Music Video Finale

Hello! So school is coming to an end and that means MUSIC VIDEO PROJECT. We do one every year. My teammates this year are Ashley, Alina, and Sophia. The song we choose is You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall & Oats. The way we decided this song was because of Sophia dad. We have this group chat and Sophia was explaining how her dad was singing this song and told us about it. The other reason we choose this song because we wanted to do a love song about food. The lyrics for the song are perfect.

So the storyline we've created is about how food connects all of us. We all use food as a way to help us cope with things. I'm scared of the dark and food helps me forget my fears. Alina uses food as a way to cope with her nightmares. Ashley uses food to to relieve stress from all the school work. Finally my favorite one is Sophia. She gets caught from eating ice cream at night and she's embarrassed by it so she goes to the bathroom and see a cupcake and is like why not. Basically uses food to help with her embarrassment. The storyline relates to the story because some of the words match with whats happening. For example the lyrics for when you Alina's scene is "On a night when bad dreams become a screamer, When they're messin' with the dreamer, I can laugh it in the face" So when your listening to these lyrics you see Alina's dream. Her dream is about Alina eating a cookie but Sophia ends up eating it and laughing it in her face. So the lyrics match very well with what your seeing. It's like the song was just made for us to do this. Everything about this song is perfect for our storyline.

I believe that our music video showcase our best work because were all using what we have learned from 2-3 years of being in Mr. Sanderl's
 GT class. Our storyline makes sense and there is enough lip syncs to even out our storyline. Alina and Sophia photoshop skills are the bomb! They both did one poster and it turned out amazing. Sophia actually used the letters from the real image to make our names on them. Also me and Ashley did good in editing but Alina and Sophia did help too. The composition techniques we used also used showcases our work well. Overall I think as a team we did a good job at working well together and getting things done. In the end we were all happy with how our video turned out in the end.


You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall and Oates
What I want you've got
And it might be hard to handle
Like the flame that burns the candle
The candle feeds the flame, yeah, yeah
What I've got's full stock
Of thoughts and dreams that scatter
Then you pull them all together
And how I can't explain
Oh, yeah
Well, well you
You make my dreams come true
Well, well, well you
Oh, yeah
You make my dreams come true
Come true
On a night when bad dreams become a screamer
When they're messin' with the dreamer
I can laugh it in the face
Twist and shout my way out
And wrap yourself around me
'Cos I ain't the way you found me
And I'll never be the same
Oh, yeah
Well, 'cos you
You make my dreams come true
Well, well, well you
You make my dreams come true
Come true
Listen to this
I'm down on my daydream

Movie Trailer Premier

Hello to anyone who decides to read this! Its time for another project in a wonderful day of GT. How exciting am I right. Anyway the project we will be doing is Movie Trailer. The project is to plan and create a 90-120 second fiction movie trailer. To have a dramatic voice actor that can hint why our movie is " Must See ". Its goal plan is to catch the eye of the audience without spoiling the ending. Also to include an original movie poster and to provide the audience with the highest level of production value so they will their eyes will never leave the screen. So my team is Mike, Julie, and Kyllie; it's quite a weird team. I contributed to the plan by doing the sketch and the idea for the movie trailer. Mike and I worked on the VA (which is basically the script) Kyllie and Julie had had input and we changed it to their input. They also did most of the 4ps and I did the keywords. We all worked on the storyboard as individuals. We each has a scene to do but everyone helped each other with the composition techniques.

While working on the plan and filming we had a lot of challenges. The smaller challenges is not being able to find a day when all of us are not busy, some of us not showing up when filming day was scheduled, or how I need to be more serious and not sound like I'm  about to laugh while doing the narrator. But our biggest challenge is getting along. It started at first with Julie and Kyllie getting mad at Mike for everything. Then it went on how they thought Mike was wrong. It was always a fight between them and I was seen to be in middle not knowing how to make everyone happy. No matter what the problem was their always seem to be a small argument between them and I would just listen because it seems that they never would listen to what I say. On the other hand The biggest success was probably finishing on time. I don't really think we had a succe

ss except the fact that we had turn it in on time. I say this is our biggest success because to me it was kinda a relief that I don't have to worry anymore.

Our critique results are were basically all 3's which is all requirements met. I'm really happy with the results because I thought that's what we deserved. What I've learned from this project and mainly from every video projects is to never get my hopes up. The reason being is that I get my hopes up with the possibility of what it can actually be but usually my hopes go down due the reality. I like to believe I have really good ideas but when it comes to working with a team not everyone is going to like it. There are some scenes where I like how it was filmed and they're others that I don't really like. Overall I think that we deserved what we got because that was the best of we could do with the problems we had occurred.

Metamorphosis Animation

HAPPY NEAR YEAR!!!! Its another day in GT with an animation post. Its a nice surprises to be doing animation in the beginning of the school year instead of the end. Its most likely gonna be stressful but not as much it would be if it was one of our last projects. Also were finally in teams! YAY! Finally after doing individual projects it's great to be finally doing one with other people. The people in my team are Sophia and Steven. Anyway going back to the topic of animation its gonna be a metamorphosis kind of animation. I'm not excited to do animation but happy that we can just get it over with. Our overall goal for this project is to follow the rubric, come up with two of our best metamorphosis focus statement, pitch that and our ideas to the class and also produce a creative story using various animation types. The animation types we are using are Stop-Motion, White Board, and Stykz.  

The focus statement for our animation is " Jhoanna Gains Courage " It is about Jhoanna (me) who is very shy and just want to be friends with the group in the park but can't seem to have the courage too. In the beginning I'm at the park and I see a group of kids (Sophia and Steven) playing. I decided to go up to them but halfway I end up not going because of my lack of courage and insecurities blocking me from approaching them. After I've turn around I'm walking back home through the forest where I stumbled upon a lion. In the middle the lion offers to show me how to be courages by turning me into a lion. I then feel very happy but then the lion turns me into a mouse. I'm now sad and confused why he turned me into a mouse. The lion was teaching me that no matter how big or small you are you can be courages. In the end the lion turns me back into a human believing I've learned my lesson. Then I go up to the group of friends and introduce myself and they accept me into their group.

Our results were pretty normal. I did expect to get three because thats what we were constantly getting on our other grades. I do agree with the results because I feel like we could do better but we did our best for the amount of time we had.  We also did have our bumps in the road and weren't able to agree on stuff. For example one person didn't finish his scene until the last day we had before having to export everything. Or possibly we kept changing the shot types and the actually scenes them self. But overall I am happy with what we got because I believe we all did our best and did deserve the grade.

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.