CAP Hollywood Reflection #2

Film production is going pretty well! We filmed two weekends ago and got some really great shots. Right now, we're working on our rough cut. At the moment it's around 8 minutes long but we're in the process of cutting it down. So far, our rough cut is looking pretty good! Our poster has also been completed and is all ready to be printed.

CAP Hollywood Reflection #2

Film production is going pretty well! We filmed two weekends ago and got some really great shots. Right now, we're working on our rough cut. At the moment it's around 8 minutes long but we're in the process of cutting it down. So far, our rough cut is looking pretty good! Our poster has also been completed and is all ready to be printed.

CAP Hollywood Reflection

John, Andreas, Leah, Leigh, and I are creating a short film about basketball for our CAP Hollywood project.  It's going to be about a star basketball player who is faced with a choice: should he win the game for his team and risk being hurt by a tough drug dealer, or lose the game and risk being hurt by another drug dealer?

So far, the process has been going smoothly.  All of our storyboards are finished, as well as our script.  Andreas and I also made a poster, and it looks epic!  I can't show it to you yet because we're still putting some finishing touches on it, but when I can, I will.

We're still looking for actors to play basketball players or drug dealers.  Filming will take place this Saturday.  If you're interested, please let us know!  We really need actors!

Documentary Project Reflection

Our documentary topic is Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, and how it has the potential to harbor life.  I think our film turned out pretty well, but I would’ve rather done a documentary about the furry fandom because it would’ve been a lot more fun (who wouldn’t want to interview a person in an animal costume?) and it would’ve been more informative.  Many people know that there are places out there besides Earth that could potentially harbor life, but not many people know about the furry fandom.

While making the documentary, I learned that there’s an artist on the Internet named Michael Aranda who has created great Creative Commons audio tracks.  We used one entitled “Jerkface and Jujube” in our film.  It matched the tempo of the film just perfectly!  I plan to use some more of his music in my future independent films.

The biggest challenge we faced was making sure that the film didn’t go too quickly, and bombard viewers with information.  Honestly, I think that it still has too much information for its short length.  I don’t really think that the fast paced style we were trying to emulate was completely appropriate for a documentary about outer space.  If we were to make the documentary over again then I’d suggest making it in a different style.

If I could make another documentary, I’d probably choose another topic.  If I remember correctly, the idea was proposed as a joke, but we decided to go through with it after thinking about it.  I would’ve chosen the furry fandom because then I could take charge of the project, since I have so many contacts within the fandom and because, of course, I know the most about it.  I really want to get the people in CAP 10 to know me better since I’m new, and I think that giving them an in-depth look at one of my interests would’ve been a great way to do that.

I think that you should’ve had a bigger role in helping us to choose a topic, i.e. we brainstorm a list of ideas that we like and you select one that you think will make the best documentary.  Also, I think that you should’ve enforced deadlines a bit more strictly.

Finally, I really liked of idea of us making our own documentaries.  It gave us a chance to make a film that was a little bit longer than the films we usually make, and to make a film about something that we’re passionate about.

Results of Silver Lens Video Challenge

***  If you haven't already, please read this post.  ***

Hey everyone,

So, Mr. Mayo told me the results of the contest this past Friday.  It turns out that I came in 2nd place!  Yay!

This is the video that came in 1st place:


And this is my video:


This is the video that came in 3rd place:


The first place winner was originally going to get $100, but either the winner or Mr. Mayo (I don't know who) decided to split the money up so that the winner gets $50, I get $25, and the 3rd place winner gets $25.

Yay!

BLAIR!

Hi all, how's everyone doing?

Mr. Mayo started this thing called Silver Lens, in which Blair students have the opportunity to submit videos they they've made.  The deadline for the first challenge was yesterday.  I'll show you my submission in a bit, but first let me show you the InfoFlow advert.




Cool, huh?

Here's my entry.  It took me about 3 hours or so to edit the whole video in iMovie '09.  All the footage you see was filmed with my trusty iPhone 5.




I'm pretty proud of it, and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hope I win.

What do you think of my video?  I'd love to hear your comments.


Here are the other 2 entries:








Until next time,

~ Grace

The Blair Chair

Hey guys,

I wanted to tell you all about a video project that some of my classmates have been working on.

It's about a chair, a miniature chair.  He really wants to travel to the Blair greenhouse, but has tried and failed in the past.  But this time, he's determined to get there.

He meets a big swivel chair at Blair - will Big Chair help him out?  You'll have to wait until I post the video to find out.

This video is being made by Abir, Zoe, Leah, and me.  Abir is going to provide the voice of the little chair, and I am going to voice Big Chair.

I also made a title slide in Adobe Photoshop CS5:

What do you think?

As a side note, I'm going to be writing a feature story for Journalism class about the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom.  It should be fun to write it; I'm really looking forward to meeting new fellow bronies around Blair when I look for sources!  I'm thinking about sharing it on here when it's all done (with names edited out, of course), so keep on the look out for that!

Until next time,

~ Grace 

Welcome to Silver Spring!

Hello all!

The British students from St. John's School are coming to visit us next week, so for Mr. Mayo's class we were assigned to make a video about what it's like to live in Silver Spring.

I love living in Silver Spring!  It's just such a great area with tons of fun things to do, as well as many great schools.  So, I decided to include some of my favorite places in my area - Sargent Shriver ES and Wheaton Mall.

I hope you enjoy!

A New Club

Hello all!  It's been a while since I've posted here.  Hope you all had a nice holiday!

Today's post is about a new club that my boyfriend and I want to start here at Blair.

The club will be for fans of the TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  This might sound bizarre, but there is a huge subculture based off of the show.  This subculture is primarily made up of young men and teenage boys.  A fan of the show is called a brony - a blend between "bro" and "pony".  Some female fans choose to be known as a "pegasister" - a blend between "pegasus" (In the My Little Pony universe, a pegasus is one of the three main types of ponies.) and "sister".

There are tons of bronies and pegasisters at Blair High School.  To start, my boyfriend is a brony and I see him in my health class everyday.  A good friend of mine also introduced me to her friend, a pegasister.  At lunch, sometimes I'll see a freshman pegasister who has a backpack of the character Derpy Hooves.  Occasionally I'll see a boy who has a keychain on his backpack of the character Fluttershy.  One time, I had a boy come up to me and give me a fist bump (called a "brohoof" in the brony fandom) because we were both wearing My Little Pony shirts.  One of my boyfriend's close friends is also a brony.  Judging by the number of fans I've seen around school, I think that the club will have substantial membership.

My good friend Juliette recently started an Interfaith Club at Blair.  A few hours ago, I told her about our idea to start a My Little Pony Club and asked her how we would get it started.  She told me that first we'd need to find a teacher to be our club sponsor, as well as a meeting place.  Then, we'll have to write a club constitution based on an existing template.

Tonight we're going to try to start modifying the given template to create our constitution.  We're having some technical difficulties, so I can't say for sure if we're going to have it done tonight or not!  Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Thanks for reading!  Until my next post!

Until then, please enjoy this photo of some My Little Pony pegasus figurines.