Finished News Story

My news story was about the rebuilding of the hotel Coco Palms. My teammates were Neliza Iannuzzi, Shanden Matsushima, and Zephen Kaneakua. The Coco Palms was, and still is, a popular hotel. On September 11, 1991 the hotel was sadly struck by hurricane Iniki with the rest of Kauai. Then, on July 4, 2014 someone set the place on fire.

In my opinion, the final cut of the new story turned out very good. I was very happy when I watched it before I turned it in.  I think that there could have been some cleaning up on the quality here and there, but other than that I could not be happier with the final product.

Just like almost every other project in G.T. we critiqued all of our final products. A majority of the class graded the finished product 3 out of 4. In my opinion, that is a reasonable grade. I know that we completed most of the expectations, but we could improve when it came to certain things. We had a few jump-cuts in the b-roll here and there, it was a little hard to understand the story in some parts and some other things. Over all, I am satisfied with the results that this project got and I do think that it was good.

Proactive or Procrastination?

If you really want to know, I am a huge procrastinator.  Some of my projects that I turn in for school are at least a day late. I always want to do things, but I never actually end up doing them until it's too late. I know it's a bad thing, but I am just a natural procrastinator.

I think I shouldn't have as much free time as I do because, being a procrastinator, I always have free time until I feel like doing the work that I'm supposed to do... if that makes sense. I don't have much free time because my work is never usually done. I know I can be less of a procrastinator if I just try, but I've gotten so used to it that it'd be really hard to start being more productive. I guess I just have to work harder.

I think that I could definitely do a lot of things in change my work habits in a good way. If I were to try harder ti change my work habits, in a good way. I would probably try harder to worry about my work. I never really worry when I procrastinate. I would also try my best to finish my work as soon as possible. It would definitely help if I also did the ones that absolutely had to be done first.

My Visual Poem

Today's blog post is going to be about my G.T. class' latest project. It was called a visual poem. I decided to make my poem about world travel. The title is "Travel" and I'm guessing you know why. As you can see, in my visual poem tried my best to make sure that the footage that was showing would match what I was saying. Living in Hawaii it's kind of hard to find places that wold match other parts in the world. Although I had to go to lots of places to take the videos, I would say that the visuals impact by actually showing you what I would be doing in different parts in the world.

I didn't really add special effects to the video. Although I didn't add the effects (like I was supposed to), I would say that what I have affects the overall meaning, mood and audience just because in almost all of my shots I showed things that I had to wait for. It's just that in my mind, I feel like the shots show that traveling takes time and patience. I had to have patience and time to catch the shot of the airplane coming in. I had to have time and patience to get footage of the airport. My mom had to drive us around the sign twice just to get a good shot of the airport sign.

I would say that I am not as satisfied with my results as I would like to be. I really wish that I had started working on taking the videos earlier. I was procrastinating, as always, and I didn't sign out a camera as soon as I should have. I should have worked harder on getting a camera earlier and getting more footage.

Lessons Learned

Hello. This blog post today is going to be about my project and the lessons I have learned from it. I would have to say that the most interesting part of my project for me would have to be filming the b-roll. There was just so many things at the remains of the hotel that we could film. We got a lot more b-roll that we needed, but its much better to have lots of b-roll than to have no b-roll at all. There were so many amazing things to film at the hotel and we got a lot of it. We only had one chance to go on the tour and we used that one chance to focus and make sure we did the best that we could.

The biggest roadblock that my team and I handled would probably have to be the due dates and turning everything in on time. Although we did our best to plan everything, we still couldn't turn stuff in on time. We would either turn it in the day after or we would have to stay after class to finish it. Luckily, our teacher accepts late work as long as it's not something like a week late. Turning things in on time is definitely something we could all improve.

In my opinion, the most valuable part of the filmmaking process would have to be editing all of your footage and finally seeing all of it together in one piece. To me it just shows that all of your scheduling, planning, and filming was all worth it. You put your all into it and you made an amazing video that you are proud of. I just honestly love that feeling of accomplishment you get when you put that very last touch.

HikiNo Behind the Scenes

Hi! So right now we are doing a video project. All of the other groups in my G.T. class are doing a Profile story, but me and my group are the only ones that decided to do a News story. We are doing a news story about the Coco Palms which is a famous hotel on the island that was destroyed by one of Kauai's biggest hurricanes. It was the only hotel that was not re-built after the hurricane. Sadly, earlier this year, on July 4th, the remains were somehow set on fire. So far we have interviewed 1 person, and I guess you could say that it is going pretty good.

When the camera is not rolling, my other team mates and I are discussing what our next shot will be. Whether we are going to be filming b-roll or an interview. We will talk about how we are going to position the shot or what questions we are going to ask our subject. We can even talk about out next shot. A lot of times behind the camera my team and I usually plan ahead. We try our best make sure we have a plan for the future. 

There are many things that can be improved about out team. My team and I don't really communicate well with each other so it is really hard to try to make sure that we are all there to do things like filming our interviews and b-roll. I think that is one thing that can really be improved. To improve this we can try harder to make plans and make sure that we have somewhere to meet up and film. It may be hard, but we are at least gonna have to try. 

The Experiment

Hello again. In my last blog post I told you about how Mr. Sanderl let us do a project called "The Experiment." In this project we got to explore Photoshop and make anything that we wanted that was appropriate for school. This is what I came up with. I wanted to do this because I found this quote and I just really liked it. I found a really nice back round that was related to the quote. I also chose this back round because the colors looked great together and there was space to put the quote. I also put a gradient layout and then lowered the opacity so that you could still see the back round and text. I then proceeded to sign my name in the right bottom corner with the paint brush tool. To top it off I put in the quote and I was done!

Back to School

Hi! I'm back and school has just started again. This is our very first blog post of the year. My favorite moment this year so far would have to be meeting all of the newer G.T. students. I'm only a second year G.T. student, but it is really fun to help the first year students. This is actually my favorite moment of this year so far because now I know what to do and get to help other students.

Although I have my favorite moments, I also have challenges during the school year. My biggest challenge so far was not a very big challenge though. It would have to be our experiment project in Photoshop here we had to explore the program and do whatever we want. That will be in my next post in case you are wondering. It was fun yet kind of hard to do because I haven't been on Photoshop all of Summer.

This year will be easier for me than last year, because now I know what I need to know. To be successful this year I have to be sure that I complete and turn in all of my assignments on time this year. I need to be sure to do all of my homework, and I also have to be sure to listen to all the directions that my teacher, Mr. Sanderl gives me. I really feel like this is gonna be a good year and I'm going to have lots of fun.

Metamorphosis Animation

I am finally back and here to tell you about my G.T. class' latest project that we just finished. This project was called "Metamorphosis Animation." My team and I had to make an animation hat had a story to it. It was about a rose named Rose that wished to be a human since she was not happy with herself because of all the other flowers judging and making fun of her. In this animation we had to use at least 2 different animation types, and we used four. The types we used were claymation, whiteboard, stop-motion, and a program called Stykz.

In order to get a good grade for this project we had to have a good story and purpose in the animation. Our focus statement was "Rose Accepts Herself." In the beginning of the video our main character Rose was being bullied because of what she was. I personally like how we chose a rose because it is a popular and liked type of flower and I think it was cool to mix it up this time. When Rose had finally had enough of all the bullying and taunting she decided to run away and find a way to become a human. The animation then moves into the whiteboard. In this whiteboard scene she is still being bullied and realizes that she does not belong there either. Rose is still very determined to find out a way to become a human, but she still hasn't found any possibility of it. In the end she finds a way to become a human and finally accepts herself.

When we were finally done and turned in our animation, we got to critique everybody's animations. Honestly, my tea did a better job than I expected. Although our animation had a lot of room for improvement we did our best and had a great outcome. It took time, but we did a good job and I love how it turned out.

Five Tips For...

Hello everybody! Today I'm going to be talking about one of my first G.T. videos that me and my teammates made. This video was called "5 Tips For Turning in Your Homework on Time." I did this video with my friends Jasmine Laplante and Nahele Keale. When we made this video, we still didn't know very much about composition techniques and sequencing. We weren't the best at this at the time, but we still had to try our best. When my team and I chose this we thought that there was a lot of people who sometimes had trouble doing their homework and turning it in on time. We chose this topic because we wanted to let these people know some tips on how to turn it in one time and raise their grade. In this video that I have above, we show and tell you tips on how to turn in your homework on time and how to focus better while doing it. 

For this project I think that my teammates and I could have planned this a lot better. We never really got a chance to meet up because we never had time to do it together. We probably could have planned during school when we could get together to record footage. Since I had to do a lot of the recording by myself, we didn't have a lot of time to edit the video. One thing that I really regret about not putting in the video is music. My team was falling really far behind and had to turn the video in before it was too late. We were under pressure and I honestly wish we would have just added that music. When the viewers were watching the video I really wanted them to be interested, but when you don't have music or anything it really gets the viewers bored. One thing I really like about the video though, is that when the text shows up we chose the paper theme to match with the fact that we are giving you tips on homework.

This project was probably one of the hardest video projects I had to do. There are many reasons that this video was hard to make. One of my two other teammates were off island, my only other teammate and I never got the chance to meet up so I had to record the footage by myself with some help from my parents. In the last scene with Nahele in it was shot with our teacher helping us. I really think that this was pretty good for our experience at the time. We learned that when doing a project like this, teamworks very important and the only way do get things done is to communicate with your team. 

Words of Wisdom

One of my G.T. class' latest projects was called "Elder's Words of Wisdom" where we had to find an elder person to interview and give us good words of wisdom to help out the viewers of the video. We chose to interview my teammate, Nahele Keale's, grandfather, Michael Keale. The main idea of the video was "Grandpa Michael Spread Aloha Through Music." In case you didn't know "Aloha" means love in Hawaiian. To make this video the best that it could be, my teammates and I had to make sure that we took a lot of b-roll to work with and make sure that our voice-overs helped to send messages through the video. The first time my team and I met up to take b-roll and do the interview we did not get to take enough b-roll. Although we didn't get to take enough b-roll for our video the first time we got another chance to meet up and take more and then we got enough b-roll to make our video a success. One thing that I really liked about this project was that we got really great new cameras. They were DSLR cameras that I really loved that you could use the manual focus and I loved working with them.

When we finally got all of our b-roll and recorded all of our b-roll, we got to start editing. While editing my team and I still had some problems getting along and having the same ideas on some parts of the video. We sorted it out enough to get the video done, but I know that if we could just maybe get along better, the video could have been ten times better. I'm not saying that I didn't love the way it turned out. I honestly loved how it came out but I just know that we could have done better. Editing this took some work. We had to cut out all of the parts that the interviewer spoke and put b-roll over those parts to hide the cuts in the video and make the quality of the video better.

Michael Keale and our team think that our words of wisdom are important because some people just think of music as guitars and singing to a rhythm. We wanted to show everyone that messages and stories can be told through music, songs and singing. We wanted to show that Michael Keale spreads love through his music and love to o what he does to this day. 

Practice Profile Story

When my teammates and I were creating this practice story, our main goal was to interview our teammate Nahele Keale. The main subject of this video was that "Nahele Loves Exercising." Our purpose of this project was to interview Nahele so she could tell the viewers why she loves exercising and how it makes her feel. We wanted to make this video so that it would grab the viewers attention and pull them in and we were just a group of sixth graders so we never had any help from our older classmates.

Like I said, the main subject of this video was "Nahele Loves Exercising." We chose Nahele because we knew that she loved to exercise. We knew that she wanted to share this. When we asked Nahele questions, we asked her to answer things like the reasons why she loves exercising  and how she got into it. We took one long video of her interview and asked her questions. Sometimes we even asked one question and made a new question based off of that answer to make more answers for the interview video.

For this interview video one of the rules were that we had to make sure that all of the interview question that the interviewer asked were cut out of the video so that they were not seen. I think we had to do this so that the interest would stay on the main subject and not on the interviewer. Although we cut out all the parts with the interviewers voice in it, we still didn't want the viewers to see the cuts in the video because it would just look unprofessional. We made sure that we hid all of the cuts in the video. We did that by covering the cuts with b-roll. B-roll is put in the video to either hide cuts or to cover videos of the voice-overs that we don't want the viewers to see. Voice-overs video put into the video of a narrater that either helps send a message through the video or helps to add interest. Voice-overs are great with helping to add interest, but when used incorrectly it can make the video boring and hard to follow.

Profile Project Progress

For this project, my teammates and I did an interview. My teammates Nahele Keale, Jasmine Laplante, and Kalani Young all pitched in on helping to make this video the best it could be. In this video, we interviewed Nahele's grandfather, Michael Keale. When we interviewed him we really dug into his love for music and the way he wants to spread "aloha" or love through his music. We asked him questions about why he loved music and how he got into it. We interviewed him at the Coconut Marketplace and we also took the b-roll in the Coconut Marketplace. He was a really great sport when doing this and was really easy to work with. The way he put his answers also made it easy to do the voice-overs.

My team and I had to find out a way to make our b-roll eye catching and our voice-overs sound interesting. In case you don't know, b-roll is something that many people use in interview videos. The b-roll plays on while the subject is talking and is used to create interest. It helps the viewers relate to the video and it even helps to cover cuts in the video that you don't want the viewers to see. The voice-overs also help to create interest in the video, but there is a little more to them. The voice-overs help to send a message in the video, but if you don't use them correctly they can just make the video boring to watch. So when making the voice-overs you ave make sure to be careful about what you're saying it could have an effect on the whole video.

My team and I did not work well together. We had our ups and downs, but mostly downs. My team was very negative most of the time because there was a lot of bickering. I don't know if I was the only one, but I noticed that my team needed to find a way to get along so that we could finish this project and make it at the highest quality possible. I think that to get better at teamwork, my team and I have to learn that we all are different and that we get things at a different pace and rushing each other isn't going to help to make our team better. My team has a lot of differences, but if we learn that we all are different then maybe we can get along better.

To make this video better, we have A LOT of work to do. I think we can do this though. We are getting along a little better now, but we need to keep up the positive attitudes if we really want this video to turn out good. Our teacher has been supportive and helping us out a lot. He helped us to make our video a little better and has made really good improvements.

Composition Techniques

There are many Composition Techniques to use in your videos, but in my opinion the main four composition techniques are the bet way to go. These four composition techniques are called Rule of Thirds, Framing, Unusual Angles, and Leading Lines. Let's start from the beginning. The composition technique of Rule of Thirds is when in a video if a shot is cut into sixths, the subject's eyes or head is in one of the top corners. In case your wondering, the Framing that I am talking about is not putting a wooden square around a panting. The composition technique of Framing is found when in the shot, there is something that helps you focus on the main subject by blocking other things around the edges of the shot. When Unusual Angles are used it means that this one shot is taken at a shot where most shots would not have been taken at. I like to use unusual angles sometimes just to grab the viewers attention. Last but not least, the fourth composition techniques is Leading Lines. Leading lines is used to draw attention to the main subject. Leading lines is when in a shot there are main lines leading to the main subject.

Some of you might be asking, why do we need to use these in our videos? How are these supposed to make our videos better? Well there are many reasons why composition techniques make our videos better, but here are a few. When we are using these composition techniques in our videos, we are making our videos ten times better. These composition techniques help to make our videos look high quality by making our video look neat and well made. I don't know about you, but I think that using composition techniques really help our videos to look better and give them really eye-catching qualities.

Three Shot Sequences

Me and my team made this video not too long ago, but not recently. When we made this my G.T. class was learning about three shot sequences. We had many choices to choose from and we chose: Girl Picks Up Binder. In these three shot sequences, there is the wide shot, medium shot, and the close up shot. In that order, these sequences are shown in the video. The wide shot is made so that you can see all of the subject. In our wide shot there is the binder that is just sitting in the grass. A medium shot is when, if the subject of the shot is a person, you can only see them from the waist up. In our medium shot, we show a girl walking to the binder. Last but not least, the close up shot is when you are zoomed in on the subject close up. Pretty much explains itself. In our close up, we show the girl picking up the binder. Sure, in this video the camera was shaky but we were only beginners and in my opinion, we did pretty well.

Practice Story Reflection

For the past week or two my G.T. class and I were doing a little project called our Practice Story where we learned about shooting interviews. We learned many things, like interview composition, A- Roll, B- Roll, and even teamwork. To make this video we had to work together to get it done. Although we didn't make the BEST team, we tried our best and got the work done. It actually turned out pretty good.

To start the video me and my three team mates started off by making the B-Roll. Incase you don't know, the B-Roll is little cuts of videos where we show the interviewee doing whatever it is that they are talking about. For example, the interviewee is talking about soccer so it is our job to take little clips of the interviewee kicking around a soccer ball. On the second day of filming, out team had to shoot the interview where we take one long video of our subject talking about this sport or hobby that they do. 

From then on it was all transcription and Final Cut Pro. This is where the real pressure started. Every team had to make a transcription of the questions that the subject answered and what the narrator says. When editing we had to blade the footage. When you blade footage on Final Cut Pro, you are cutting and separating video. In the video, the interviewer's voice had to be cut out because we want to hear the subject talk. We added the narrators voice and the B- Roll and our interview was finished. We may not have finished on time, but it still turned out really good. It may have been a lot of pressure, but I loved doing this project. It taught me a lot about teamwork too.

Polar Panoramas

Right here we have my two Polar Panoramas. The process to make these is similar to the Spherical Panoramas, but not exactly the same.  The process to make these Polar Panoramas stared with us having to take 10-15 pictures in a 360 degree rotation. Each photo had to have an overlap on the photo before. We then had the photos uploaded to our computers. When we were all ready we took the pictures into Adobe Bridge and edited them. We wanted the pictures to look vibrant and eye catching. 

Next, in Photoshop we used to photo merge to put the pictures together and make it look more like a panorama. When the panorama was made we then took it and squished it together into a square shape. After that, we turned the picture 180 degrees so it was upside down. We then used polar coordinates so that the pictures was made into this circular shape. We then used the elliptical marquee tool to make a circle around our masterpiece and used feather and contrast to make the edges look like they were kind of fading away.

In my first Polar Panorama I have a picture of me. To make this picture first I had someone stand on a chair and take a picture of me from above. You do not have to use a chair, as long as it is tall enough for the picture to look like it was taken from above you. When taking these pictures, the person taking the picture had to make sure they got my whole body in the picture so that it wouldn't look weird when I cut my body out of the picture. To cut my body out of the picture, I used the Quick Selection Tool on Photoshop. I was very careful to not make myself look unrealistic. When I was finished cutting my self out, I dragged myself into my Polar Panorama. I then made a copy of the picture of myself and made it all black to make a shadow. My shadow was then edited to make it look realistic. 

     

     

Spherical Panoramas

Here are my two Spherical Panoramas that I made in G.T. class. To make these photos we had to take up to 10-15 photos while rotating 360 degrees and overlapping the photos as we went around. After we took our photos and uploaded them to our computers, we then went to Adobe Bridge to edit these pictures.

Once again, Photoshop has helped us A LOT. In Photoshop we used photo merge to put all the pictures together to look like a panorama. We then made our panorama into a square and turned on the polar coordinates. To make the edges we just used the elliptical marquee tool and feather. Finally, we had a choice to put a black or white back round.

All About Me

   

Hey there. My name is Makena Kahananui and this is my blog. I was born on the 17th of April in the year of 2002, and grew up on the island of Kauai, HI, USA. I am in the 6th grade, and have four other people in my family, my mom, my dad, my sister, and my brother.

Before I came here to Kapa'a Middle School, I went to Kapa'a Elementary School. Throughout elementary school I got good grades and I loved to go to school. Elementary school is actually the place that I learned some of my favorite hobbies, but we'll get to that later. It's even one of my favorite places on the island. Now, I'm in Kapa'a Middle School and it is one of the best experiences of my life.

Outside of school, I love to spend time with my friends and family. My family is a family of music and we love to sing, play instruments, and some of us dance. I love to sing and play the ukulele. I started to sing around the third grade and, I started to play the ukulele in the fourth grade. My grandfather saw that I had talent so he started to teach me the basics of the ukulele, along the way I started to improve. When the school year started, I was officially in fourth grade and it turned out, my teacher loved ukulele too. He taught me how to play even better than before! To this day I am in my school's ukulele band and I still love to sing. My name is Makena Kahananui, and this is all about me.

Final Photomontages

 

Here we have my two photomontages which were inspired by the famous photographer, David Hockney. These are what he calls "joiners". To make these joiners, we used digital cameras to take at least 15 separate pictures of one scene. Before transferring our pictures into our computers, we had to make sure that the pictures that we took are clear and not blurry.

After transferring our pictures into our computer, we edited them in Camera Raw on Adobe Bridge. We made sure that our pictures were vibrant and eye- catching. We then went into Photoshop to start putting our pictures together.

In Photoshop, we put border lines around our pictures and made sure the corners weren't rounded, but at a point. Then, we had to put our pictures together. When we out our pictures together, we had to make sure not to make it look too neat. When David Hockney made his joiners, he made them so that they were abstract. We put our pictures together and turned them so they were not perfectly straight.

Making these were a lot of fun. I actually enjoyed learning about joiners and David Hockney. I hope to maybe more about these one day and maybe even learn more about David Hockney and the type of work that he does.

Magazine Cover

This is my magazine cover that I made in my Kapa'a Middle School G.T. class. We used to digital cameras to take the pictures and Photoshop helped us a lot. We used Photoshop to make text layer back rounds, a brush layer, back rounds, and so much more! It came out so much better than I thought it would.