Book Folding

In my seventh period class, with Mrs.Sanderl, we did a project with folding books to make a word or something amazing.We based this project off on Issac Salazar's famous book folding. This form of art would be classified as visual literacy. Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning
from information presented in the form of an image. This is an example of visual literacy because we make the books into actual words out of books, that are filled with words.

For my book I did the words "What" and "Dan". I chose these words because "what" signifies my questioning of basically everything. "Dan" represents my love for "danisnotonfire" who is a famous youtuber that I enjoy watching. For each book, I folded  between 200-500 pages. When I was folding my intentions were to make the person question what they were seeing... Now I know I haven't exactly finished "Dan" But thats okay.

I think that my project turned out quite well. I'm pretty proud of what I've done and I'll be sure to finish my last book. If I were to do something different I would have tried to make my folds more sharp and visible. If I were to do this project again, I would probably do something like Sam or Dean, relating to my love for Supernatural.

Proactive or Procrastination?

Be honest, are you proactive or a procrastinator? Why or why not?

I would say that I am definitely procrastinator. Usually, Im doing something then I remember I have homework or something and then panic but like keep doing what Im doing but with panic. Not a very good strategy, yes I know. But eventually, when it's almost too late, I get it done. I mean, at least I get it done. 

In class, I don't tend to procrastinate, but it depends on if I have a book handy or my sketch book. If I have something else to distract me, well I get distracted easily.

My level of productivity usually doesn't strongly relate to my free time. I guess if I work more then I have less free time, or if I get it done in school, then I have more free time. But really it depends on how much work I have; like if a teacher gives me like two questions or a whole paper due by tomorrow. 

If I was to change my work habits, Id probably do things when they're assigned, not the night before at 4 a.m. And, I mean I probably would if I wasnt so busy all the time. A lot of teachers blame kids for not doing their work because they are lazy, but why are kids expected to finish these huge projects for each class while they all have hours of homework, extra curricular activities, socializing, stress relief, keeping themselves healthy, and getting enough (the average teen is supposed to get 9+ hours) sleep?

My Visual Poem

ClarkM VisualPoem from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.


My visual poem is about me breaking free from all the things that hold me down. I can escape through many things. I can get away from things through art, music, shows, or anything that distracts me or changes my everyday life. It expresses how I am bored with reality and love to escape through my many passions. The visuals show how I see the world and how I really feel.

My effects, like the transitions and the color enhancing, affect my video by automatically making the video better by adding interest. I think using the transitions smooth out the video. I also think that the text layovers add a certain degree of clarification. You can also use affects to add depth and more meaning into your story.

Im pretty satisfied with my final result. I think I could've done better with my audio, it's a bit shaky and wind filled. I also could have gotten some more relevant B-Roll, but I did my best. I also feel like my background music was a little too upbeat for some parts, but for the rest I think it matches. Overall, I think my video is pretty well done and I'm happy with it.

My poem plan

Finished News Story

Me, Leila, Kiara, and Cherish, all worked on a news story on a way of alternative energy on the island, as you might have seen from previous blog posts. We went and interviewed multiple people that had to do with it, or was opinionated with the biomass plant in mind.  We interviewed people from the plant, citizens of Kauai, and people that are in direct knowledge of alternative energy.

I would have to say that my video turned out pretty well. I think we have good editing skills and that it all flowed nicely. We spent a lot of time perfecting this video and I think we did really well on this big project.

Looking at the critique results, I do not agree with them. As I was looking over the results I was confused and saddened. We did have a lot of threes, which I think could be appropriate in some ways, but there were a lot of twos which I think are wrong. I would of rather had a written response because I have no idea why we got these stats, I think we deserved better.

World News

According to a news article, Hector Beltran Leyva, a famous "drug lord" has been captured and arrested. He was in San Miguel de Allende, north-west of Mexico City, and had been living in the nearby city of Queretaro posing as a businessman dealing in art and real estate, according to the government. The Beltran Leyva gang has had a reputation as one of the most ruthless in the business.

Hector Beltran Leyva: gang known for its ruthlessness. Picture: AP Photo

My personal opinion on this issue is that I am happy that he was finally caught. Drug gangs are powerful, and being as ruthless as this one was, it could harm a lot of people. According to the article, they were planning a "bloody turf war" against against former ally Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman. These people have hurt multiples and would hurt more in the future, so I am happy that they caught him.

People should care about this because this gang and the leader could of hurt many people, and they could also bring other people down with them. People should care because these are real people that have done bad things and deserve to be thrown in jail, the people that caught him deserve recognition.

Lessons Learned

While we continue on our news story in GT, our team comes across some interesting things. For me, I thought the most interesting thing was seeing how the plant worked and seeing the workers use tools and planks of wood to keep building upon the plant to make it better. I also saw, when we were driving into the biomass plant area, we saw the colorful albizia trees that they use to burn. The albizia trees have bark in different colors which make them extremely pretty, but due to being an invasive plant and damaging the native ecosystems, they use that tree to fuel the plant.

I think our biggest roadblock in our project was making sure we met all the deadlines for Mr. Sandrel. We had to transcribe three huge interviews in a short amount of time.


I think the most important and valuable part of filmmaking is working together, if you don't work with your team, you can't get anything done. Working with your team well can push you to the next level. For example: my team and I have to have a lot of communication so we can finish our project on time. We have to plan where to go and how we're getting there.

HikiNo Behind the Scenes

For a project in my GT class, we got to chose between doing a profile story or a news story. My partners and I are doing a news story on a new biomass plant in Koloa. We are covering where it is, what its doing, and how everything works. The biomass plant uses alternative energy by using invasive trees that take over land and choke out native plats. Using these trees benefits the island in two ways: 

1. They take away invasive plants that can harm other native plants, also the unwanted trees can fall on to the highway and cause unnecessary destruction and inconvenience.
2. By taking away and using those invasive plants, they create energy for the island.

When the camera isn't rolling me and the rest of my team are working too find interviews, plan B-Roll, and tie up any loose ends that we encounter. Our minimum requirement for this project is three well done, transcribed, interviews. We also need great B-Roll to put in over the interviews to make them a bit more interesting. B-Roll that we use gives the story a more familiar feeling, as if the viewer has actually seen the biomass plant.

One thing I can do to help my team out is to plan interviews continually like I've been doing. Interviews in a news story is everything for us, they give us information, they make us more comfortable by being able to see a real person with their lives impacted by certain stories that interest the public. I email, plan, and set up interviews with important people that relate to our story. Then, we all go interview the subject and work together to make it perfect.

The Experiment

In my first period GT class, we did an assignment called The Experiment. The concept of this project was to give people without experience, or even with experience, a chance to explore photoshop and figure out how to work with it. They can see how things work and what we can use later in the school year. Mr. Sanderl basically said "Make something, without any of my help." And so thats what we did.

One of the things that was really fun is using the new tools and making something that looks really awesome. I improved on my contour skills and also I got more used to using photoshop on my own. I guess the only thing that was difficult is figuring out what to do when something went wrong, because like I said before, we weren't supposed to have Mr. Sanderl's help.

Here are the two things I made:

Levi

Destiel

Back To School

Well I'm back to school in eighth grade. Heres a little about what I like so far, one of my favorite moments I've had is meeting all my new teachers and realizing "Wow, I have awesome teachers this year." I feel like with great teachers I'll be able to learn a lot more this year, I think I'll improve on my weaker subjects like math or english because I see these teachers teach in a way that is easier for me to understand.

I guess if you hear the great parts about school you'd like to hear about the challenges of eighth grade. Like I said earlier, one of my biggest weak points in school is math. Last year I didn't really understand and ended up getting a C in math. This year I can tell it will be difficult because of all the complicated problems we are already doing. Hopefully I'll be able to overcome my struggle with math and pass with an A.

This year I will be successful by paying attention in class, studying with my friends and having them explain what I don't understand. I'll keep trying my hardest in my most difficult classes. I will be successful because I have confidence that I can pass with understanding in all of my classes.

(Raf and I being FABULOUSSS)

Words Of Wisdom

In my Gt class, we did a project called Words Of Wisdom. For this project we had to interview someone that we thought was wise. We also had to film lots of B-Roll to match the interview. We completed this by filming our interview and B-Roll on time. Then, we worked together to edit, and make the final touches. Sophia and Chazz, and I worked to the extreme in a high stress environment, just like what would happen at a professionals video workplace.

Glenna Foster

For our interview, we interviewed Chazz's grandmother, Glenna. She talked about how important it is to have fun, while still working hard. We thought this was important because sometimes people are stressed to the point of breaking down, so we think its important for people to know that you can still have fun while you're working.

Five Tips For

Our teams topic for our Five Tips project was "Five Tips For Reading a Book". We did this project earlier in the year so we could look back on it. We picked this topic because, Erin and Mikela, my two partners, also love books as much as I do. We spend our free time reading books, so we informed other people about our reading techniques. A lot of things could of been better in this video, for one example, we could of have practiced the voice over more, to have it sound natural. We also could of had more interesting angles and composition techniques. Compared to what we are doing in this quarter, this was horrible. but, it could be worse.
For another example, Erin's head is cut off and the background is distracting in the screen shot below.

Practice Profile Story

The purpose of our practice story was to prepare us for the actual interview that we have done. We planned it out, edited it, and completed it. We did almost everything that we do for the actual interview. For our practice, my partners, Chazz, and Sophia, interviewed me on reading. It showed how reading affects me and what its role is in my life. We chose I to interview because it is an interesting subject and I was willing and happy to be interviewed. It shows B-Roll and interview composition. 

Profile Project Progress

For my Gt class, we are interviewing Grandma Glenna, Chazz's grandmother. We are interviewing her on how she has fun, how she has fun in her shop, and what she does to keep upbeat. We have filmed at her shop, Earth and Sea gallery. We chose to interview her because she is always upbeat and fun when Chazz is around her, she's hardworking and knows how to balance it with fun.

B-Roll gives a video visual interest and helps to tell a story. When using B-Roll correctly on top of the interview, adding B-Roll for visual help can give the addition of great imagery and give the viewer a relatable feeling. When you use B-Roll, you layer your footage over your interview and you can still hear the interview going, but you also see different footage. Voice over do basically the same thing, but with only your voice, while the footage is rolling, you only hear the voice that is speaking.

My team works together well. Sophia Rodriguez, and Charles McConnell, are both my partners. So far we have not fallen behind, we have filmed everything correctly, and are moving on. To work better than we already are, we can try to work faster and efficiently. Thanks to us, our video is great and is being done correctly. We made sure that we had enough time to get everything done on time, and planned what to do. To get more B-Roll, we are filming as much as we can whenever we can.

We can improve upon our video by piecing the story together better. We can also add more B-Roll, and add more interesting angles. We can also make the voice over sound smoother, by practicing it and then re-filming it. We can also cover up some cuts in the interview. When we did our critique, we saw what we needed to improve and we are going to act upon what people said.

Composition Techniques

The main four composition techniques are the rule of thirds, framing, unusual angles, and leading lines.
Leading lines are are when lines lead to the subject. Framing is when you create an image using things in the background or foreground to frame your subject. Rule of thirds is when your subject is aligned with the graph thats sometimes is on a camera, the subjects eye is on one of the crossings, and looking off the frame. Unusual angles give the picture or video a different more interesting view, like a birds eye view or a looking up shot.

Unusual Angle

Leading Lines 

Rule of Thirds

Three Shot Sequences

Sequencing is a series of three shots or more in a row in a movie or video. Sequencing can add interest in a video by giving different points of view. You can sequence by doing different shot types, for an example, a wide shot, then a medium shot, then a close up. In some quality videos, sequencing is a series of 3 short clips with interesting and complex angles with different perspectives that help describe the action thats happening. Sequencing is important because it adds to the video, if a video starts to drag on, sequencing can have an effect that keeps the video interesting.

Practice Story Reflection

In my Gt class, we did a practice interview to prepare us for a new project later on. My groups video was about me, talking about how I love books. In my group I worked with Charles McConnell and Sophia Rodriguez. While we were doing this, we learned how to work together when we had a short period of time. Mr. Sandrel gave us a high stress environment so we had to work together to get it done on time. He was preparing us for a real life deadline that could happen later on.

Making this video, we first shot our interview. While we were shooting the interview, we had to quickly come up with the questions we would use that related to our topic. In addition to that we had to make sure that we had a good interview composition, not a shot that looked like a profile. A profile shot is when you see only the side of your face. Good interview composition is when your head is slightly turned, in the rule of thirds, and your looking off the camera frame. We also had to make sure that the background noise wasn't too loud that it would take away from the main audio.

We used a a small microphone that clipped to my shirt to get the highest quality of sound. After we finished shooting the interview, we shot the B roll. B roll is the footage that shows while the interview audio is playing. We shot our B roll in the library because what better place to show and read books, than a place literally full of books?

I think that our project definitely could of been better, but with the time we had, we did our best. We had to corporate as much as possible to get everything done. We made a transcript to follow along while editing. We did our editing in Final Cut Pro .

Then, after everyone was finished, we critiqued all of our videos. We graded them on audio, visuals, and story. 

Polar Panoramas

These are my two Polar Panorama example. First I got a camera and took at least 10 photos moving from left to right all vertically oriented with a 10-15% overlap, at a location with an interesting horizon line. Then in camera raw, I edited all my photos and named them correctly. Next, in photoshop I used the PhotoMerge plugin in Photoshop and resized it to a square image, the next step is rotating the image 180 degrees before applying the Polar Coordinates filter under the distort menu.

Then I had a portrait photography session to copy the feeling of being on top of the world. After editing the portrait photos, I used the Quick Selection Tool to cut out the background, refine the edges and resize the layer to fit their polar panorama perfectly. The last step was creating a shadow effect by copying, inverting and warping their portrait layer, decreasing the exposure to pure black and adjusting the opacity to around 40 or 50%.  

Spherical Panoramas

These are two pictures of Spherical Panoramas that I created. First, I took two different sets of 10-15 images in a 360 degree rotation with a 10-15% overlap. The images were then edited using Adobe Camera Raw and compiled into a panoramic image using PhotoShop's PhotoMerge plugin.

After, the rectangular 360 degree panorama was resized to be square and filtered using Polar Coordinates. Lastly, the final spherical panoramas were selected using the elliptical marquee and feathered by refining the edges. A black or white background was applied before saving the finished composite image.

All About Me

Hi, welcome to my blog! Here is a bit about me and my background.

I am in seventh grade, attending Kappa Middle School. Currently, my favorite classes are GT (gifted and talented), with Mr. Sanderl, and art class with Mrs. Sanderl.  Since second grade, I've always been in the Kappa schools, next Ill go to Kappa High. I am A student with an occasional B in my report card. I'm currently in honors English and plan to take it in eighth, and through out high school. For my career, I want to become a psychologist.

After school I go to the gym two times a week, go to the park I live near by, and go to the library. I love books, and I am at a high school reading level. I have lived in the state of Hawaii all of my life, when I was two years old I moved from the island Hawaii to Kauai. I have a brother and a half sister.

My favorite music genres are pop punk, scream, classic rock, and sometimes pop. My current favorite books are The Faults In Our Stars, by John Green, and Divergent, by Veronica Roth. I watch a ton of anime (Japanese animation). I want to attend Oregon state university when I'm older, but due to out of state tuition, it could be only a dream. I'm hoping to get scholarships for college so I can go to the one I want.

Photomontages

These are my two finished photomontage pictures, inspired by the famous photographer David Hockney. David Hockney first created similar images called joiners. We used digital cameras to take about fifteen photos for each creation. We edited the pictures in camera raw, put them into photoshop, and rearranged them to look like a piece of artwork. 

Magazine Cover

This is my finished magazine, I created it in my Gifted and Talented class at Kapa'a Middle School. We used digital cameras and photoshop. First I had someone take a picture of me, next we edited the photos and put them in photoshop. Later we did a contour and color layer, added the text boxes, and created this!