So, as you all know, we have had four STN Practices so far! This was our last STN Practice before STN! I have to say, this was no doubt our best job we've ever done! The audience loved it, and so did Mr. M! It was a comedy about the Worst Vacation Ever. We definitely improved on making the trailer look like a real trailer! Also, we got along well, and we had loads of fun doing it, which I think, is what's most important, other wise, why do this if you don't want to? Lastly, we had a good story, as well as good shots, but there are still a few minor issues that we can fix.
First of all, we have improved on one major issue, which was making the movie trailer look like an actual movie trailer! Although, we kind of just took a couple looks at the iMovie app, and then I just kind of knew what to do after that, so that was good. Our movie title was "The Worst Vacation Ever". We all just so happened to bring props and knick-knacks that fit that background! I also brought make up, and we definitely used that in the scenes! I think it was just the perfect title for where we were at, which was the Hyatt. The fact that this was actually like a movie trailer, totally bumped up our score. Before this, we hadn't done such great job in making this a "movie trailer". Also, we were successful because we all got along well, as we always do. I think that sees a bunch of time when everyone gets along well, because if you are always fighting, then you won't get anything done! So, this is a great team to work with. Since we all got along well, we had a lot of fun making this trailer, because it was just a perfect comedy! We sure ad a lot of laughs and smiles during them king of this production! We didn't have too many distractions, which caused us to complete the project nearly and hour before turn-in! So, we took the time to make some revisions and improvements. I just hope everything goes the same, or even better during the real competition! Last, but not least, we had a good story, and as well as some interesting shots, such as the "selfie" shot. There war a few minor things we need to work on though. One of them is to make the acting a little better, by actually making our actions believable. Like for instance, if someone were to fall, we would need to make it look like it was really bad in order for it to seem like the worst vacation ever. Other than that, we need to make the titles more interesting and fun, so that it is eye-catching. I will have to learn how to do that sometime… Overall, I think we did a pretty good job compared to all the other practices we had… I feel pretty good about this last practice. I'm glad that we did what we did because it left me confident for the STN convention! We just need to stick to the plan, and that way, we will do good during the real deal… We are competing against way more people this year, so it's going to be harder to place! With that being said, we must work extra hard to get the job done, and get it done with excellence! I am so excited to go to Florida! hopefully, we don't get all stressed out in the competition, and just have fun while we're doing it! STN is not far from this point
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So we recorded our pen pal hellos for Castaic Middle! It was really fun filming it with Ysabel! My pen pal is Dylynn Abbey. She is really pretty! The video for Castaic was pretty cool, and I hope ours turns out good as well! I like the idea of using the Photo Booth for the video, and even the iPad was pretty cool! Our message was brief, and I think we did a good job... Anyway, I really hope our video turns out to be good! I can't wait to see everyone again in Florida!! I also can't wait to meet the new students in Castaic! Florida is so close from today! I can't wait to get to hang out with everyone, because it will be like a reunion!! I can't believe we will be going to Disney World for THREE DAYS!!! I am excited to know who our Florida pen pals are! We might have more than one since there are so many people in that class, so I am really excited! Then we will all have so many new friends! Did I also mention that I can't wait till we play that huge game of Laser Tag??? I LOVE laser tag and I cannot believe we get to play a huge game of it! It is going to be super fun! I hope we get to do a lot of things with all of our pen pals! Florida is only 16 days from now!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!
I have a feeling that this trip is going to be the best STN trip for me! Mostly because I have never been to Florida before! I really hope we get to go all over the place and do any different activities!! I can't So, w while ago, we had our third STN practice. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it.. But, we were able to watch the videos that all the teams filmed. As for my team, well, we did worse... Now, I wasn't there to help them with anything, so there was only one returnee plus four newbies. We had some struggles, and we need to REALLY improve our skills, because as we all know, STN is coming quicker everyday! When we watched all the practice videos, he said two teams were late. Didn't make the deadline. Now, I don't know if that was our team or not, but what I can say is that the Movie Trailer team did worse than we did before. Clearly, what needs to be identified, is the difference between a short film, and an actual trailer. Now, I've made a movie trailer using iMovie before, so I know the format, and I kind of used that in our first practice, and then it sorta went away in the second one. I have this general idea of making a movie trailer and how it should be, so we should definitely apply what we know next practice. Also, I heard there was a lot of people playing on their phones and getting off task, and I have to admit that I was on my phone a little during the second practice, so that is something we should fix. I think we could get a lot more done if we are focused. I also agree that it is very distracting when we are all sitting by each other, but the reason was because all the outlets were available over there, and we were all low on battery, so we were all using those outlets. But my team found one closer to the meeting room. I'm still unsure about how we're supposed to find music in the STN editing room If there is no wifi... Are we supposed to do that beforehand? Lastly, we really need to thjnk ahead, and spend more time thinking our plan through before going out to film. That would save us more time because we would know exactly what to do, and we won't have to refilm anything. Then, we won't be late for the editing session... We must definitley make sure that all of our shots are the shots we need because I know that once we're in the editing room, we cannot go back out to film! I believe we should get more than enough shots, and maybe even film the same shot in different angles just to be safe! So overall, I think we are descending downward rather than improving. I missed last practice, and that might've been a struggle since there was only one returnee to lead the whole group of newbies. We definitley need to figure out the difference between making a movie trailer and a short film... Our group is one one the groups that needs serious improvement...honestly. Sooooooo....this next practice, we sure need to step up our game and be STN worthy! Well, let's see…there were a lot of difficult decisions I had to make in my life, and of course not all of them were easy. I really don't know which one was the most challenging, which makes this really challenging! Oo, you know what, I have just thought of one! So, my decision, not necessarily the most challenging, is whether or not I wanted to be in this media class or not. There were pros and cons to this idea. Both even out… So, I had a difficult time choosing what I wanted to do.
First of all, after the first year of media was over, I was kind of debating on going into the leadership class or the media class. They are both really good classes, and I just didn't know which way to go. I was trying out for leadership, and then Mr. M walks into the room and starts telling me, in a joking way, that I should stay in media, and that media is a good class for me, etc. So, I was like, "Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?" You know? So I started to ask a whole bunch of people how the leadership class is, and they said it is a really hard class, like people hardly ever get A's. And knowing me, I put myself down hard if I get a B in just ONE of my classes, like I'll go crazy! But, you know, I'm a hard worker, so I figured I might be good in that class. I gathered more information on both sides and started processing everything through... This was a difficult decision for me because I was kind of iffy about the situation. The reason I joined media was because I really had fun in the X-Block. But, when it came to the real seal, it kind of turned into more of a work-all-day kind of thing, and that's kinda not how I roll. I like to have lots of active activities, and have fun with my friends and everything! But, this class took up a lot of my time, and so I barely had time to do anything else. But, on the bright side, most of my really good friends were in that class, so I knew I wouldn't be totally out of luck, which is partially why I wanted to go back, as well as because I made so many good friends in the previous year. The downside was that I didn't like all the stress being put on me, including the deadlines and all the standards we had to meet in order to get a good grade for the class. It was all too much for me, but on the other hand, I did have fun during the STN trip, and being able to make my own music videos along with meeting new people! So, this was a great learning experience and I enjoyed it! Now, you can see why I had such a difficult time deciding. In the end, I ended up going into the media class. This, I guess you could say was a good decision for me to make, because it has helped me achieve many things, such as, being able to type really fast without looking most the times. I've also become more confident and social because I've learned to work better with others I may or may not have known. I have also made a lot of good friends through this class, so that was really good for me, because I like having a bunch of friends! i've also learned a lot about filming and all that, and it made me realize that I really love to be creative and film my own projects! So, that's where I started to get the idea of being in the film industry when I grow up! So, that's one way this has made an impact in my life! I guess it also makes me better at my mental math, because as you all know, I am not the greatest at it…but when I work the money job for Snack Shop, I always have to think quickly for the amount of change someone needs, and how much things cost! Overall, I think that this has been a good decision, and I'm pretty sure it will look good on my resume when I'm applying for some film job application or something. Who knows where this might take me in life! This decision has made so many changes in my life that I can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't met so many new people, or competed in the STN, or filmed my first news story and PSA etc. This was a difficult decision to make, and I really hope I do not have to encounter any more. So, I am glad with the decision I chose to make because it has affected my life in a positive way, which makes me…..very… HAPPY XD. So, I JUST finished watching this Christian movie called Closer To God. Now, remember how that boy Kody came to talk to our class and how he was saying that it doesn't matter what kind of special things you have to create this film as long as you have a good story? Well, this movie is a very good example on that! Closer To God didn't have the best sequencing or shots in their film. For instance, their shots were really long lengthwise in time, and there were a lot of profile shots during the emotion scenes, without much, if any, sequencing. BUT, you know what? The story was amazing, and me being a person who loves Christian movies, I have to say, it was a really amazing story! Just because the movie had no interesting shots, it didn't even affect the story one bit, because it was so strong. My sister said it was the first movie to make her cry! Not for me because I can get pretty emotional… but, the point is, that the story was so good, that even if you listened to it, you would be totally into it! I am not even kidding. Part of the reason is because they had good actors, but I think overall, the story was the best. There were really dramatic parts in this, that always kept you on the edge of your seat. This story was so touching, and even I think that this movie can bring you to coming closer to God, because it will make you realize a LOT of things. You really need to watch this movie, and you will know what I mean by the story being so powerful that it drags away the attention from how bad the filming is. This is legitimately one of the best movies I've watched this year, and there's a lot!
So, as you all know, today is Super Bowl Sunday! I've been watching the commercials so far, and doing my blog at the same time... My favorite commercial so far has been The Pepsi commercial. The one right before the Half time show. I liked it because it was cool how they had like stop animation movements. Like how there was a giant hand that was controlling the trains and cars in a city and took a Pepsi from the bars and broke it off.... I don't know how to explain it, but I just thought it was so cool how it looked. I was wondering how they did all of the things wit the giant hand that oversized the city, probably the green screen. Anyways you should check it out, online, just look up Pepsi Super Bowl Commercials 2014 or something, and it should pop up. I don't have a link becuase, well, I just watched it... But that would have to be my favorite commercial that I've seen so far. Mostly becuase I hardly watched the game haha.... I was watching a movie, so I might've missed some really good commercials, but, this is one good one that I watched!
Recently, we had our second STN Practice. I already wrote about this topic, but this is one of our required topics for this week. So, as I mentioned this practice wasn't so good. For my team, I think we could have come up with something better. Our team for along, which was good, but our idea wasn't the best. I think we could do much better next time. Our team kind of did struggle to come up with a strong idea for this topic, but I think we could've went with more of a comedy than dramatic for The Rewind Button.
So first of all, I think our team didn't do so well this previous practice. One reason is because our story wasn't very strong. We had one idea in the beginning and we were all ready to go out and film, but then we got stuck somehow and had to rethink, just like last time, and we got burned. Our story wasn't strong becuase our main problem wasn't strong. I was kind of iffy about the story, but we didn't have much time to film, so we just stuck with it and had to film our idea. In the end, our story was kind of questionable, like it was hard to determine what the story was about. So, that was one downer. One good thing our team did was work well together, but we always work well, so I guess this wasn't so much of an improvement. Although, there were some disagreements to people's ideas, but we worked it out in the end. None of us really argue with each other, but I guess things just didn't work out becuase none of us really didn't have super great ideas, including myself. That would be something our team needs to improve on. Maybe next time we could try combining all our ideas and see where that takes us, because it might lead to something! Lastly, next time, I hope our team improves....a LOT. We did good the first time, then got a little worse the second time, and hopefully we will do good next time!!! We just need to work harder and make sure that whatever our plan is, works out in the beginning so we won't have to change it. We should also try and get more sequencing shots so that it looks more fluid and interesting. We got knocked down for that as well, and so that's something we definitley need to fix next practice. Next practice, I will be one of the actresses and Micah is doing the filming, so now we will have the experienced people doing the main jobs. So, I hope this will help us out a little. We need to get brainstorming right away, and make sure that our idea is one we can stick with. I really hope that our team can get it together before it's time for the real competition becuase so far, we haven't been doing so well... Since this will be our third practice, we need to do extra good because we have been escalating downward since the first practice, when we should've been escalating upward! See you guys next class!!! |