My Humorous Monologue

For the past couple weeks I've been working on a humorous monologue. This was one of the easier projects, but I always learn something in G.T. During this project I learned that there are many things to remember when coming up with your own joke. You have to remember timing, consider your audience, practice delivering the joke, and even add gestures. My favorite tip when writing jokes is to consider your audience & avoid the more controversial topics. I love this tip because it is one of the more important ones. When your telling a joke to a certain group of people they will laugh more at a certain topic and may not find others funny at all. It really counts when you deliver your joke and the audience laughs because they can relate to the topic or scenario.

When filming and editing videos it is very important to add padding. Padding the few seconds of silence before anything happens in a video. With an extra 5 seconds in the beginning and the end editing can be a lot easier. This way there is a few seconds to fall back on when editing and the talking or video does not get cut off in the beginning or end. Padding is a great strategy to remember when filming and could possibly save your video.

When you are make a video there is always something that you could improve on, whether big or small. In this project my weakness would have to be my lack of b-roll. One of the requirements for this project was to have 10 b-roll shots and I only had 6. My greatest strength would have to be the audio/voice-over because I was clear and the music wasn't so loud that you couldn't hear me, but it was loud enough that you could hear it behind my voice. 

Comedy Writing

For this project in G.T. we're doing a comedy based project. We're going to focus on the humor in certain situations. A sense of humor is a very important character trait if you want to people to be comfortable around you. A sense of humor can make someone an easier person to talk to. A sense of humor can reduce stress and worry. It catches people's interest and tells them that the person can look on the better side of things.

There are many things that make a good humorous narrative. First, you have to see that your narrative is not a topic that can offend or upset the audience. Look who you're telling the narrative to and try avoiding the more controversial topics. Also, timing is key. When telling a joke or humorous narrative the timing can't make the listeners feel that you told the joke too fast or waited to long to deliver the punchline. Keep an eye on that. Another tip is to be confident when telling the joke. It always makes the audience feel good to see a confident person telling the the joke. Before delivering the joke, be sure to practice it. Memorizing the joke before telling it always helps. It shows that you are prepared and may even sound better. Last, but not least, when writing a humorous narrative it is good to make it about something that you are educated on. Knowing about the subject of the joke can help you a lot while writing it.

My comedic monologue describes the struggle that I have with my hair. Like a lot of other people my hair is very hard to deal with at times and that is what the comedic monologue is all about.  I give descriptions and scenarios that include my hair and how I deal with it. I feel that my comedic monologue is funny mostly because it is relatable. There are many different hair types and most can hard to deal with at times. If there are others with the same hair type as me (and I'm sure there are) they will probably agree with me on most of what is in the monologue. Another thing that makes my comedic monologue funny is that I sometimes compare my hair to certain things. I am working on the visuals for the monologue so hopefully it turns out good and even makes just a few people laugh. 

Motivational Poster

At the moment everyone in my G.T. class is making motivational posters. In order to meet our teacher's expectations we have to require certain things in the poster. We need to have 4 images total. 3 of them being the symbolic images that I had in the last blog post and 1 of them being a portrait photo of my face. We also need 2 text layers, one of them being the manifesto and the other being our personal quotes. Our manifesto and personal quotes have to be spread across the whole page and kerned, leaving no blank spaces. There has to be a triadic color scheme with 1 dominant color and 2 other colors that accent it. We also have blending options for the text layers such as drop shadow, stroke, outer glow, and bevel & emboss. We may also have adjustment layers like levels, curves, exposure, and color balance. I need to try my best to make this poster high quality and meet all the requirements.

In order to start the poster I had to have my personal quotes and full manifesto. When I finished that I copied them and pasted them into Photoshop. After putting the personal quotes and manifesto into two separate layers, I kerned them so they filled up the whole screen with no spaces. When I finished kerning I put my 3 symbol images and my 1 portrait image of me. I arranged them so they were neat and lined up. After I finished arranging the photos I chose my triadic color scheme. I put one of my colors on the personal quotes along with bevel & emboss and stroke. I did the same with my manifesto just a different color. After that I added the last of color of my triadic color scheme to my images in the back. I made sure everything looked right and I was finished.

There are always challenges in projects, but the biggest one in this project would have to be kerning the text so it took as much space possible while still looking neat. Kerning the text was what I spent most of my time on throughout the whole project. I still think that I could've made it look better, but I did my best. I am happy with the outcome of this project and I can't wait for more.

Personal Manifesto

Symbol 1: Like a tree, I have many
branches, twists, and turns. 

Hi! It's a new year at Kapa'a Middle School and that means a new year of G.T. so here are a few things about me. I play 3 instruments which are ukulele, piano & guitar. I am in the G.T. program at my school. I love to read and write during my free time. Photography has always been something that I am very passionate about. When I grow up I want to go to school to become an optometrist.

Here is my manifesto:

Symbol 2: Like a fawn, I am young,
timid, and wary.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. It does not matter how slow you go as long as you do not stop. Stay positive. Life only gets bad when you let it. Always look on the bright side. Live, Laugh, Love. Never give up. You have the right to be happy. Dream. Laugh. Give it your all everyday. Be yourself. People can't put you down unless you let them. Be confident. Stay focused. No one else can love you unless you love yourself first. Do what you love. Express yourself. Smile often. Learn from your mistakes. Don't let the little things bring you down. Be a role model. Always do your best. Stand up for yourself. Don't underestimate yourself.

Symbol 3: Like my dog, I am lazy
and sleepy, but I am also loyal and
affectionate. 

My manifesto applies to my readers because everyone eventually has a time where they feel like giving up, but being positive and looking on the bright side can make a big difference in the situation. I wanted to send the message to be confident and never let people's judgements stop you from reaching your goals. My favorite part would have to be "Stay positive. Life only gets bad when you let it." because attitude really is everything.

Lyrical Livelihood

At the moment, my favorite song would have to be If I'm James Dean, You're Audrey Hepburn by Sleeping With Sirens. It's basically about someone to is asking someone they love to stay with them. They know that everything isn't perfect and that they will have problems, but they will always be able to work it out. The lyrics make me feel that throughout your whole life you have relationships with people. Relationships with family, friends, and lovers. It reminds me that there are always hard times, but no matter what you have to work hard and remember that you have to get through it for the people that you love.

The music video song that my partner, Neliza Iannuzzi, and I chose is Roger Rabbit by the band Sleeping With Sirens. Choosing the song was a hard decision to make, but eventually we chose the song. We chose this song because it is relatable to almost everyone. Everyone has gone through a problem at least once in their life whether it was minor or big. Most of the time when you have a problem you ask someone for help or advice, but they can't really fully understand the situation unless you can fully understand it yourself.

Throughout the music video you will see that Neliza has a problem and she comes to me for help. I cannot understand her situation and I can't really give her advice on it. After we stop talking she realizes that she has to fully understand the situation before she can expect someone else to understand it. In the end she starts to understand the situation and she begins to solve it.

Animation Outtakes

Bouncing Ball GIF 

I am doing this animation project with three of my classmates. They are Kyler Sukehira, Nathan Gardner, and Charles McConnell. Kyler is a hard working student. He's always determined. Nathan is creative and came up with good ideas during the project. Charles likes to skate.

Stop motion is an animation that includes an object that is moved by someone every time there is a new frame. Stop motion is usually done with clay or just an object you can find anywhere and take a picture. Someone is supposed to move the object, take a picture, and just do that over and over again so it looks like the object is doing something when you put them all together in order. .GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is a format that supports up to 8 bits per pixel for each image. When you see it, it will just play over and over again. It is almost like a video, but it has no sound.

In our animations my teammates and I are telling all our stories. I'm pretty sure all of us have seen litter and not just at a beach, but anywhere. Our animation tells a story about Nathan and how he sees a tourist littering at the beach. He then goes to his community and gathers a group that will help to stop the littering and pick up the trash. The audience should care because littering has become a big problem on Earth. It is everywhere. In the ocean, the mountains, and of course in the cities. If people pitched in and helped it could all make a difference.                                                        

Our Animation Story

The focus statement that my team and I chose is "Nathan Rescues Marine Life." This statement tells "my story" because I go to the beach sometimes and notice the litter. Unfortunately I don't do anything about it because I do not want people to think of me in a certain way. I thought that this was a good idea because showing people that it is good to stand up for what you believe in. Pollution is a big issue on Earth and this video is just a little contribution to showing that it is okay to help.

Just by reading the focus statement you can probably tell a lesson that the audience will learn. My team and I wanted to send out a message about how litter and pollution injures and even kills the marine life. We want the audience to know that by throwing away your trash and recycling your cans and bottles you can help to save marine life and prevent animals in the ocean from dying. The audience can learn this lesson by watching Nathan and the people he gets from the community help to pick up the trash on the beach.

There were many moments during the making of this project, some good some bad. The worst moment would probably have to be, in my opinion, the editing. I think this because of how many choices we had in iMovie. A couple people wanted certain things and others wanted other things. It took a while, but we finally settled on what we had on the video. Our best moment, in my opinion, would have to be the filming. During the filming there were complications, but it was the least complicated part throughout the whole process.