Metamorphosis Animation

In our G.T. class, we recently did a project where we created animations showing a transformation. We broke into teams of around four people and started talking about what we would like to do for our animations. My team was, Kora Quintana, Stella Hawthorne and Paige Wesoloski. Our group decided that our title would be "Jacklin changes priorities" and our animation would show that Jacklin was only doing things that made others happy but in the end she "changed priorities" and made sure that she was doing what made her happy. Our group used three different types of animation; stop-motion, claymation and stykz.

In the beginning of our animation Jacklin is a claymation. She wakes up, walks over to her closet and gets dressed in clothes that she really likes. Afterwards, she walks out to see her mom and her mom tells her there is no way she is wearing that. Jacklin goes back into her room to change clothes and the image changes to black and white to set the mood. When jacklin is heading back home, she is in a stykz animation which also has no color. She walks through her house sad and sulking but once she reaches her closet door she jumps into the air and dives under her closet doors. Jacklin comes out of the closet and a real human using stop-motion animation. Jacklin doesn't just do your casual walk though; she slithers.

Last week we did the critiques for this project by watching every animation with our class and using a document for everyone to vote for which one they thought was the best. There were two different topics that you had to grade each animation on: creativity/originality/execution  and characters/sets/props. Out of all of the groups in our class, our team got the most votes! even our teacher voted for us which I thought was really cool. Our group worked really hard on this project, we had some struggles but over all I think it worked out great.

Words of Wisdom

In our GT class, we recently did a project called "Words of wisdom". For this project, we broke into groups (my group was Kora Quintana and myself) and we picked a family member who was older than us to give us words of wisdom (my group chose my dad). The purpose of this was to give advice to the people of our generation. I really enjoyed this project because it was fun to see what my dad had to say about this but there were plenty of difficulties. One of the many difficulties we experienced was that we didn't have much time to film B-roll with my dad because he had to work a lot of the time and we could only check out the camera so many times. It all worked out though and our finished product turned out pretty nice.

Five Tips For...

In second quarter, our GT class did a project called "Five Tips For...". We broke into groups and chose a topic that we wanted to give five tips about. My group was Kora Quintana, Leleaka Anakalea and myself. Our Group chose the topic, "five tips for making your parents happy". The reason we chose this topic was because we had each thought of our own ideas for this topic and when we talked to Mr. Sanderl about our topics, he thought they all applied to one topic of making parents happy. Overall, I think our video turned out pretty nice. There were a couple things however, that we could have done better. One thing we could have done better was started filming sooner. We kind of felt like there was plenty of time to film so we didn't film until the last week of the project which gave us less time to re-shoot the shots that got messed up and less time to edit. The next time we have a project like this, I will make sure to get on the filming right away.

Practice Profile Story

The purpose of our practice story was to prepare for our final Profile project. In this practice story, we selected a member of our group to interview (my partner, Kora Quintana, picked me) & a topic to film about. Then we found a place where there wouldn't be too much noise (we chose the library), After that, we found a good place in the library, set everything up and started filming. If we hadn't done the practice project, we could have had a lot of trouble with our final Project because we wouldn't have had the practice.
My partner and I chose to do our interview about the project we were doing at that time in my art elective. We chose this topic because the projects had recently been displayed in one of the classrooms window that everyone passes so we thought we would talk about something that has to do with what everyone at our school was able to see. I also noticed that everyone in my art class was really enjoying this project so I thought it would be a good topic.

Profile Project Progress

In our G.T. class, we are currently working on a project called "Elder words of wisdom". For this project my partner and I decided to interview my dad. We chose my dad because he is always telling stories and trying to give advice so we thought he would love to be apart of this project. One day after school we had scheduled to do the interview with my dad but Kora was home sick so I did the interview on my own. The interview worked out after all and I had plenty of time to make sure there were enough questions and the interview didn't seem rushed. One of the only problems with the interview was that I had to use natural lighting so there were a lot of changes in the lighting.

The week after, we worked on B-roll and voice-overs. For the B-roll, we didn't have much time to film with my dad so we didn't quite get enough footage, but the footage we did get was pretty good. A couple days later we went to the G.T. classroom at lunch to film the voice-over. To record the voice-over, my partner had to clip a microphone to her shirt and sit facing the camera as if she were talking to the audience. The voice-over worked out perfectly and we could hear her clearly.

Though our work has turned out nice so far, my partner and I have a few things we can work on. One of those things is agreeing. We tend to disagree on a lot of things and instead of choosing one quickly and moving on, we argue for almost an entire class. Another thing we can work on is splitting up the work. My partner and I have been partners for other projects and every time we work on a project, one of us always ends up doing the work no one else wants to do. Although it's not always the same person, we still need to work on it. We have plenty of things we need to work on but I think we both try our best to make the project the best it can be.

Composition Techniques

In every good video or picture there are things called Composition Techniques. The main four composition techniques are, rule of thirds, framing, leading lines and unusual angles. Rule of thirds is a technique where the subject is not in the dead center. This adds more interest and creates a better shot. Framing is when you use things in the background or foreground of your shot to "frame" your subject. This draws the viewers eye to the subject and can create interest in the photo or video. Leading lines are lines or a line that lead to the subject of your photo. Like framing, this helps draw the viewers eyes to the subject of your image. Unusual angles is a technique where the photographer or person taking the video takes the shot in a way that you wouldn't usually see in everyday life. In order to get unusual angles you can get down on your knees, stand up on a stool, get extremely close to something etc. These are the four most important composition techniques. Now you can grab your camera and take some amazing photos!

Three Shot Sequences

In all great videos, there is a thing called three shot sequencing. Three shot sequencing is when you have three shots with different perspectives that show what is going on in an interesting way. Without sequencing people would either be completely lost with what was going on in the video or they'd be bored to death with one simple angle. The three shots in the sequencing consist of a wide angle that establishes the location and sets the scene, a medium shot that gets a bit more into detail such as what the focus looks like and what is happening in the scene, and a close up that makes you feel as if you were there by showing every little detail of the scene. If you want to make a great film, use sequencing.