Geometric Portraits

Hey guys, it's Jhoanna and it's a new quarter meaning a new project. Our new project is called Low Poly Portraits. So far the beginning of the project I'm kinda like I don't really wanna do this but usually my opinion will change by the end. Anyway besides what I feel about the project lets talk about facial expressions and how they are or aren't universal. My opinion on this is that I don't think they are universal but at the same do believe they are. I don't believe it being is that sometimes everyone has a different facial features and it might be hard to detect their expressions. But at the same time you can detect someone facial expressions easily.

So we did this project two ways. The first way is a symmetrical photo we that we took in PhotoBooth. The other way we did this is that we took a self portrait and a portrait of someone else which I did of my brother. The first step for the symmetrical one is obviously taking the photo then putting that in PhotoShop. But before putting it in PhotoShop you make a new document. Then you drop your picture you took of yourself. Then you would turn on your grid. Go to View>Show>Grid, if that doesn't work out then press command+quotations on your keyboard. Then you would try your best to make it symmetrical. The command+J to copy and make another layer. Using the Line Tool make a red line in the middle and then outline one side of your face in your new layer. Then you would start making triangles all over your face. After thats completed you would use the Lasso Tool ( L ) to start filling them in. So you would select it the go Filter>Blur>Average. You just keep doing that over and over again. Then when your done you would command+j to make a new layer. You use your move tool and move it to the other side while pressing down shift. To make your outline white you would use color overlay. Thats how we created Poly 1.

The other one we did is using my brother. This one was much more easier then the other. You would do the same steps but your wouldn't outline it or make it symmetrical. Make a new layer first and then you would just start making triangles using Lasso Tool ( L ). To fill them in press I on your keyboard to select a color and then alt+delete to fill in. You would keep doing that until your done. Then you go to Layer>Adjustments>Curves>Custom. Then you would go and make a new layer of your photo and cut that out. To make your background you would go to Filter>Cutout>Custom. Then Image>Color Balance>Custom. After that your done or you can make it a little bit brighter or darker by going Image>Brightness>Contrast. Thats how we created Poly 2 which is a little bit faster and easier then Poly 1.

Poly 1 and Poly 2 were both fun and stressful to make. For Poly 1 we outlined and used a the blur filter while on Poly 2 we didn't outline and was able to choose the color we wanted for that triangle. On Poly 2 we had to do our background while on Poly 1 it was only our face. Some things that were the same is that our shapes had to be triangles and only triangles.  For the out come of my low-poly 2 is that one looked better than low-poly 1. Low-poly 1 is that I messed up on that one. You can really see my nose and the fact that its me. Probably due to the fact that I didn't use my time wisely and that I didn't focus to details. While on low-poly 2 I focus more on details and I did use my time wisely making enough triangles for that area of the face/body. Overall I wished I could do better on the low-poly 1 but I am proud of the work I did for my low-poly 2.

Verbal Landscapes

Hey guys, its Jhoanna with another blogpost. We have a new project coming up and I'm pretty excited. Its an individual project using FCPX (Final Cut Pro X) with video clips of time-lapse and slow-mos. Also it involves poetry again. I cant say that I'm not a big fan of poems but I do love reading them. This project is about nature so our poem has to be involved with nature and does our video clips. Anyway enough of me talking about the project it self and what not.

To me nature is everywhere I go. Nature impacts my life because its usually what makes up my mood everyday. I look up at the sky and if the whether is sunny, I'm usually happy. If its kinda sunny but mainly cloudy, then my mood would be kinda down but still pretty happy. If the whether is very rainy and its kinda resembles a storm then my mood is usually very sad. I don't know why I'm like this but it just kinda is. Warm whether makes me feel like going out and doing anything I want while cold whether makes me want to stay at home covered in my blankets. Also nature impacts my life because when I'm around plants and trees I feel very calm. Being around nature helps me think, de-stress, and keeps me very calm and relaxed.

Creating time-lapse and slow-mo's are pretty easy. They're fairly simple to make but the most important thing to me about making them is patience. Reason being is because when making time-lapse you kinda haft to wait to get your video because a time-lapse is usually a long video thats sped up. Also patience with slow-mo's too because although its only a couple of seconds it can take a pretty long time to get a perfect shot. Like a slow-mo is just a short video that gets slow down. But thats just the process of getting the videos you want to make a time-lapse and slow-mo out of from. Next step is basically importing those clips into FCPX. Then drag one of those clips and click on the retime function. I kinda would custom the speed I want them to go instead of choosing the ones it let you. Then after that it's all about waiting.

The hardest part of this project was figuring out a my poem and getting the time-lapse. I actually got help from my cousin through text which I'm really grateful for because I couldn't have thought of anything else. Also getting my time-lapse has made me put somethings on hold. Like for example, my sunrise time-lapse used up all of my sleep time in the morning. Also my sunset time-lapse has made me miss some of my quality time in the afternoon of Friday considering I went all the way to the west side. My favorite part was going to different places for taking my time-lapse and slow-mo's. To places I barely go and that was really my favorite part. Its was great because instead of being cooped up in my room on my phone the whole day, this project has motivated me to go outside and do something.

So in class we had a critique on all of our retime nature videos. So when watching the video in class I've realized of what I could've done better with the extra time I had. Anyway so from the results I got I mostly 3's which I do believe is the grade I deserved. My voice over isn't expressive in it probably because I'm not a very expressive person. And some of shots are pretty shaky and my text layovers are just really there it. To me it didn't resembles a 4 at all but mostly a 3. Although I did get a one 2 which is a
development which I don't believe I deserved because even though I had shaky shots it wasn't every clip was shaky and I felt like I do meet the all the standers. But really thats just someone opinion on what they believe the video was. Overall I do agree to my results because I got more 3's then 4 and thats really what I was kinda expecting. 

Poetic Personal Statement

Hey guys its a new school year and my last year in GT. Sad I know but its only the start of the year and I'm super excited for what project is coming up next. So
our first project of the year is a poetry project. I like poetry, I like reading them just not a big fan of writing them. What I think poetry is a way to express your feelings and ideas. I think poetry can be personal by the way you write one. It could be about who you are or what you felt at the very moment writing it. Although being poetic doesn't have do with words. You can be poetic through pictures, videos, structure, and etc.

Quiet, shy, messy yet organized girl
Awkwardness and uniqueness trying to fit into the world
I dive into books and I'm cured
You can be assured that
As I grow older I'll be matured

My last three lines it rhymes because I use rhyme zone. The website is very useful that I actually used for my other classes too when we need to make poem that rhymed for homework. To be completely honest this poetic statement happened on accident. I was just listing things about who I am and then randomly decided to put them together. I like how the first 2 lines don't have a rhyme or so I think it doesn't but to me it flows really well. Although I do believe that I could have gotten done better at making it. To me it seems very "kiddy" like you know maybe a 4th grader could've made this not an 8th grader. Overall I like the way my poetic statement came out.

Animated Life Lessons

Hey guys!! So before I start I would like to say that I don't animating in photoshop. Yes you guessed it, its one of those GT projects that makes you want to rip out your hair. Well for me but I'm not too sure about the others. Its the time of the year where we do ANIMATION!! So for teammates we had to choose people that we never worked with and I wasn't too sure about how our team will work together. My teammates are Nick and Katy. At first when I choose them I thought that maybe they work well together but I guess you can say I wrong. They liked to argue a lot but in the end of the day they always seem to be doing their part without killing each other.

We use humor by exaggerating our character traits. Like for example we like extend our legs to make things look funny. Or like we showed weird moves. We did a lot of exaggerating on our puppet warp characters. Our storyline relates to everyone because everyone probably worked in a group. So our storyline is that I'm having trouble and Nick helps me. So in a group someone has a hard time doing their part and the best thing is to help them out. One of our life lesson was you can do anything no matter what anyone says. Its a relates to everyone because there was probably a time where you want to prove something to someone because they said something negative about it to you.  The message relates to our animation because I'm proving to Katy that I can do ballet even if I'm clumsy.

Nick, Katy and I have never worked together. That was the biggest challenge because we weren't comfortable with each other. We didn't know how well we could do. We didn't know anything about each other. So with that we didn't know that we would argue so much. Our productivity wasn't the best. We rush a lot when the deadline came and I think that every time Mr. Sanderl gave us more time we lack a lot. Like for example Mr. Sanderl gave us more time to work on our animation and we only needed one more scene but Nick and Katy spent a whole work session on cat poster that doesn't really matter. But moving on with all that negative stuff, the best momemt working together is how we could laugh so easily with each other. Thats one thing we got along on is that we find random stuff really funny.

Music Video Finale

Ashley couldn't film this day so yea theres no ashley 

Hey guys, its finally the time of the school year where we do the music video project. I really like this project and you can sorta say that the one this year is like prequel from last years one. Before even choosing a song my team Ashley, Kyla, and Denae were all think that maybe we could do a sequel from last years one but that didn't really happen. Instead we choose a song first then came up with the story. Our song is Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. From reading the lyrics it sounds like a boy and girl are trying to get somewhere in life and they're not gonna stop until they get there. The storyline for our music video is that Kyla and Raiden are both trying to find work but they seem to not get anywhere. Then when suddenly they find a job and when trying to get it they bump into each other. From then on they don't really see each other but in the end they seem to reconnect and have a life together.

In our music video, my favorite fast edit montage is a lip-sync. So its basically a part where its everyone from our team pops up and sings a part of the lyrics. Every time we filmed we did a lip-sync. In this fast edit montage its all those lip-sync put together. I think its pretty cool. Another favorite fast edit montage sequence is Kyla walking inside a library to see if she can get a job. So it her walking then cut to a medium shot to her walking to the door. An then another cut but a close up to her opening the door and then back to a medium of her walking in. I really like that because its a 3 shot sequence but instead of going wide, medium, and close its a wide, medium, close then back to medium.

I think this music video shows my team and I best work because we have no limits to what we can do in the music video. Like were free to what we can do. The way show our best work is what were working on. Denae and Ashley are doing
the poster for our music video because they are most comfortable with photoshop and know that they can do their best on that. While me and Kyla are editing on imovie because that what we feel shows our best work. But that only one part of how we show our best work. Filming is another story on how we show the best work. In GT we learned so much about different composition technique and different shot types. So we try to use those technique and shot types while filming. Overall I think we did a good job and showed our best work.

Character Development

Hey guys! Im back with another G.T project and guess what were doing an animation project. Last year we did a animation project but this year its gonna be different. My team did House Reunites Family and that was for the film festival. Even though I already talked about the film festival on my last blogpost, we did have the option do one for the film festival but we didn't. But its great that were doing an animation project. I think that Im gonna enjoy doing this animation project more than last year. But lets forget about the past and move on to the present which is today. I'm gonna be defining myself and who I really am so lets get into that.

I would define myself as a shy yet very happy person with a crazy and wild personality. I look very shy and quiet but when people get to know me better they realize that I'm no where near that. I have a very unique personality that my friends would call me my "own species". Yeah I know I'm that unique to be called my own species. Something humorous about me is that I'm pretty clumsy in the morning. They'll be times where I wake up and I want breakfast so I go into the kitchen. While walking there I always bump into the couches and seem to trip on air. Its never a pleasant thing to go through everyday in the morning, but it sure does wakes me up. Being clumsy is relatable to other because everyone trips and thats clumsy.

The character traits I plan to exaggerate are my wild but yet very clumsiness side of Jhoanna while animating. But for the GIF the character traits I exaggerate is my happy and very excited side. In the GIF I'm waving back and forth while my head moves from left to right. In the morning at school and I'm inside the cover court I tend to wave a lot to random people. More when I see my friend, I'll start to try look like manic and get her attention. For the animation project we have it will be more about my clumsiness and my other team mates character trait. I could make the animation be me like falling and tripping. Those are some things that usually happens at random times of the day. Thanks clumsiness!

My animated GIF character is me coming from the left side and waving then going back down on the right side. The first step to creating the GIF character is getting a picture of your whole body with legs wide and arms spread open. Second, you would take your picture and use the quick selection tool in photoshopped and  cut it out. After cutting out your image, go to workspace>animation so you could start animating. Take your cut out image and put it where you want your character to start from. Every time you move your character make a duplicate then move. When you want to make a movement on your character copy and paste (command c and command j) the layer you end off with. This is where it might get confusing but when your in photoshop it makes more sense. Now you would select the other layers that you won't be making a movement on and turning off those. (I'm believe I'm making this so complicated then it should be) So after that then you would go edit>puppet warp and make points on your character and then moving those points. You would do the same step again if you want to make more movements. Then to make it loop you would do duplicate the first couple layers and put them at the end and reversing it. For the background make a new layer and start drawing on it using the brush tool or paint bucket tool or use a picture and putting that layer on the very bottom. I don't think I explained that too well.

While make the GIF character I had a hard time since I got confused with the turning off layers and not. It got me really confused but I eventually figured it out. I like how my GIF character turned out. Even though it wasn't how I wanted it to be I was really happy with how it turned out. While watching it, it makes me laugh because of how the head moves and also how fast it goes since in real life I wave like that. Overall I'm happy with the outcome considering it was my first time using puppet warp.

.MOV Film Festival

Hello, its me (see what I did there). Yes I just did that but in GT we have another big project and its for the film festival. So in this project we could do a sitcom, move trailer, or animation. My group and I are doing a drama/soap opera and its about personality but you'll know more about it in the second paragraph. Our project is called "Jhoanna Discovers Personalities". For our project our keywords are personality, friends, yourself, adventuring, and together. Personality is one of our main keywords because in our film I'm want to get rid of personalities because I think I can't make friends with them there. In the end I learn that I do need them. Friends is also another keyword in our film because that all "Jhoanna" wants. She (me) wants to make friends. Yourself is also a keyword and the reason its a keyword because in the film I learn that with my personalities I'm myself. Adventuring and togethe
r is our last two keyword and the reason those are our keyword is because I'm having an adventure trying to find friends. Together is like "Jhoanna" and her personalities are basically one because you need both to make a Jhoanna.


Our overall message for our drama/soap opera is being someone your not can sometimes be difficult to fit in. But when being yourself people seem to be more acceptable. Our plot is that Jhoanna (me) is moving to a new place and she doesn't have any friends. She's afraid that her personalities clumsy (Ashely), overdramatic (Denae), and weird (Kyla) will be too much for people to be friends with her. She decided to locks them up and goes on with her life in a boring/bland way. In the process of trying to make new friends she ends up failing at it since people don't like her boring personality. In the end of the drama/soap opera she decides to let her personalities free and they decides to help her out when making friends. Jhoanna (me) ends up making a group of friends who like her the way she is with her personalities.

I personally don't really think that we had like a really big challenge with working on the plan and filming it. But I do haft to say that we did faced challenges but not really big ones that made our group behind schedule. One challenge that we faced is what time are we filming. Each of us had different schedules and it was hard trying to find time to film with everyone there. We overcome it by like discussing when were available and try to compromise when were filming and what time were done. Also trying to find time to film before Ashley leaves for her competition is also hard but we still manage to do it when she is available. Our second challenge we had to face was the fact there we didn't really look at our plan when filming so when editing it was hard to find the right scenes that the plan had. Overall editing our film wasn't so difficult since we used clips that was similar to what we had in our plan. So I believe that there was this one problem that we had while making the "jail cell" and that was finding the right boxes for Ashely, Denae, and Kyla to fit in. In the end we put two boxes together for them to fit in. Remember being yourself is the best you you can be.

Tiny Spherical Worlds

HELLO everyone, in GT we have another project which I think is pretty cool and I'm very excited to do. I'm not really sure what this project is called but we are making spherical and polar panorama. The point of a composite images is that it needs more than 1 picture to make one. Composite images are multiple pictures merged to make one. The reason 1 picture isn't enough is because it won't really make a composite images. It needs like maybe 10 photos to make a composite images. Thats the reason why a composite images can't me made with only 1 picture.

The difference between polar and spherical panorama is that spherical panos looks like a snow globe or a crystal ball. Where polar panos looks like a tiny world that could be hold in your hands. From the spherical and polar panos, I'm really liking how the polar panoramas look. I think it looks really cool that like trees, building, or any object pops out unlike the spherical. For spherical your trees, building, or any objects doesn't pop out but they are inside. I think when making them and you do the second to the last step which actually turning them into your tiny world or snow globe is my favorite part is because they really shock me sometimes. But they shock me in a good way like a surprise because you don't know whats gonna happen. When making spherical and polar panos they always turned out different from the other no matter what.

When making your "tiny world" or polar and spherical panos the last step is the step that makes everything look really convincing. The last step is using the cloning or stamp tool in photo shopped. Also a great shortcut that is very helpful in Photoshop is the keyboard letter S and that will give you the cloning or stamp tool. I believe that the stamping tool is what makes my polar and spherical worlds convincing  since it helps get rid of the line in the middle. Like for example in my spherical 1 (the second picture on top) it has power lines and the top part had a line through it. I ended up cloning part of a bush to make just one bush that goes over the line and also used part of the clouds to cut out the power line. In the end I think it looks pretty cool that with a little bit of cloning and stamping different parts you can make something really cool.

 

Hockney Style Joiners

Final photomontage
(Kyla Bautista, Shaday Thomas, and Denae Sacramed) 

Hey guys, so in GT we are doing photomontages as our first project for 2016. Im guessing this project is inspired from David Hockney's photomontages.  The way were doing it is different from David Hockney's photomontages and I'm gonna tell you why. Well one is that he is more well known for his photomontages than I am. Also he has more experience than me with photomontages. Another thing that is different from the photomontages than mine is that his one has been seen worldwide.

With photos their are always meanings or a message to them. Some photos can send a positive or a negative message. For me, I think messages that has sorta of a negative message is when people post stuff about their "amazing" life because its like your bragging that how rich they are. This might not seem to be a negative message like others but for me its somewhat like a negative message. With a positive message on their photos its how they effect people or whats the picture based on.

School photomontage
(Kyla Bautista) 

For the photomontage project we made 3 different ones. We did a practice one, school one where you would do one of your partner, and finally we did a final one where you would take 25 pictures of something meaningful in your life. So for the school I did Kyla and well she doesn't really look like this in real life. But I did sorta forgot a neck and shoulder so thats why she looks like that. Then my final is the on the very top with Kyla, Shaday, and Denae. This is something meaningful in my life because with my friends I feel like I'm myself. When I'm not with my friends I feel like I can't really be myself. Also because my friends are like something that I don't ever want to  let of. I believe that my final has a positive message because I think friendship is a positive thing. Just like in my last years visual poem, "some friends go but true friends stay," that I know that my friends will stay and not leave.

2016 Aspirations

Happy New Year to everyone. So new year and that means new goals for 2016, and I'm gonna be telling you guys what my different goals for 2016. I didn't really make that goals for 2016 like maybe 2-3 but that's it. My first goal is my most important one and its to be more proactive than procrastinating. I did a blog post about proactive and procrastination and from that I explained that I'm a procrastinator and I want to be more proactive this year. My second goal is too improve my grades for each quarter. I seem to be doing that last year for 1st and 2nd quarter but now I don't feel as if I can maintain my straight A's. Like for example in mid quarter for 1st quarter I got one B and that B was close to a C, and for 1st quarter the actual quarter I got straight A's. That means I improved that one B and I want to keep doing that for the rest of the new year. My third goal is to be more helpful to people because when I see someone who needs help I usually just leave them instead of actually helping which is bad. So I just wanna help more people when they need help instead of just living them helpless. These are all my goals/aspirations for 2016.

In my first paragraph I said that my most important goal is to be more proactive than procrastinate which is true but something that is also important is being is better sister to my younger brother. I'm not the best sister but I'm sorta getting there. Its my mission to be the best sister by the end of 2016. So lets go back to my other important goal which is to be more proactive than procrastinate. Most people know me to be a person to not do all their work on time and always seem to find a way to not do it. I really want to break out of that habit because its not very useful in school and at home. The reason I want to break out of this habit is because every time I tell myself to do something I ended up doing it for like a day and them completely forgetting about it the next day.

Since school started in January I've been doing pretty well on getting things turned in on time and getting pictures taken for our GT homework. I've been doing good this past week in school which I'm very proud of myself. They was I manage to be more proactive on school days is by reminding myself when I get out bus that I have homework to do. So when I get home from school I just have to do my homework so I know that I did it and won't forget about it. I have a pretty good schedule planned out and I forget to say early but planning things out is something very helpful for an unorganized person which is me. Also by being a better sister I'm gonna try to not be so mean and controlling and be more nice and caring. These are my goals and my way of ensuring that I will follow and continue my goals for 2016.