Visual Literacy

This was a project for our new 7th period class. Our project was to make a word out of pages in a book. This style of art was created by Isaac Salazar. What we had to do first was find a word, then print out a layout of the word from Photoshop. From there we found a book big enough for our word and start folding. What we had to do was fold pages to match the layout of our word. This project was a great example of visual literacy because after it was done it showed a word that meant something to us and displayed it for many people to see.

The first book I did I put Pi. I did this word as a reference to math my favorite subject and to refer to pie my favorite food and word to say. The font that I chose looked really fancy. I also chose an old math textbook to display my word. This took me about two weeks to do and in this book I folded around 275 pages. After that one I made another book of a unicorn because their my favorite mythical creature. It took only about a week to do and I folded around 250 pages. I am also about to start on my third book. I think its going to take me a long time because I have to fold around 500 pages.

I think my two books turned out really well. The pie was my best I think. My table partner also made a unicorn as well and we put them side to side and it looks good too. If I could go back I would make my folds more exact. Well I'm starting on making the American flag and that hopefully is going to look good. But if I was to make another book it would be of a cool car or something like that. I would chose that because I like cool cars and it would be cool if I could make one in my book.

Movie Poster Promo

 What overall impact did the layer effects & filters you used have on your finished movie poster?

In our movie poster you will see the main character, Bill and the second primary character Cop DJMax. What I'm thinking of doing is showing Bill holding on to a cliff and having Cop DJMax above him on the cliff.  It represents all the tasks that bill has to go through. Its going to be positioned in an unusual angle with the camera looking up to Bill. Its going to make the movie look interesting and unusual.

The title of our movie is Plane Ride Home and it is the biggest text in the  poster. Also it states the actors, reviews and the date it comes out. To help make our text look good we use the kerning effects on it. Kerning is the process of changing the spacing between letters to make the text look how you want it. We use it to make our text look better an more pleasing.

Proactive or Procrastination?

I think I am procrastinating more than proactive. I think this because I'm more useful when we are filming and editing but not so much at typing. I think that i'm going to be doing a lot of filming though because thats usually the main thing I do in projects. I'm also hoping to do a lot of editing in this project.

I think I was more productive then fooling around. Although I had a lot of free time I also helped out a lot with the trailer plan. I'm also going to film a lot of B-roll for our intro and ending screen.  I will be in the video and be the camera man.

If I could change my work habitats I would make myself more productive. I would like to be able to work longer then I fool around but its a little hard for me. I fool around a lot and I'm not use to working a lot. But since we are doing a poster in photoshop I can help a lot with that. My work habits are most likely going to change later on in the project.

My Visual Poem

My poem is about water. It talks about how it helps us and is all around us. In the end it also talks about how we are affecting it. The visuals show water and nature. It also helps visually show what i'm talking about.

It may not seem like it but the effects really helped my visual story. I used the effects to make my film clearer and vibrant. I used the color tool in many shots to make it more colorful. I think without the effects my film wouldn't of looked as good as it dose.

I think that I did a good job on the poem. I was surprised that I was able to make a poem like that. One thing that I could of done better was add more B-roll. I also could of re-filmed the the voiceover. Another thingI could of done was make my poem longer.

Finished News Story

Conclude with your critique results, do you agree?

Our G.T story was about the problem related to GMO testing in Kauai. It talks about the issues with GMO and what they are doing on our island. This story also talks about Dustin Barca's experience with them. The story was made by Kuumomi Thompson, Kaehukai Keala, Wailana Makepa and myself. It features Dustin Barca and Kaehukai Keala.

Our final video turned out good. It wasn't the best video but we put in a lot of work into it and I think we did a really good job. I am very happy with it and I think it presents the story well. I was actually surprised that we were able to do that much and make it good.

In all we got a 2.6 out of 4. I don't really agree with some of the votes. I think our video deserved more 3. I also think that there was to much 2's.

Hiki No Behind The Scenes

Our idea is to do a profile story on Dustin Barca and his view on Gmo and what they are doing on the island of Kauai. I think its going well. We were struggling in the beginning because besides Dustin Barca we didn't know who else to interview.

When we are not filming we are usually working on the written part of filmmaking. We work on our profile pitch, our writing tools, and transcribing the video that we have. Besides that we edit if theres nothing left to do.

One thing I can do is to get more B-roll. If we can get a lot more B-roll then I think we will be able to make our story a lot better. Also what I can do more that I have been be doing is working on the writing work. We have been having trouble with it because we had to change our story three times.

Lessons Learned

The most interesting part of our project is that we were able to interview Dustin Barca. The reason why it was so interesting was because he is an important person in kauai and were lucky that we were able to interview him. Also it was interesting that we were able to get good interview film evan with the camera problems that we were encountering while filming.

The biggest road block that our team faced was trying to get more than one interview. The reason why it was a big road block because we didn't know who to interview. We asked a couple of people but some of them said no and it set us back a little bit.

The most important part of the filmmaking process is the interview  composition. If the main interview is low quality of there is a technical problem its hard to fix it. The only way to really fix it is to reshot it or add a lot of B-roll.

http://menialproductions.blogspot.com/2010/04/thoughts-on-framing.html

The Experiment

This was the first assignment we were given in the year. Our assignment was to draw a picture of anything in photoshop. The reason why we did this was kind of to see what we could do and to see what we could think of. The reason why I chose to draw this was because I like bunnies and I didn't know what else I could draw.The bunny fits in with the background and the setting. I messed up on the bunny's legs shape and hand's.

Back to School

School started about 2 weeks ago and since then my favorite moment so far was when we got to stay home on friday because of the wether. My biggest challenge in school so far is social studies because we were already were given a project. The project is a "Who I'm I " project and theres a writing part and a drawing part and i'm having problems with the drawing part. This year I hope I will be successful by doing all my homework and studying when i need to.