Music Video Finale

So, it's only, like, one week away from the last day of school!!! YEAAAAA! Time to plan vacations, relax, prepare for finals, and make an awesome music video! What? Were you NOT expecting that? Did you not read the title? Well, that's the FINAL project in 7th grade G.T. Pretty awesome huh? Our song that we (Micah, Me, Callum, and Jason) picked was "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry. It's a pretty old song, and I mean really old, like, from the 50s. In the project, we had to take the songs lyrics, and lip sync it while telling a story. Here's the song lyrics that were used:

Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans,

Way back up in the woods among the evergreens

There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood,

Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode

Who never ever learned to read or write so well,

But he could play a guitar just like a ringing a bell.

[Chorus:]

Go Go

Go, Johnny, go, go

Go, Johnny, go, go

Go, Johnny, go, go

Go, Johnny, go, go

Johnny B. Goode

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack

Or sit beneath the tree by the railroad track.

Oh, the engineers would see him sitting in the shade,

Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made.

The people passing by, they would stop and say,

"Oh, my, but that little country boy could play!"

[Chorus]

His mother told him, "Someday you will be a man,

And you will be the leader of a big old band.

Many people coming from miles around

To hear you play your music when the sun go down.

Maybe someday your name will be in lights

Saying 'Johnny B. Goode tonight'."

[Chorus]

Quite a handful, huh? It's the entire song, with a little bit of instrumental removed. So, the story that we used in conjunction with the lyrics basically told the story that the song told, but with a little bit of "creative details". (In other words, we made stuff up.) The story is about a country boy named Johnny B. Goode, who is really good at playing the guitar, and when he lived in the country, everyone celebrated his awesome musical talent. But when he moves into the city, a couple of bullies show up, (This happens at the second chorus) and shove him down. Well, he takes this pretty harshly, and basically quits guitar so he won't be teased for it. But, on his somber way back home, he remembers all the things people have said, and what his mother told him, and he returns to the awesome music business, better than ever. Great story, GG. I mean, GS? Good Story? I'm not sure.

Sooooooo, in most music videos there is fast- shot montages. We don't really have that, but we do have some fast-ish montage sequences that aren't really montages, but whatever. The main one is near the end when two bullies (acted by Micah and Jason) shove Callum over, he falls over, and runs away angrily. Another scene that isn't really fast-edit, but it could be considered a montage of sorts is in the beginning, when Callum is getting ready for the day, falling out of bed, washing his face, walking into the hall, picking up his guitar, etc. Put those two together and I guess you could have a fast-edit montage... I'm not sure. Personally though, I don't think that the song needs any montages or fast edits, because of it's tone and genre. I believe that it's good as is.

This music video totally shows the BEST WORK EVAR. It's like if work and best had a kid and it was named Team 8's music video. Perhaps that's an exaggeration. I'm not sure, because I think it looks great. It shows our best work because I think it is A: our highest quality that we could accomplish in the allowed time, and it shows everything we've learned this year. It has Wide, Medium Close, Interesting angles, A delicate plotline, (That couldn't be shattered with a sledgehammer, indicating that it's not as delicate as I thought...) and photoshop skills for the intro screen. We did have some difficulties, but we usually overcame them pretty quickly. This was probably one of the better projects of the year. (What was the best? You decide!) I think we did pretty well in total.

ONLY ONE MORE WEEK OF SCHOOL LEFT :O

-Linden



Results of the critique:

Animated Life Lessons

So, a new project has sprung up out of the blue! An animation project using the photoshop animating tool and puppet warp! This time, however, we had to work with people we've never worked with before. So, my teammates were Callum and Shaday. (Links to their blogs to the right) The goal was to create a funny "visually simplistic" animated story that had a life lesson, while exaggerating character traits. My trait was procrastination, Callum's was his introverted... uh... introvertedness?... and Shaday's was that she's also introverted, but hyper as well. Other people to make a cameo in the animation: Mr. Sanderl and Kacie Burns. Anyway, in the story, me and Kacie are asked to do dishes, but I don't do them and Kacie messes up. Callum, the introvert, has to find help, but he has trouble talking to people. Then, he finally finds Shaday on a bench, and since they have some things in common, they become friends. The end. Great story. Beautiful, and I'm not sure what I can add to that.

So our finished project is REAL funny, yeah. Totally. Hilarious. Eh, perhaps we slipped up a bit on that part... But some parts were kinda funny. Like when I just walk away for no reason, or Kacie drops all of the dishes and messes up big-time. My personal favorite part was when Callum confronts his fear of large crowds by simply saying "nope.". That's pretty much all that was kinda funny, the other stuff was mainly focused on the story. The life lesson is to not be afraid of public, and that there is always someone out there that can understand you. This may sound silly, and that so one would ever think that they are all alone in this world...- wait... nope. People think that sometimes. So, it wouldn't be hard to believe. Basically, there is someone out there who can help you, who you can become friends with, who thinks similarly to you. If I had to put the entire meaning of the story into one word, I guess it would be "Motivation".

I'm not sure I mentioned this, (I probably have) but these three legendary people, Linden, Shaday, and Callum, have never worked together before. Our average productivity was about average, but we were doing better than some people. I think that I worked the hardest and fastest of the entire group, (over two-thirds of the animation was from me) But Callum and Shaday were very productive as well. The best moment of the project was when we had FINALLY finished, and were ready to turn it in. It took a really long time, plus two deadline extensions, to finish the animation. If you see the film and are like "Wow. this is the worst animation and film of all time." First of all, no. it's not the worst film of all time. (That title probably belongs to a very bad film that I want to mention, but don't want to bash on it, so you fill in the blank. __________________) And it took a lot of effort to make. The biggest challenge was definitely time, NOT t-i-m-e, as we are forbidden to say that word, but it was probably speed. I was lightning fast at animation, but Callum and Shaday were not quite as fast. When I had finished my assigned scenes, they (no offense) weren't done with one. I diddn't really have a problem with this. Most people from other teams were just as slow, so I was glad to help them out and do a few extra scenes. Soooo yeah. In total, not one of our best projects.


OMG only a few weeks of school left!!!!!!
-Linden


Plan for the project right here

:

Character Development

Original photo

Hello, do you know where I can find highway 491? No? It doesn't exist? Whatever. I'll find it myself. Oh- wait. That's the wrong line. What I MEANT to say was that: Hello! New week! How you've been? Alright? Good? Have a nice easter? No? Whatever. Anyway, I'm a pretty good person in general and want to make other people happy, (Including myself,) and I'm a perfectionist. Why do I mention this? My answer to that is; Did you even read the title? CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! I'm a perfectionist! That's character development! Never mind.... Anyway, you may not no that, but I always want everything to be perfect, especially when it comes to art. I doubt it's OCD, but it can be annoying. Speaking of which, in art we're doing this project where you draw grid lines on one picture and draw grid lines on your paper, and copy the picture. I mention this because it takes like twice as long as everybody else on the copy, because I want it to be freaking perfect. I just can't do it messy even if I wanted to! It's kinda ludicrous. Perhaps an enemy of mine hypnotized me in my sleep so I must do everything perfect! IT'S GENIUS- wait- wait- no... no it's not.

Cutout

When we animate ourselves, we have to exaggerate certain character traits for our character. I think mine will do everything really slowly and perfectly, but still messes stuff up sometimes. I would do this because I'm (as

Final .GIF warp thing...

stated before) a perfectionist, but I sometimes mess things up more often then I would like to admit. My character should also be an artist, but take a long time drawing and sketching. I could do this by making each thing my character does by having my character do things a lot slower than other people, and STILL manage to mess things up. Kinda like a sloth that accidentally spills drinks and breaks dishes, bu
t not THAT slow. I may make a few tweaks to this character in the final animation, but this is the base idea.

Creating an animated .GIF is a little bit tricky, but also kinda fun. The first step is to take a photo of yourself and shove it into photoshop. Using the quick selection tool, cut yourself out and downsize the photo so it ISN'T 6 feet tall. No, really. It's usually 6
feet tall. Next, bring up the animation toolbar at the bottom. Then, you move your character into frame gradually, making a new frame on the animation bar every bit you move it by. When it's in frame, you can duplicate the layer and use the puppet warp tool to move your character's arms or legs or whatever. Each frame that you use the puppet warp, you need to create a new layer for, and make only that layer shown in the frame. It's a little complicated, but finally you either select all frames and duplicate them and then reverse them to make it loop, or you move it bak out of frame. This makes it loop. Then you select all frames and change the timing to 0.1 seconds. If you want, make an epic background for it, or just take a photo of something and stick it in there. To save, click the "Save for web and devices" button, select the settings you want, and save it as a .GIF file. Done! You can post it onto your blog or whatever. Awesome... right? Right?

I'll assume the answer is "Right"
-Linden

.MOV Film Festival

You see the title? You're probably wondering; What the heck is a MOV? Is it short for movie? Is it some sort of rare species of iguana in New Brazilland? Is it a type of fruit? Is it another word for MOM? What the heck is it? Well, it basically means movie. Anyway, ours is an animation comedy thing. Our keywords are Comedy, Virtual-world, Creativity, and Challenges. These keywords (I think) connect with the audience. They do so because (for Comedy) everyone likes to laugh right? Right? (Grumpy old man around the corner of my house I am NOT talking about you.) And virtual world, I think all of us get sucked into another reality some time or another. I don't mean literally. Creativity and challenges are kinda intertwined. Using one you can get through the other. (Yeah! Use challenges to conquer creativity!) I don't mean that. You should conquer challenges creatively.

Behind the scenes!

So the overall message. The message that I perceive from the film is to face challenges head-on. Don't try to wiggle away from them. Don't try to escape DESTINY! (Perhaps not that dramatic, but you get the idea.) When there's a challenge, if you don't try to face it, you'll grow up thinking that it's okay, but then when you HAVE to face it, you won't know what to do! You won't have the experience! And when you do face the challenges, it may not be as complicated or bad as you think it is. You may be surprised at what you accomplish if you just TRY! I know, this seems like "Wow. I've heard this a gabazillion times before. Sheesh. UNCREATIVE ALERT!" But it's true! Just try it.

Animation!

The biggest challenge my team faced, no question or contest, was when one of our members decided to leave. We wasted two days trying to convince him to stay, but to no avail. When he left, we ended up one man down, and two days behind, meaning me and Cody needed to pick up the slack. I doubt we ever fully recovered from that, but we did pretty well. And it did take a lot of extra work to catch up and animate good. Is goodly a word? If so, (It's probably not,) We animated goodly, and caught up just in time. Still though, I was under a LOT of stress to finish it on time. Which as you know, (Or perhaps you don't.) isn't very good for anyone. It was hard, especially since when we started FILMING, the project was due in TWO DAYS. And animating takes a while.

Tiny Spherical Worlds

My First World (Polar panorama)

Look! A river has been turned
 into a Spherical Pano!

So. See the title? See it? Smell it? Taste it? (No you can't. This is a computer.) We are making entire WORLDS! Ha! But there are no ordinary every-day planets, these are PHOTO WORLDS! Think of it like a panorama, but then it's made to look like a planet. There are examples all over this post. So, these worlds are composite images. What's a composite image you ask? It's an image made from several different photos. You may be wondering, "But Linden, why would you want a composite image? Isn't one photo enough? If you want a bigger photo, why can't you just use the panorama button on your phone? Isn't a composite image just more work?" And to that I answer, um, (What can I answer first?) About panoramas, yeah... they're composite images too. I know, I know, groundbreaking stuff here. Probably just went over your head. And the point of a composite image is to make several photos into an image beyond the limitations of a camera. No camera could make one of these photos into a tiny world. No sir. With composite images, you have a lot more customization freedom. Composite images do take more work then just a photo though, but that much is obvious.

I am the ruler of this world I created...

So, there are two types of these worlds. Polar and spherical. They may sound the same, and for the most part, they are. Only one step makes them different, but the outcomes are shockingly different. A polar panorama looks like a tiny globe that you could fit in your hand, but a spherical panorama looks kind of like the sky is a black hole sucking in everything from every angle. either way, they're both really cool. The one step that separates them is flipping the image upside-down before you use the tool to make it polar or spherical. It kinda inverses the sky and ground. So, in a polar panorama, the ground is in the center, but in a spherical panorama, the sky is in the center with the ground surrounding it. I think they look REALLY cool.

(This is really trippy...)

So, these worlds, they look (mostly) pretty real huh? No? Well, then, I'll explain to you why they look so spectacularly realistic! So, they look like this for several reasons. At first, there was a large line going straight through the worlds. That looks pretty dubious, so it had to be fixed. It took some serious edits to get rid of it. And by serious edits, I of course mean the always-handy stamp tool. Little bit of stamps here, little bit there, a ton of stamps there, change place where you stamp, stamp some more, and boom! Line erased! There may be a bit of traces of the line there, but it otherwise (totally) works! I will admit, I'm not the BEST editor, but that doesn't stop me from trying! Another thing that makes them look as real as an egg-salad sandwich, is in the portrait shots, the angle in which the portraits were taken. The portraits were then skewed to fit more, and had an epic shadow added to them! Pretty realistic huh?


SO many new planets need to be added to the science textbooks now,
-Linden

Hockney Style Joiners

O-O-O-K-K-K, So, our next project is a photomontage. Just like the person that invented it, David Hockney, we are piecing together lots of photos into one image. However, there are a few differences. Our photomontage photos are edited, but instead of making it surreal like David Hockney's photomontages, ours are edited to just enhance them a little. I mean, if you look at Hockney's works, they look like paintings! Ours just looks like our subject, pieced together a little abstractly. So, same idea, totally different finished products.

School Photomontage

I don't know if you know this, *Puts on tinfoil hat* but there are some serious subliminal messages in photos. If you look at a photo, it can convey a mood. For example, some photos can make you feel sad, happy, excited, confused, and more. They can do this through lighting and composition techniques, not to mention the subject itself. For example, for a sad mood, there can be a sightly blue tint as it rains and a woman runs away. (Perhaps a bit dramatic, but you get the gist.) For happy, there could be a bright, colorful picture of a little kid's birthday party. For a trapped feeling, there could be a black and white photo of someone yelling while shaking thick metal bars. (Once again, a bit dramatic.) Just thinking about these types of images can give you the "Feels". *Takes off tinfoil hat* (No idea why I was wearing that.) Anyway, the main point is that skilled photographers can make you feel something just by looking at their photos, and we've also been learning how to do that.

Cupcakes are my Final Photomontage!

So. This is it. The final photomontage. *Engage epic music* The subject of this photomontage is... *Drumroll please* Something about us! Yeah, the final photomontage is supposed to represent something about us. So, you may be wondering, seeing the cupcakes over there, "How does this represent HIM?" And I have the answer to that question. First thing, I love to bake. It's one of my favorite hobbies, and I do it very often. Don't believe me? In our kitchen, I have my very own large drawer that is devoted entirely to sugar and flour. The more implicit, but still kinda obvious message both applies to me, and to other people in a different way. Basically, for me, it symbolizes how I'm pretty different from other people. I may try to fit in, but it's impossible. Relating to other people, it is a message that says "Stand Out!" "Be yourself!" etc. You know, motivational mumbo jumbo, blah blah blah.

You can stop the epic music now...
-Linden 

  BILLIE

2016 Aspirations

It's a baby tree.

Ok, new year, so new resolutions. (Resolutions,  goals, whatever.) Here are 5 goals for 2016 that I have: 1. bake two things I have never baked before, (This may be challenging, because I have baked a LOT of things...) Another is to make a pretty good project for this year's science fair. I also want to do really well while making my mom's wedding cake. (I volunteered to do it. I love to bake! :) ) My fourth goal is to travel more, as I have only been to 3 states in the U.S. only... (I may not reach this goal, because I have no plans to travel to other places, but anything can happen.) My final goal is to continue to get straight A's for the rest of 3rd and 4th quarters. This is probably the most important goal, right up there with doing well in 8th grade.

So, I want to do well in 7th grade, and this is very important. (Now this chain

It's a small flower.

may be over-exaggerated, so don't judge it too harshly, but...) If I don't do well in 7th grade, I won't be ready for 8th grade. If i'm not ready for 8th grade, I'll fall behind. If I fall behind, I won't be ready for high school! If that happens, I won't be ready to go through each of the high school years in turn, leading to not being able to go to collage, AND MY WHOLE LIFE WILL BE RUINNEEDDDDDDD!!!!! (Told you. I over-exaggerated...) Anyway, I believe it's important to get good grades in school, so you can be whatever you want. (I may not have the best goals, but whatever.)

God reaches down to shine light on-
just kidding. It's the cloudy sky.

Ok. So, I think, to achieve this absurd goal, (Not very absurd, but whatever.) I will have to do all assignments to the best of my ability, listen in class, self directed learner, blah blah blah, etc. Seriously though, I'm really bad at getting homework done on time, so I need to work on not procrastinating. (It's my number 5 favorite hobby. I'm too lazy to write the other four though.) I think my quality of work currently is pretty good though, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved! (It might though.) Also, I sometimes get distracted in class, so that needs to be improved as well. Other then those things, I already do pretty well in class, so this goal is seemingly easy, but one slip up and it's failed.

Happy new year!
-Linden

P.S: If you're wondering what the photos are for, they're assignments to take thoughtful photos.