Hockney Style Joiners

Aloha fellow blog readers, it's 2016 and we are kicking off the new year with a new project. Photomontages! Inspired by the amazing David Hockney, we are doing our own photomontage. Everyone's different, which means our photomontages aren't the same as David Hockney's. His photomontages mainly focus on landscaping. Our photomontages represent a symbol in our life or something with meaning to us.

Pictures, 483 photos are posted on instagram every second, 7,091 tweets are sent per second, info provided by: this website. Each image online tells a different story or message. Some messages could be positive and some can be negative. For example, someones post could be about something depressing, or an image that contains profanity or body language that could be hurtful in a way, that's some examples are negative. There could also be something positive like a happy, insperational quote, or a selfie that contains a big bright smile, that's an example of a positive message.

Everything has a message. Whether it's a soccer ball, a t-shirt, or even a piece of paper, EVERYTHING has a message. My photomontage also has a message and my intended message I wanna send to the audience with my final project is the beauty of Kaua'i. Kaua'i is one of the oldest islands in the Hawaiian island chain and lots of us are attached to our cell phones so we don't notice the beauty of our home (for the ones who live on Kaua'i).

2016 Aspirations

It's finally 2016! Happy New Year! This year, I wanna attain 5 different goals. My first goal is to pick up my grades. I got my first F these past 2 mid-term grades. My second goal is to become more social and to get out more. I spend most of my time inside locked away in my dark room with some netflix and some food, I wanna get out more, socialize, and make new friends. My third goal is to eat healthier. I usually eat pizza and chips and soda on occasions but I wanna eat less of that stuff. I wanna eat more healthy stuff like salad, or uh fruits, and whatever else is healthy lol. My fourth goal is to procrastinate less. Procrastination is the main reason I'm doing bad in school (also laziness). Finally, my last goal is to play more sports. Almost every single one of my cousins does a sport. I'm pretty much the only one in my family that has done only one sport, and that was soccer. I love soccer, it's just that I'm not motivated by anyone to play. I'm also a really shy person so I'd probably not show up on the first day of practice.

My most important goal would have to be picking up my grades. I wanna pick up my grades because having good grades isn't good. Without good grades, I can't play sports in high school, I won't get accepted in to good colleges, and I might possibly not succeed in life. I don't like knowing I have an F in one of my core classes (social studies). I think my grades are so low cause I'm too attached to my phone. Another reason why picking up my grades is a big goal of mine, is because my brother (currently in 5th grade) gets better grades than I do. He's ALWAYS bragging how his grades are better than mine and I wanna show him what's up and get good grades.

To make sure I get good grades I'm going to create a plan. The first step in my plan is to stop going on my phone 24/7 and to put it down once in a while to finish any missing work or homework assignments. My second part to my plan is to STOP procrastinating. To me, procrastination is one of the biggest problems I have when it comes to major assignments. I recive the assignment and end up doing it days later (sometimes a few days before the deadline). My third step to my plan for success is to pay closer attention and ask for help when I need it. I end up spacing out and not paying attention to the details and the due date so I end up turning it in late or yelling "ARE YOUR SERIOUS?!" when the teacher announces the due date and the requirements. My last step to my plan for success is to turn in my work closer to the due date. I end up turning in everything like 2 weeks over the due date so I can at least get a little bit of credit. Anyways, that's my plan to success I'm really hoping my plan to success works out because I wanna end my last year of middle school on a good note.

Invention Commercial

In G.T this pass week or so, we were told to create an invention and make a commercial out of it. My teams invention was called flava-filter, it was a coffee filter that adds the cream and sugar for you and you don't have to go to the store and buy all that extra coffee creamer and sugar when it convientently comes with the flava-filter. My teams main goal for this project was just to complete it and have fun. To me, this was one of my favorite projects and one of my favorite results.

Working in a team requires getting along with people. Thankfully, my team was with people I'm comfterble with. While working in a team, you experience some funny, weird moments, or sad, irritated moments. Well, lets just forget about those bad moments and think about the good ones.  My team experienced many happy moments, and I think my favorite  moment was when we filmed Chazz the "showgirl". You know how you see those girls modeling with an object in their hand? well, thats exactly what chazz did. Not sure if he liked it or not, but it was super funny. At first he couldn't stay serious, but after a while he got used to it. "Man, I feel bad for all the girls that have to do this. This is some hard work" -Chazz 😂

Once again, my team was Me, Chazz, and Kaz. We all had a part to contribute to this production. I was more to the editing and filming side, chazz was an actor in some parts, and kaz helped with filming and did the voice overs. I did most of the filming because I am kinda self conscious and I absolutley HATE being on camera (I also hate the sound of my voice). Chazz and Kaz both seemed okay with their jobs and being filmed so that happened. 

Scratch Game Design

(I have used the rarest pepe of them all (Triton pepe) for my freedom game)
When we first started coding, we started by using code.org and doing some simple code. After that, we began using scratch (another coding website) and began making our own games. Our first game we made was a chase game (A game where either the main sprite gets chased or vice versa) and our
second game was a platformer game. I think having a little experience with coding helped us because we understood most of the pieces of coding. Honestly, I could code for hours but I'd still fail.

The best features in my games would have to be my sprites. Well, they technically aren't my sprites but I like the ones I chose. For  my platformer game I drew it myself! (There wasn't much creativity or thought put in to my sprite. It's just a black box with a derpish face on it). To me, my platformer sprite was a lot better because it's custom and lots of people chose the ocean theme so whatevers.

My best code game was my chase game. It was the best one because I actually was able to get my sprite to move, to where my chase game I couldn't get it to move at all. For my chase game I couldn't get the "Chasers" to chase my sprite. I ended up fixing it by asking my friend for help and looked at his code for an example and it all worked out. For my platformer game the most complicated thing to do was getting the blocks that are supposed to fall... fall. I also couldn't get my stinking sprite to move at all!! (I still didn't fix that oops .-.)

Composition Scavenger Hunt

Recently in G.T we got in to teams of 3 and began 2 new projects. We finished one and that was our composition techniques video. Each team was assigned a different set of composition techniques and we all had to create a video using them all. To me, the most important composition technique is rule of thirds. I believe its the most important because rule of thirds can be used on almost every shot. Especially interview shots. It's more intersesting to place

To me, all composition techniques are quite easy. But the hardest one would have to be unusual angles. I mean, finding an unusual angle is pretty easy, but staying in that position might be complicated. Also, if you're shooting from a really unusual angle it might be hard to reach, or it could also be hazerdous to you and the camera.

My teammates are Kaz Espina and Charles McConnell (aka Chazz). Kaz is a cool kat considering his love for cats and Chazz is that kinda quiet video gamer type. During this whole project we all contributed to filming but Kaz did most of the filming and edting. For most of the project, Chazz was in Maine and missed a whole week in school :/.. But thankfully, we go the entire project done and got a good grade :).

Cracking the Code

So in our G.T class, we just learned how to code. It wasn't that extreme type of coding with like billions of numbers, it was simple coding using code.com. I learned that coding isn't that simple to do but you gotta start somewhere. I think everyone should learn how to code. Like what if all the coders suddenly wipe out and no one knows how to code? (I doubt that's possible but what IFFFF). Also, what if you don't land any of the jobs you want, computer coding could be another option. Some computer programing/coding offices are really cool.

My first experience with coding was in 7th grade. I'm not sure why it was in this class, but I  learned how to code in social studies. Working with code for the first time was pretty exciting, but it wasn't what I expected. I thought the coding we were doing had to do with millions and millions of numbers, but the coding website we used was pretty easy. The website we used was code.org and we did the hour of code.

If I could design my own program or game, I would make the most random game ever. It would probably not make any sense but I don't make much sense either so it's the perfect game for me. If I had to make a website or program that actually made sense it would probably be a program that can either help you with your homework or maybe a program that's full of a bunch of games that you can play on your free time.

My Humorus Monologue

So, we've started a new project and it's slowly coming to the end of the project. Through out this project I've learned some new things. Like pad, and how to do things in iMovie. Last year, we used a program called final cut pro which was a little different from iMovie. A couple new things I learned this year was in iMovie (sorry I keep saying iMovie). Anyways, I learned how to add transitions and text. I kinda knew how to do that before but now I for sure know. Next, I learned some filming techniques such as pad. I learned about pad last year but I completely forgot about it. I won't completely go in to the topic because that's what I'll be talking about next. Anyways, thats what I've learned so far this year :).

Like I was saying about pad, it's critical to have pad. I think it's critical because if you start filming or ending it early it could cut off what the person is saying. Not only does pad help with that it can help you in the editing process, like trimming a video can be easier. Let's just say padding is something crucial and helpful in the editing process and can possibly help improve your grade in G.T :3,

I have encountered my strength and weaknesses with this project. My weakness for this project was coming up with a joke. I had the hardest time coming up with a joke and that's one way my grade dropped for this project. Also, getting some of my B-Roll was hard because my parents were busy and I couldn't get to the places I needed to film. Lastly for my weaknesses was placing my B-Roll. I forgot about the sliding bar thingy that you could use to increase the viewing of your project. Now to my strengths. I didn't have many strengths with this project. I wasn't too familiar with some of the features in iMovie but I completed it. I could've improved with my project by planning what and where I was going to film but of course, I was being my forgetful self and forgot to plan.