Lyrical Livlihood

Hello and- Do I even need to do this anymore? Like, EVERY SINGLE TIME I post a new blog post It's just always THE SAME THING! Blah Blah Blah, new project, new team, new this, new that, Blah Blah Blah. The question is- why? Because reasons. There. I just answered my own question- DEAL WITH IT. Anyway, back on track, Blah Blah Blah, new project new team, new this, new that, Blah Blah Blah.

The new project is a MUSIC VIDEO. The new team is just me and Micah Miller. Click there to see his blog, and his version of this exact post. Anyway, so the video we're doing isn't exactly my FAVORITE song, but it's close. My (semi) favorite song, (I have a lot.) is "Hardware Store" from Weird Al Yankovic. Click the link to see the music video. It kinda makes me feel energetic and excited. It also gives me a strange, unquenchable desire to buy everything from ACE hardware and Home Depot combined... Jk Jk.

Plan part 1, Click to enlarge.

Plan part 2. Click to enlarge.

Anyway, onto the actual project. Our team, (And by that I mean me and Micah,) Decided (I forced him to) to pick "Just Eat It" By Weird Al Yankovic. We (I) chose this because I thought it would be easy and fun. I'll check up of that later... It may just actually be the hardest thing either one of us EVER DID. (May.) Plus, I LIKE FOOD. Also, it has a lot of weird lyrics that I thought we could visualize with a lot of different stuff. Our video is kinda gonna be a comedy, (sorta) With some stuff like me smashing Micah's face into a bowl of... Mush? Something. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyway, I got the better end of that deal. I am the smashER. not the smashEE. Why am I still talking about this? Whatever. The point is, It's a form of slapstick comedy.

There isn't really a story to "Just Eat It"; It's just kinda random, so we had to transfiddle the B-roll a little bit to figure it out. The story, now, is basically that there's always that ONE PERSON that eats AS SLOW AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, preventing everyone else from proceeding to dessert. Micah is that person. Over time, however, he learns that what he's doing is bad, and he eats faster and stuff. Crazy story right?! At first, he's gonna eat REALLY slowly, and his company is asleep. Later, he wakes up, shoves micah's face into the bowl, and commence music. It's not violence, it's "Freely Expressing Discomfort".

New post in a few weeks,
-Linden

Ok, Who spilled the Ink?

Hello and welcome to the- Wait- Did someone really-?
Wow. At least it's readable when you highlight it. Then again, those directions were probably hard to read...  How am I supposed to create another awesome (Yes, it's a matter of opinion) Blog Post if someone spilled Ink all over it??? Seriously, whoever did that, NO respect.               .
Should I even post this? I mean, it's still readable but I've spent so much time rambling on about whoever spilled the ink. Really, if I post this, it's unprofessionalism. Not that I'm ever professional, but one does want to keep his standards up. The question is: Why? What's the point of spilling ink on some kid's blog post? HOW do you even spill ink on a blog post? This is ridiculous. At least- wait? This is still readable! But there's so much ink by now that it's really hard to... Unless you highlight it. Well then again, I guess It's kinda readable either way. However, it's easier (I think) if you highlight it... How am I supposed to write a post like this anyway? Nevermind- Closing it down. NO MORE INK!!!                                                                                    .                                                           .
                                                                                                                                                  .
I'll write again soon,                                                                                                                 .
-Linde-                                                                                                                                  .
              .                                                                                                                                 .
-Did the ink just change color? Let's test this... Yep. The ink definitely changes color. Even When I Try To Throw It For A Loop! Well, no more surprises. 
         .
'Bye,
-Linden

Our Animation Story

DISCLAMER
This post is directly related to the previous one, "Animation Outtakes". If you have not read that post, please kindly do so. If you are the lazy type, read/watch at your own risk. Or not, I don't care.

P5T6 Raiden Discovers Origami from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Working on my animation...

Hello and welcome to the (kinda) second part of the "famous" blog post, Animation Outtakes. Now many, (and by many, I mean one.) people (person?) have (has? Never mind...) asked me how our animation's focus statement reflects "My story". Well gents, the answer is: It doesn't! It reflects RAIDEN'S story. Not mine. Anyway, it reflects HIS story because, well, it's a true story! Not much more to it. It's a true story of how he discovered and learned to do Origami! Yeah!

Me and Quinn messin around  with Garageband

The audience, when they watch the animation, will (Hopefully) learn that talents can come out of no where, and to appreciate the talents you have. This is shown by telling the people (or person) how Raiden, at first, doesn't have a talent until he discovers Origami. Then he finds how good he is at Origami, Meaningful text here and there, some voice overs, and BANG! People discover that everyone has a talent.

Raiden Making some more animations

I'd say that we're a pretty good team, because we have had a lot of good moments, and not very many bad moments. For example, Every day, BOOM animation done here! BAM Animation done there! Personally, I think the team is very productive. However, if I HAD to point out the WORST moment for the team, I would say it was when we were disagreeing with the animation plan. That took a long time. The best moment, however, was when we had completed about 100% of our animations, and were ready for the Final Cut. Awesomeness!

Critique results BELOW,
-Linden

ANIMATION OUTTAKES

Welcome ladies and gents! ONCE AGAIN, we have ANOTHER G.T. Project. (Man, these things never end!) In these few weeks, we will create SPECTACULAR Animations. (Like the terribad ball bounce RIGHT.) The following GIF to the RIGHT was made by yours truly. I'm on an ALL NEW TEAM, with ALL NEW MEMBERS, (Except for Raiden,) And an ALL NEW PROJECT!!!!! (and stuff.) Now, I shall do something I have NEVER done before... Describe two interesting faces about my team mates! Talia Washington has 8 different nationalities, (ethnicity, for fancy people,) and she is actually related to George Washington! (The one, The only.) Quinn states that the most interesting things about himself are that he eats, and he sleeps. He's ether boring, or is a secret CIA agent on a secret task in Madagascar. I'll believe the latter. Finally, Raiden Kurisu is 100% Japanese, and is apparently Really good at Origami. This is important, for that's what we based our animation off of how Raiden discovered Origami. Not my idea.

Dont. Even. Ask.

So, know what a GIF is? Click that link. For the lazy, GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format, and looks like an animation that repeats itself. (Example, the bouncing all above.) There's more to the definition than just that, but I'm to lazy to put it in. Do you also know what Stop Motion Animation is? That's pretty easy to answer. Basically, Stop motion animation is when you take a bunch of pictures of something inanimate, such as a clay figure, and with every picture it moves a little bit. Then process it, a bing here and a bang there and you've got some mediocre-quality animation.

Our animation is going to be about, as said in the first paragraph, how Raiden discovers Origami. Basically, he realized (when he was 6) that everyone except him had a super special talent. Then out of no where he discovered that he can do origami. People should care about this because if Raiden gets famous one day, BOOM back story! Also it teaches that everyone has some special talent and we should appreciate it when we find ours. So yeah. Meaning here, meaning there, Bish Bosh.

PEACE
-Linden

Typography Images

Colorless Mr. Dell, TYPOGRAPHY STYLE!

*Sluuuuuurp* Ahhh. Delicious- wait. What? We're filming already? Oh, um, well... I was in the middle of slurping some absolutely delicious tomato soup. Anyway... You probably weren't wanting to hear about ANOTHER G.T. project, but too bad! That's what I'm talking about. Now from the title you can see that the newest project is TYPOGRAPHY IMAGES. Extra emphasis on the ALL CAPS RAGE. Anyway, basically, we take a custom paintbrush of text, or a giant block of text (kinda like this entire post, if there were no spaces between paragraphs...) that's relevant to the portrait (or image) you have, and re-make the portrait OUT OF TEXT! Magic! And I believe it's meaningful because it kinda shows the inner meaning of the picture / portrait. And it really makes a lasting impact because of what I just said, and the saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words. Welp, enough with being deep, so, garglebarglefuz.

If you find this, leave a comment! :)

Colorful Math Teacher, (Mrs. Nakamura)
TYPOGRAPHY STYLE!

During this project, I had many difficulties getting the text to work. I made an ENORMOUS block of text, and when I cropped the image, there was so much offscreen that photoshop actually crashed! Wow. The power of text. To overcome this, I had to delete the text layer altogether, and then make a new one AFTER I cropped the image. If you ever do what I did, crop the photo FIRST! And look at a tutorial. Sorry I don't have a link, but I lost it in the gallons of tomato soup in my cellar. Or you can use the intermediate tutorial here. *Shuffle* *Shuffle* AHA! I found it! It's Hea! I found it in my Lemon Bar cellar! Or, you could take the super advanced do-not-try-this-at-home tutorial, here. The one to the Right was a little more complex, (and I faced much more problems...) but if you want an in-depth explanation, once again, go to the intermediate tutorial.

The "Me" Portrait

The picture titled "Colorless Mr. Dell," is basically a picture of Mr. Dell (Michael Dell) Founder of the Dell software company. I took a big wikipedia article on him and copy-pasted it until it filled his face. Then, with a few other steps, POOF! That! Up there! Yeah! The one of my math teacher was a little bit harder. To make that, I actually had to make a custom brush! I took text that pretty much describes her, and made it into a brush, then I stamped it all over her face, then, with the same "other steps" as to make Michael Dell Typography to make Mrs. Nakamura Typography style! Finally, was my "Me" portrait. This was more complex. I had to take a pic of me, then make it black & white, then "posterize" it, then place text all over the different greys with different colors. Finally, a little layer effects, a gradient background, a bit of bevel and emboss here and there, and bing bang boom! The portrait seen to the LEFT is the completed product! DONE. Anyone can see the differences between the different portraits.

Another crazy project come and gone,
-Linden?????

Double Exposed Portraits

An example of a silhouette...
provided by Google.

Hello everyone that actually views my blog! Today we'll be reviewing: Portrait photography! Now that saves me all the time and trouble of explaining it. However, as always, if you're like me and refuse to click the link, it's pretty simple: a portrait is a picture of a person. That's it. Done! Wait... I've got some other stuff to explain... A profile. And silhouettes... Ok then... Both of these things are portraits. They are both pictures of people. Profiles are the SIDE of someone's face. Just one side. Nothing more. (Or you could think of it as the outline of someone's face...) Silhouettes are a photo of someone in only two colors. Usually, a silhouette IS a profile, but that's beside the point. The two colors are usually black and white, as shown Hea:

FIle, Automate, Load files into stack.

Back on the REAL topic that I never told you about: DUBBLE EXPOSURE! Sweg. Anyway... Double exposure is traditionally made when a photographer takes two photos and burns them onto the same roll of film. The photoshop "Dodge" tool works similarly. If you actually want to know how to make on of these guys shown BELOW, look at This Tutorial, This one, and this one. In case you want the brief overview, basically you go to "file", "scripts", and click "load files into stack." Then select your portrait and 1-2 other images. Afterwards, dodge around your portrait, double click all the layers, and change the blend mode to "screen" mode. Arrange the photos, make some cool adjustments, and bing bang boom! A cool thing has been fabricated! I might want to create this thingie because... well... I have to? For a class? Nah. It's because it kinda shows the inner meaning of the portrait you do it too. Like if you're rooted or something, you could double expose you with a tree or something. Yeah. (It's actually because I'm forced to... Don't tell any1! :>)

If you look at the bottom of this page, you'll see the two examples I've "Helpfully" provided for "you". The one to the right is me, and I used grass and a tree for a few reasons. (and by a few, I mean 2.) 1. I like nature. 2. Those were the only things I had available. The one to the left, however, is ME! and the symbols I used were my computer, and some cooking supplies. I used these things for THREE reasons. 1. I like to cook. A LOT. 2. I'm smart like a computer, and like computer games. And 3. They were also the only things that I had... JK. Lol. SEE THE PHOTOS HEA \/\/\/\/ ;)

Hey! I'm beside myself!

Signing out until a few minutes in the future,
-Linden...?

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.