Personal Manifesto

Hello! And welcome to the new 2015-2016 school year! Our first project is to make a motivational poster, so let's get on it, but later. 2nd and 3rd paragraphs maybe? Anyway, since I've never actually posted some interesting facts about myself, that's what I'm gonna do right now. 5, to be precise. Ok, so all of you know my name, (I hope) If you don't and you're new to my blog, it's Linden Johns, but I won't count that as one of the 5 facts. Anyway, here they are: 1. My favorite activity is to cook and bake, (pastries, cake, etc.). 2. I am in G.T. media (which you should all know, evidence? G.T. portfolio) and Art class, which are my two favorite classes. 3. I have two cats, named Tigger and Olivia, but this DOES NOT mean that I don't love dogs too, because I do, so CHILL dog fans. 4. I am a ginger, so I have freckles and reddish blond hair EVERYWHERE. I'm kinda like a not-so-hairy smallfoot. (like bigfoot, except with smaller feet.) And 5. the most recent thing, I am in 7th grade! So yeah. those are 5 interesting things about me, and now onto the project.

So, in the poster, we need to add a few inspirational quotes, (Shia LaBeouf perhaps?) and a personal Manifesto. If you have no idea what that is, I have concealed a link in the underlined manifesto. You're welcome. Anyway, here is my personal Manifesto: Always approach work with ENERGY. Never believe that you will fail, or you will. Never have a NEGATIVE ATTITUDE when you do anything. Always be healthy, physically and emotionally. Healthy body means healthy soul and moods. Be nice to the people you meet and your acquaintances will grow. THE TIME IS NOW. Live your life with passion and inspiration, and always follow your dreams. DREAM BIG. Nothing is impossible if you put time and energy into it. So go be what you want. This is your life so go out there and make the most of it. 

So there you go. I just publicly declared my 2015-2016 personal Manifesto. I hope you learned something, and if you didn't and just skimmed it, then I'll just slap the main idea right here: believe in yourself, because if you do, and you actually TRY and do what you would like to do, THEN anything is possible. So yeah. It applies to YOU because some people (I won't point fingers) when they start something are like "Ugg... This? I'm never gonna be able to do this. I quit. Goodbye. nrrgh." You know... Those people. I hope you are (now) not one of them.

First blog post of the year hype!
-Linden

(PS. if you have no idea what the photos are, they all represent me in some way. figure it out.)

Music Videos Rock!!!

"Micah" working

Welp. It turned out to be the latter. Oh right- it's been a while. The latter of "It just might be the hardest thing I ever do ever." It may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Well, it's actually going pretty good, but you know, work is work. And we lost about half of our footage. So yeah. I think that I contributed pretty goodly, being A: an actor, B: a director, and C: a cameraman. But I can't take all of the spotlight. Micah helped to. He was A: an actor, and B: a slacker. JK. Jk. He was actually, A: an actor, B: the play writer, and C: a slacker. Still joking. He did his part. Either that, or he's really rich so he can hire someone to do it for him. I really don't care. At least the person he's paying is good at this stuff. Wait- or was he paying an actor to go to school for him too?!?!? AND EVERYWHERE FOR HIM!?!?!? Have I never known him???? CONSPIRACY ALERT!?!?!?!?!??!

Me working on RATED screen

Well, now that that conspiracy theory has been cleared up (Has it?) It's time for the OTHER conspiracy, what part will people like most. I believe that my audience will most enjoy the part when I smash Micah's face into the plate of tuna because I think that it's kinda expected, has a close up, and is still funny. Runner ups are: The credits, The RATED screen, and how Micah had a bowl on his face for half of the film. Also the air guitar. That was Rockin' awesome.

Me- Wait- AM I AN ACTOR TOO!?! 

In my opinion, Me and Micah's music video completely (well, some at least.) shows what we learned this year. Notice, for example, the sound effects we used. Also, we used SuperImposing and skill with the Quick Selection Tool for the RATED screen, and the "The Weirdos" screen. We also focused are shots, used special effects, and demonstrated correct (I mean incorrect. Stupid autocorrect. JK.) Camera usage. This is our final project of the school year, so I hope you enjoyed. I may not post any blog posts during the summer either. So...


Adios Amigos!
-Linden

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?????