (That sounds like Nemo "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming) and I will enlighten us both. Also, I apologize for my distracted writing today, and the formality of last weeks post (I know I posted it on last Monday, just pretend! Shh...) I'm really tired, and will likely rewrite all of this later anyway. (Not likely) Anyway, enjoy learning about photography till your heads explode... hopefully not like they do when you look up at the clock and realize you have another 25 minutes of math class left.....

Okay, now that I'm all serious and focused, (Yeah right) we can begin. Basically, portrait photography is pictures of people that display how they are feeling, their emotions, their mood, their personality. Fun fact about me- it is actually one of my favorite types of photography. A Profile shot is when you take a profile of a person, which is basically a fancy term for osilhouetted profile, and those look wicked cool.
ne side of their face. This is different from other forms of portraits, because you can only see one eye, one side of their face, so it's a totally different view. Silhouetting is when all you can see of an image is the basic shape, because all of the details are blacked out, or shaded in, or something like that. So you can make a portrait that is a

Double exposures are basically when their is a profile shot, and it is combined with two other images, so it almost looks like the person has images dancing around in their heads. It is a way to express the person. You want to know how to make them? Read on! You start by taking three images. I'm sure you can take more, but that's the amount we are using this time around. One is a profile shot of yourself, or a person. We had other GT students take ours for us, so we could use our selves in the shot. The other two will be things that inspire you, or things that you love, things like that. Then you take them into Photoshop, and merge them together. You then take the dodge tool and outline your portrait, which should be on the top. Next, you crop your image, and change the blend settings to screen. Now you can make adjustment layers, and customize your color balance, curves, saturation, exposure, and more!

In my first example, I took shots of the sun shining through the leaves of trees. I wanted to kind of stick to a nature theme. Once I had those shots, I had Kasiah* take my portrait. In my second, I took two pictures, one of the banana trees outside of my house, because I often spend weekends working on them with my dad, so their special, and one of the pages of a book. I shouldn't even have to tell you why their is a book. Gosh. Then I had miss Kasiah take another shot of me. (P.S Thanks to Kynan and Tim for letting us steal their camera!) Anyway, that;s all for today! If you liked reading about all this digital media stuff, then come back soon. We love you here at Miss Maddie's G.T portfolio. See y'all next time! Byez! (That is an expression me and my friends cherish... I know, we're strange!)

*For those of you who are familiar with my blog, you all know kasiah. If you're new, or just don't pay attention, scroll to the bottom of the page. I'll wait. She's the girl on the left. With the nerd glasses. This is a joke. You will get it if you look at the bottom of the page. Go. Anyway, when your done with that, go check her blog out. Usually I'd link it, but I want to use this opportunity to give the K.M.S Gt class a shoutout. Check out everyones blog at the sidebar, I'm sure my classmates would appreciate you seeing their work, just like I do!