HDR Photography

Wassup? Miss me? No? Meh, whatever. I get that a lot. Anyway... Has anyone here heard of HDR? ...? Wait... I can't exactly see or hear you... never mind, I'll just assume you haven't. Anyway, if you haven't, click this helpful link right here. That saves me a lot of time.  But in case you're lazy and don't want to read that article, I'll sum it up. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and it allows you to change things like the exposure, gamma, realism, etc. It's used in many different ways. Sometimes it's used to make photos "pop", or it can make the photo look like a painting, (I discovered this feature on my own.) or make the photos look Lighter or Darker. It has many other uses, but so far, I haven't fully explored the possibilities. I really like it because it makes my photos look just plain AWESOME! But that's just my opinion.

I made this one kind of look like a painting/drawing

You might, (or might not, Idc) be wondering how to create a fabulous HDR photo. It's really (not) simple. All you have to do is take a camera, and edit the exposure compensation so it's at minimal exposure. Then you gradually bring it up taking 7 photos without moving the camera AT ALL. Not even slightly. Once you have 7 photos from minimal exposure to maximum exposure import the files onto your computer. Then, you open photoshop, (If you don't have photoshop, look up instructions online) and go to "File", then "Automatic", then click "Merge to HDR pro" and select you're seven photos. Photoshop will then take about 2-5 minutes to merge the photos. Then you'll get a whole bunch of setting on the side of the screen, and you can fiddle with them until you get the desired effect. Finally save the photo as a .JPEG instead of .psd. There! HDR photos in only- um- 7? No... 9? No... 13 easy steps! YAAAAY!!! Or you know, if you have that type of camera, just click the auto-take HDR pics button... that brings it down to 8 steps... But, since I've never tried it before, I wouldn't know if it has the desired effect or not. I do think it makes the shots steadier though.

Attempt at surrealism, looks like an alien world...

Another attempt at surrealism, Still looks a little out of this world...
Especially the bamboo! (in the background) 

So, see that alien world over there? (and by there, I mean left.) That, my friends, (if I can even call you guys friends...) is the effect of HDR photography. (and a camera that emphasizes the color blue...) (man, what's with all of these parentheses?) Anyway, I was told to make it look surreal. I attempted to make it blurry and very colorful, kind of like (my) dreams. However, the camera I used resulted on the color matrix being mostly blue, so that resulted of the stuff being blue. Below, the surrealist portrait, is also an attempt of HDR surrealism. (just in case you have no idea what surrealism is, here you go!) I had my brother Threy sit REALLY still so I could take the HDR Experiment's 7 photos. Then, I made it pretty colorful, messed with the gamma, shading, and saturation, and made the insanity below.

Superimpose! Added experiment onto landscape.

Then, below THIS text, is a new thing that we here at Awesomeness Inc. call SuperImposing. If you didn't just click that link, then you're probably really confused. Basically, Superimposing is moving a portrait of someone, (in this case Threy,) onto a different background. (in this case, my Landscape photo.) Anyway, the first thing I did was move the entire experiment photo on top of the landscape photo in photoshop. Then, I used the "Quick selection" tool to select Threy. I also used this tool to refine it a bit. Then, I clicked the button that said "Refine Edge.' This brought me to a white screen with nothing but the selected pixels. I then fiddled with the feathering, and refine edge tool, and other stuff till I got the desired look. I then positioned him, copied the selected pixels, and hid the other layer. Finally, I had to add text. The text had to be inspirational, and fit with the overall theme. Once I picked my word, (Create, in case you're blind.) I found a font that fit. One that was all said and done, I used layer effects to make it really "pop". Finally, I faded the text to make it blend in. Then, of course, I saved it. Bam! 3 "amazing" HDR examples!








Adios!
-Linden.

Movie Trailer Critique

P5T5 Park-FAIL from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.
Hello again! And welcome to the SUPEREPICMOVIECRITIQUE where I tell you what I think of the movie trailer, and what OTHER people think of it. Alrighty then, let's get started. Wait... were you even listening to the intro? Did you even care?!?! Did you even watch the movie trailer first?!?! I put a lot of work into that!! (No one cares? Man, tough crowd...) Anyway, I (and three other people, but that's irrelevant.) (I'm just joking. They did a lot of the work.) have created a Movie trailer that comes out in the early early date of NEVER! (coming soon!) Any way, we were supposed to create a G rated movie trailer, and I think we did pretty well. (Remember? I told you about it in the movie poster blog post!.. Oh right... that was the post you didn't pay any attention to...) My teammates were: Preston Hayden, Raiden Kurisu, and Kynan Ledee. Those guys were pretty awesome. (I gave each of them a link to THEIR blogs.) We also created a document of the trailer plan that basically says how many scenes there are, what the scenes were about, the Foley, the title, a description of the movie, and the plot. (If you want to see it, scroll down to the bottom of this post.) I played the role of Billy's friend. (Who "helps" him master parkour.) I also gave a few editing ideas and stuff.

There were also some project requirements that we had to meet. The movie trailer had to be at least 1:30 min long, with the max being 2:30 min long. We did that pretty well. It also had to be appropriate for a 1st grade audience, and have at least 5 3-shot sequences. I fell that we accomplished these requirements pretty well too. Lastly, it had to include the poster that won the poster contest that we did earlier. It you actually watched the video and didn't just skip it, You can see that we did this too. Other obvious requirements were things like the narration, main characters, effects, text layovers, stuff like that. So overall, I think we completed the requirements pretty darn well. Not epic, but well.

So, after we made the video, it was reviewed by the other people in the class. (No, not 1st graders.) Here are the results:

Requirements [Team 5 Evaluation]

Room for Improvement	0	0%
Satisfactory	16	59%
Above & Beyond!	11	41%

Audience [Team 5 Evaluation]

Room for Improvement	0	0%
Satisfactory	19	70%
Above & Beyond!	8	30%

Creativity [Team 5 Evaluation]

Room for Improvement	0	0%
Satisfactory	14	52%
Above & Beyond!	13	48%

Requirements [Team 5 Evaluation]

Well that took up a lot of space. Anyway... Each person graded the movie trailer on Requirements: IF it met all of the requirements, Audience: If it suited the 1st grade audience, and Creativity: If it really brought you "Into" the movie. (So-to-speak) (And of course, how creative it was.) Back on track... [Teacher mode engaged] If you see from the chart above, the average Requirements grade was approximately a grade of  Satisfactory, however, no one said that it had room for improvement. In Audience, most people said it was also Satisfactory, and like in Requirements, no one said that it had room for improvement. Finally, in Creativity, Most people said it was Satisfactory, no one said it had room for improvement, however many people said that it was Above & Beyond! That will be the end of today's lecture class, and I hope you all have a w0Nd3rful D-a-7-77D- [Teacher mode malfunctioned] [Teacher mode disengaged] Blauggh, I don't know what came over me there... um... where was I? Oh yes, did I agree with the critique or not. Personally, for requirements, I didn't think that there was much room for improvement, and some people could say it was above and beyond, so I agree with the results. For audience, I would also pretty much agree with the critique, as I would for creativity. I thought our video was really creative, but it wasn't exactly above & beyond for audience.

Hope you enjoyed the film!

Brought to you by KMS Media (and Waxer1 Studios,)

-Linden

           If you would like to see the movie poster, it's below. (sorry the text is small)  \/ \/

MOVIE POSTER PROMO

Wassup everybody? Miss me? No? Well... um... Oh, right... So me and a NEW team are now working on a new project! (Woo woo hoo yeah... man you guys are ignoring me today.) Anyway, we're making a movie trailer! And we're making a contest! Not just any contest though, a contest to make a movie poster! So yeah. The movie is going to be called ParkFAIL. The main character is named Billy. On the poster, I plan to have Billy and his friend in the front, and the other characters (Tom and his dad,) behind them. I can visualize what the formation will be from the top. The front characters will be here: ' ' and the other two people will be here:,   , So the full formation will be like this: ,' ',. It's a complex concept. Sorry.

This is just progress I've made on the poster.

I've spent all this time talking about how the characters were placed, so now I'll tell you what it's really about. The title; ParkFAIL, refers to the plot. Basically, Billy's, (the main character) lifelong dream was to become a parkour master. However, he has no sense of Hand-eye coordination. Thus, he falls and fails. The poster is going to include the title, (of course) the actor's names, (there's only four of us.) The date when it comes out, (If anyone actually wants to see the movie, sorry. It's not gonna happen.) A meaningful quote (created by me) and some "totally legit reviews." This means that they're going to be fake. Yes, fake. Since we're not actually making a movie, it's hard to get real reviews. One of the reviews is real though. Try to guess which one. :) Some of the text was kerned. Can you guess what kerning means? Of course you can. The link is right there! But it basically says that kerning is the spacing between letters in a sentence. For a fun kerning game, Click here!

Finally got the photo! Removed the white background.

I think that the layering and text style really makes the text "pop" from the page. Stand out. Really say "Hey, it's me, Text! READ ME!" That may be just my opinion though. See what you think! I personally really liked the our of parkour was hidden by the sudden FAIL. I think it looks kinda like billy just failed his parkour exam. Still, may be just me. I also took the original photograph and with some effects, used it as a background. I also took the charecter's legs and faded them into the background so it wouldn't look jagged. Finally, I rearranged the actor's names so the names were directly below the actors themselves. I really like how the final poster came out. I think it really shouts: PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!

Poster is down There \/   \/   \/   \/   \/
-Linden

Finished Product!

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