Proactive or Procrastination?

The title is a question everyone must answer for themselves. (or you can just ask your mom, or dad, or whatever IDC.) Personally, I think I'm kind-of a proactive-procrastinator. Ask my mom, and she'll tell you that I slack on my chores. And any sort of distraction, Whoo boy! Will I get distracted! I'm like: Ok, time to start the dishes- wait- it that- a MOVIE PLAYING?!?!?!? What was I talking about again? Part of the problem is that I have a not-so-good memory. If I'm distracted, I usually forget what I was supposed to do. But when I do be proactive, (it happens every once-in-a-while) I go ALL OUT. EVERYTHING gets done. Right then. Right there. No excuses.


And when that happens, I usually have more time left over to do whatever I want. So yeah, I really WANT to be proactive, but Nooooooooo My stupid brain is just like SIT. ON. THAT. COUCH. NOW. Dishes can wait. THAT COUCH NEEDS YOU! And that cat too. So just grab that cat and go sit on the couch, and forget everything you were obligated to do. Let the dishes sit. And when THAT happens, I get in trouble, and the dishes take LONGER that I wanted them to. Thus I get less free time. But when I'm proactive, it takes LESS time than I want it to. And I get MORE free time. Man, I can't do anything right.

Usually the only times I get lots of stuff done is in the morning. Not just any morning though, it has to be a morning that I'm making breakfast. Still, not just any breakfast, It has to be pancakes. Yes. Pancakes motivate me to do stuff. Actually, I lied earlier in this paragraph. It dosen't have to be pancakes for me to do stuff. But pancakes are usually what I make. Wait a minute... How did I get from talking about procrastination to taking about pancakes? Like I said, distractions.

If I could only get over that whole "Distractions" thing I deal with, I could be like, Super Productivity. I could get EVERYTHING done SUPER fast. I would be like flash just got some super-speed boots. Ok, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but I will get a lot of stuff done. The exception? Dishes. Yeah, I really don't like doing dishes one way or another. But that's the ONLY exception. Sometimes I do dishes though. Sometimes.

...Have a nice day? (I guess...)
-Linden

FAVICON FRANCHISE! (CONTEST)

Lately, When I get bored, I go to this website called Favicon Generator. It's a really cool sites that allows you to create favicons easily. A favicon is that thing in the top-left corner of the browser. For me, it's a cookie. Anyway, I've been messing around when I get bored, so I decided to post them on my blog. HERE THEY ARE! Hold on to your seat:

Post witch one you think is BEST! Will post new blog post to give the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place favicons a chance in the spotlight.

My Visual Poem

Hello and welcome to an ALL NEW PROJECT! This project is for a visual poem that I, alone, have been working on. My poem is about the morning. Things that happen in the morning, and things that wake in the morning. I also went to the beach in the morning before school started, and filmed the sunrise, and got a time lapse. All the film was taken by me, and so was the editing. I believe the visuals really "bring out" the meaning in my words, by visualizing what I'm saying. You can view the finished product right there. Above. Trees and stuff. Can't miss it.

There are tons (well not literally, videos don't have weight...) of special effects that I stuffed into the video. transitions, music, text, backgrounds, sound effects, and a few others. I believe this makes the video look more professional, and really express what I'm trying to say. The transitions also help make it not look... well... jagged like a broken rock. And I really like the text options. They're really cool. And I also (lastly) think that the beginning kinda redish-orangeish-yellowish bubble-like things, along with the blurred text and ocean background sounds, makes it really a feely sorta thing. I think the effects were really fun to play with.

In mostly all of these paragraphs I've talked about how good the poem is, but there are a few things that could be improved on. First of all, the timing is a little off. This is because the transitions were taking up a little of the video, and I didn't have enough video to go around. Second of all, the "In the morning" in the beginning of the video was slightly cut off. But that's all I can think of for now. Overall, I would say I'm pretty satisfied with the result. Critique the video for yourself. I don't know how, but there's gotta be someway to message me of YOUR critique of the video. Figure it out. Also, below, there is the plan that my poem was based off of. Read it if you like. I don't care.

See ya next time!
-Linden

FINISHED NEWS STORY

    We're back with the LAST post on the Hiki No news story! As you all know from my previous posts, (or maybe you haven't read them yet... or watched the video above... I don't care) the story is about the opening of a new store: Sports Authority. My team, Kamalei Berg, Kalani Young, Micah Miller, and me all helped to create this. Thanks Guys! Also a special shoutout to Joyce from Sports Authority for the interview, and to KAC (Kauai Athletic Club) for letting us film some treadmills and weights being used. And another thanks to the other interviewees for their cooperation and information. Thank you everyone else who contributed to this film! :)

Despite all the people that contributed to this film, the final cut has some technical errors. (then again, we're only 11 & 12, but nobody cares.) Some of the shots are clearly edited, so I apologize to the people out there who are disappointed at the final product.We had some major issues involving B-roll, (which we never had enough of,) where I was pretty much the ONLY person who was actually going out and getting steady, useable B-roll. Kamalei tried to get some B-roll, but the shots were mostly shaky. Sorry Kamalei. I'm just a little aggravated that the final cut didn't come out as good as I hoped. (I'm not saying it wasn't at all my fault...) But it had it's good side. I mean, all the shots are clearly focused, right? anyway... time to talk about the results...

Here's the poll of the film. (the poll was done by the people in my class.)

T5: New Sports Authority by Kalani, Micah, Kamalei, Linden

1	1	4%
2	10	37%
3	12	44%
4	4	15%

1 = Totally boring
2 = Better then totally boring
3 = Pretty good
4 = Exeptional

So... Yeah... not exactly the best scores... I sorta agree about the poll in some ways, but disagree in others. Sure, I agree that it wasn't much of a 4, There were bugs, it was a little messy, but a 1..? Now that's just harsh. I really don't thing the story was boring and something you would want to sleep through. I get it. It wasn't exactly super interesting, but it wasn't super boring ether. If the option was available, I would probably rate it a 2.5. Anyway, tell me what you think. I'm sure you could message me on google+, or email me, or something. But if you can't, it's ok.

I'm working on a new post! :3
-Linden

REAL WORLD NEWS

There's a lot of things going on in the world around us (other than you). This isn't some funny business, so hopefully, I wont act like it is. (Hopefully.) So recently, an Algerian extremist group from the Islamic state called Jund al-Khilafah abducted a innocent french civilian as hostage. They did this so France would end their airstrikes on Iraq. Within 24 hours, as promised by the Jund al-Khilafah, the man was decapitated... Kind of an extreme thing to do huh? Anyway, the victim, Herve Gourdel, was a 55 year-old mountaineering  guide and was taken in the mountains of northern Algeria. Hollande, a person speaking from New York along sidelines of the U.N. General assembly meeting states: "Herve Gourdel is dead because he is the representative of a people

-- ours --  that defends human dignity against barbarity. France will never cede to terrorism because it is our duty, and, more than that, because it is our honor."

My opinion on this issue is that France should not stop doing what it's doing, but should take more precaution for it's citizens and have more defence ready for terrorist attacks. Then again, I don't really know why France is bombing Iraq, so I woulden't know if what France is doing is right. But either way, Jund al-Khilafah (in my opinion) is still in the wrong. Decapitating an innocent mountianeering guide will probobly just make matters worse. I belive that because of this, stuff even worse than France bombing Iraq will happen. But I'm just speculating here.

We should care about this because even though it's happening in France, the U.S. could get involved. Maybe the U.S. will get attacked by these people. Who knows? People from all over the world could get involved. As said before, I'm just speculating here, but no one knows! This could turn into World War III! Probobly not that last one, but you get my point. Still, most important of all, show some support for this guy, his friends and his family. And please show respect for the people that are trying to end this kind of crazyness. I'm not an expert on this subject, but still... Well... thats all I have to say for now.

Link to story: Click Here

TTYL
-Linden

Lessons Learned

Hello! I'm back with more updates on the HIKI NO news project. (WARNING the following is highly classified information that you may allow NO ONE to view.) (Except you.) (and your friend.) (and your family.) (and everyone you know.) (and everyone you've ever met/seen ever in the history of your life.) But anyway, this is going to be a long post, so hold on to your seat! (or something.)

This project has been very interesting. However, if I had to pick the most interesting thing that happened, it's probably been the first interview. Have you ever walked up to a complete and total stranger and ask them if you can ask them some questions and then ask the questions as if you were their best friend. Try it sometime! (P.S. you probably shouldn't do that...) Anyway, the interview went pretty smoothly, and it (for some reason) wasn't too awkward, and the interviewee was nice about the whole thing. So yeah, it was exiting. I personally thought we were on a roll! But there's waaaaaay more to do than that.

However, this project has also been very challenging. The biggest roadblock my team has had to face is really getting the B-roll sufficient to cover the interviews. This part was challenging. It's a little bit awkward to just show up at a store with a bunch of equipment, telling someone we made an appointment and asking them if we can film some stuff. But without the B-roll, we couldn't finish the project, so we had to do it. It was actually pretty fun, (after we got permission) because that place is big. And it's filled to the brim with interesting things. (who knew yoga was a sport???) So, in the end, we got all the B-roll that we needed, and all the interviews too, so we were almost done. But not quite! All that was left to do was the final editing.

Personally, I think the most valuable part of the film-making process is the quality of the equipment used. If you don't have good equipment, you don't have good film. It also matters if you have some equipment. Without a tripod, videos taken will be shaky and unbalanced. And without a proper microphone, sound quality is pretty much junk. However, how you use the equipment is almost as important as having it. If a camera isn't focused, people watching the film won't be able to see what's going on. And if the zoom on the camera is all the way out or all the way in, it can be confusing. That pretty much concludes what I learned from the film-making me and my team are doing.

Wish me luck on the project!
-Linden

Hiki No Behind The Scenes

 Hello, its Linden Johns reporting for HIKI NO news! Today we are visiting a new store in Lihue called Sports Authority. This brand-new store sells everything sports related from basketball to- Wait... Wait... What was that? We're supposed to be doing a behind the scenes post...? Oh, sorry, my bad.... 

As you saw from that  "fail", a group of me and three other classmates are doing a skit that may or may not be included in local news. (Or maybe you didn't pay attention to it, I don't care.) It depends on whether HIKI NO deems it worthy. Anyway... We're doing a story on the new store that opened up in Lihue, Sports Authority. The store is gianormous and sells almost anything sports related from basketball stuff to yoga suits. (Ps. we've never had a store like that on the island before so this is pretty big, I think...) So far the story's going pretty good, and we've already got AN ENTIRE INTERVIEW YAAAY! But seriously... We have several shots of the store, an entire interview with an employee, and... and... um... and stuff. Anyway, its actually a really cool (and by that I mean air-conditioned) store with a whole bunch of stuff, so if you need sports supplies, Just go down to Kukui Grove. Huge store. Big sign. Can't miss it.

When the camera's not filming,we're usually ether moving it to the next place we're going to film or setting it up. Sometimes we pause the whole operation (moving and filming with the camera) to just check out the store. Check out what they have, look around, and give ourselves a tour of the place we're filming. Most of the time, this gives us an opportunity to find more places to shoot B-roll, and have a little fun. (We're kids. what else can I say?) When we're not filming, we also communicate on what to do next, what effects to add to the next shot, etc.

As a contributor to my team, I have volunteered to be the narrator, and the interviewer. My voice won't be included as the interviewer, (Cause that's how it works) But it will be included as the narrator. I also plan to transcribe the interviews into words, and help the camera man with some techniques. So far, being the interviewer and talking to complete strangers as if we knew each other for years (and I'm about to ask you some questions) hasn't brought me out of my comfort zone, (that's why i volunteered). Still not sure if narrating will shove me out of that zone previously mentioned, but I've done that sort of thing in elementry school, so I doubt it will. But so far, the project's going great, and I'll try to keep it that way.

I'm not sure if I still need to do this part,
-Linden