Hollywood #3

I began going all out. I edited our movie on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, I made the mistake of pasting clips over other clips. On Saturday, I finally figured out how to insert clips so I fixed all of Friday's screw ups and did some of my own editing, in particular on the introduction.

We have to share our suite with another group, which is slowing down the process. I think we will still produce a solid film. Not a super interesting one but it should be clean.

We took a chance using a rather simple idea, and while that helped make editing easier, it was a little banale maybe.

Cap Hollywood Reflection #2

Just like I expected, our film is a pretty straightforward edit, so while we are not done yet, finishing the editing should not be a problem. We will continue to edit on Friday and starting next week, I can begin coming in to edit. Right now the group is taking turns editing, which isn't too productive, so next class we will split into two groups: one editing and one making a movie poster.

It's all about finishing the project now. Now that APs are done, CAP Hollywood is now a priority. My group is responsible so we won't miss the due date for the film. At this point we could complete all editing in probably just a couple hours. Fixing audio levels often takes time, but since we'll be using music, we're going to put the background sounds very low, which shouldn't take long.

CAP Hollywood Reflection #1

My group went filming on Tuesday and Wednesday and we are all done. I thought overall the process was very smooth. I think I can say that this is probably the best script one of my filming groups has ever used. I tend to be one to enhance shots on the spot, but nonetheless, my group had a great foundation coming in. I can't really think of a single obstacle we encountered, beyond a shadow here and there.

My contribution to the group was acting in the film, something I really didn't want to do. I did my best to avoid the role, but once I saw that nobody was keen on acting, it made sense for me to do it. I'm not a very good actor, but I can make things entertaining, intentionally or not. With me as the talent, a serious film can easily turn into a comedy. Fortunately this was already somewhat of a comedy so whatever stupid looks I had shouldn't really be a problem.

Next week is all about editing. There is no time to do work at home until after my AP exams, which both fall on Tuesday, the 14th. After that, if we still need to do some edits, I have some version of Final Cut Pro at home that I could use to finish the job. This should not be too complicated an edit, one that in reality could be done with iMovie.

Two people will have to work on the movie poster next week. I probably won't be one of them because I showed up for filming both days and have a pretty good idea of how the final product should look.

Kars 4 Kids

Every day I have to wake up early, usually for school, I use the radio as my alarm. I give myself about 30 minutes to wake up listening to a program, sometimes WAMU, or lately, a local sports station. Oftentimes this process allows me to get up nice and slowly. But lately, as now I'm listening to commercial radio, I have to listen to commercials. Most people would say it's not the end of the world, and normally I would too. But sometimes, for about a minute, it feels like my life is coming to an end. There is some non-profit organization called "Kars 4 Kids", which does something with old cars to somehow benefit kids. Anyway, they have a jingle, an infamous jingle. It's been on making people deaf for a few years now, and it frequently brings about a rude beginning to my day. My prospects for a good day take a huge hit once I listen to the Kars 4 Kids jingle. I'm now starting to just shut off my radio.

Here's a link to the jingle. Note: If you want to leave this post with your ears intact, I'd recommend not clicking this hyperlink.

Of course, I know you did click on it so now I will explain to you the problems I have with the jingle and the organization as a whole (although everything I know about it comes from the commercial). While I might have made it seem more out of tune than it actually is, when the voices of the kid and the older guy are still ringing in your ears next month, you'll wish you had never clicked the link. This image kind of sums up my reaction, only, I can't drive my bed of a cliff. Sorry I have to link to the Blog because the image is too big.

So the commercial tells me to dial 1-877-Kars-4-Kids. First, they don't even specify if one should dial the number "4" or the preposition "for". Second, I'm pretty sure telephone numbers are supposed to be only 10 digits in the United States. They've got their consumers dialing 12 plus that additional "1".

More importantly though, what do they mean by "Kars 4 Kids"? Because it seems like they want me to donate my old car to let a six-year-old drive. There's a couple problems with that. First of all, six-year-olds can't see over the steering wheel. And secondly, it's nearly impossible for somebody not to drive off a cliff after hearing the jingle. Presumably the car that they were supposed to donate is now deep in a valley.

So if they don't mean for me to give up my car for a kid to drive, then there is only one other possibility. This has to be some kind of orphanage where they sell kids for cars. They don't specify how many cars for a kid on their website, but I'm sure I could find out easily with one simple dial of "1-877-Kar-S4Ki".

I have big ambitions for my rival business, which has a very similar jingle. "1-8-7-7 Beer for Kids. K-E-E-R, Beer for kids. 1-8-7-7 Beer for kids. Donate Bud Light today!" Admit it, you sang to this.

I found a confirmation that indeed Kars4Kids does not sell kids for cars. Therefore they must sell the cars for the kids to use for recreational use. Here's proof.



Here's a parody of the jingle. I feel that if I were to waste my mind finding new lyrics to the jingle, I'll bet I could come up with 50 in an hour.

A piece of my documentary reflection

Documentary Project Reflection

My group did a documentary about what the United States should do in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Coming into the project, I can go as far as to say that I didn’t know that there was a conflict between the two nations. Honestly, all I knew was that the Middle East was having problems. Now I am definitely keeping up more with U.S. foreign policy.

Part of the reason I ended up with those two was that I wanted to submit a video to C-SPAN and nobody else in the class did besides them. Had we started the process on the first class of the year, then presumably more groups would have wanted to enter the competition. I think that is one way to improve the project. Since our group did most of the work outside of school anyway, it would have been helpful to get the assignment earlier. I could have then gotten ahead of the research and then contributed more. Otherwise, I could have been in a different group that submitted. One way to make groups next year would be to divide up the class, with those who are prepared to put in extra work and want to submit to C-SPAN on one side of the room, and those who just want to do the process mostly in school on the other. Then the big groups could do brainstorming sessions, and each nominate one idea for a vote. Depending on the size of the group, the individuals could vote to nominate a certain amount of them. Then, like we did in Ms. Fillman’s class nominating the CAP Hollywood films, people could rank their top three choices. Because much of filmmaking is collaboration, ranking the top three people they would want to work with would also make sense. Then you could make groups based on similar interests.

Dagger!

I finished my homework just in time to hear one of the greatest (worst) calls of a sports announcer of all time. The Washington Wizards were down by one point against the Detroit Pistons with what I recall was about 12 seconds left on the clock. After the ball is nearly thrown out of bounds, Martell Webster is able to tap the ball to Trevor Ariza for a contested 3-point shot at the buzzer. He puts up the shot, and much to the amazement of just about everybody in the arena and presumably at home, the ball hits nothing but net. Steve Buckhantz, the Wizards play-by-play announcer, clearly thought it went in.

He shouts his signature line, "Dagger!" This one happened earlier this year, but unlike Wednesday, he didn't walk away looking like a total fool.


I consider that a pretty exciting call, and I'd definitely definitely replay this video. Now this coming video of what happens when a "Dagger" goes wrong never gets old. Forget that the Wizards lost the game; this was ten times better than a win!


Now here's what this scene looked like to me. I'm being perfectly honest. I wasn't exactly sure what had happened, but it for some reason just didn't look like it went in. Maybe it's because by the time I was able to process what had happened, I saw no Wizards players celebrating and saw a Pistons player with his hands in the air, as if to celebrate. I caught on what felt like about 15 seconds before Buckhantz, and as a result, I was on my couch dying with laughter. I had totally forgotten that my favorite team had just lost a nail biter.

Anyway, I will give Buckhantz credit for generating a highlight from that lowlight in his life. "The dagger has been retracted," said Buckhantz. 

Real News #2

Here's my second post of "Real News."
_____________________________________________________________________

The first news is courtesy of the Huffington Post. So... Montana never ceases to amaze me. Now all of the "moose[s] and antelope[s]... killed by a car [can] be harvested for food." This a fantastic new law, because now the animals' families won't feel that their loved ones died in vein.
_____________________________________________________________________

A little boy calls for help! This is pretty funny. He didn't want to go to sleep so he called the cops. Not exactly sure how that would hep his cause.

________________________________________________________________________

This was an incredible shot... by a cheerleader.

Got my pants dirty!

For the one-week video project, we were given a prop to make our story about. We got a nest with little eggs glued in it, so of course, we knew right away we were going to film this outdoors, around a tree. We decided the best use of the props would be to have the nest fall out of the tree, and for somebody to catch it. I volunteered to act.

It was a very cold morning, but we already had our script made so my group went outside. With the help of the storyboard, we were very efficient, and got the filming done in about 30 miserable minutes. I dove for the nest, though the intention was not for me to catch it. Instead, it would land on my back. Since that is nearly impossible to do, we had to do the best job we could to make it look somewhat realistic. Obviously every viewer knew it didn't really land on my back, but that helped create the little hook, of me diving arms outstretched, then fading out, before the next shot where you can see where it lands.

After I had done a couple dives, my group thought that was enough, but I insisted on one more. And unfortunately, I landed it some wet dirt (I wouldn't quite call it mud). I ended up with a grass stain and a dirty pair of pants. Maybe I should have listened to my group.

I thought it was cleverly done for what we had, because while it didn't look realistic, in my opinion it was still pretty entertaining. The last shot was supposed to reassure the viewer that the whole thing is indeed supposed to be a joke. By the way, that thing with three legs that looks very much like a tripod is actually a small tree, so don't mind it.

Overall I thought this was a fun project. I didn't think we needed three hours to brainstorm, write a script, and storyboard just a minute-long video. I think if we had done the pre-production stuff in an hour and a half and the filming the other 90 minutes, people probably wouldn't have had to stay to edit after school.

Google Drive

Yesterday I discovered the magic of Google Drive. While it has been around for some time now, I never understood how helpful it is.

Before I decided to learn about Google Drive, I didn't understand how it differed from Google Docs. After all, isn't that also storing data in a cloud? The tutorial video for Drive really only described Google Docs. And in reality, it is not majorly different, but there is an addition that could be very useful. Google Docs can now be edited offline. If you enable it to do so, Google Drive will run automatically when you start up your computer. Then it will sync all data from the cloud to your computer. It does, however, keep it as a Google Doc. If you want to make a .docx file you can do so by exporting it from Google Docs. But now you can open up Google Docs offline. If you don't have internet access, Google Chrome will open up and Docs will work like normal, except that until you get internet connection back, changes won't be saved on the cloud. But it will all save on your computer and then sync with the cloud once it can.

The benefit of Google Drive is big, and I'm sure Google is still making improvements on it. I'm not to acquainted with it so I don't have much to say, but I'm loving what I'm seeing. Now I won't lose files!!

Basketball Trick Shots in Silver Spring

I do live just a five-minute walk away from Downtown Silver Spring, but I didn't really want to film myself going into the movie theater, eating a Chipotle burrito, etc. because I thought there would be plenty of videos of that kind. Instead, I put together a collage of basketball trick shots. While I don't spend much time doing shots of that sort, I do really like to play basketball. This is my hoop but it has been a popular attraction throughout the neighborhood since we got it about eight years ago.

My brother filmed this for me using a Flip Video. I recognize it isn't in widescreen, I will try to fix that for future videos. I tried iMovies '07 for my recent video for English and had a terrible experience. I felt helpless at times: clips would change lengths at will, it crashed frequently, the transitions were not good, so I went back to iMovie '06. I found this upbeat song and thought it fit well in my video.

I had some shots planned out, and many of them took a while. The bike one was difficult for me because I had to maintain an acceptable velocity to make the shot look decent, I had to stay under control (I crashed into the curb several times), and I had to catch the ball and make the shot keeping one hand on the bike. This shot took quite a while. Then there were some other tough ones like the one where I juggled a soccer ball then kicked it into the hoop. I actually made it on the first try when I was demonstrating what I would to do. Then it took five minutes to do it again. In addition to the challenging shots, the cold was another factor. We broke the filming over three days because while I might have been in a t-shirt and shorts, my hands were freezing.

Other shots were improvised. I had a stretch where I did as much and I could. That's when I did the 360-layup and some other shots.

Dialogue never factored into the video. My brother was had some funny comments from behind the camera because he understandably got quite bored. I might upload some of his comments as well as some of my bloopers for a weekly post soon. Sorry my dialogue was not a little more creative.

Real News #1

This is a weekly blog post segment where I go over some of the recent "Real News."
_____________________________________________________________________________



So... this is an outrage! I'm getting ripped off of one inch of bread. Time to boycott this business. Subway, you've lost a customer.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Is Google Responsible for Killing a Donkey? I'm glad to see Fox is staying away from politics and giving that donkey the recognition it deserves. I'm sure its family really appreciates that act of kindness. Anyway, how did somebody get this footage? Who happens to be looking at a street view of dirt in Botswana? Anyway, the witnesses of this murder were unfortunately not able to attend Google's trial.
_____________________________________________________________________________



Though the concept of somebody getting stuck like that is quite funny, it's hard to laugh after the experience she went through. That would be miserable to be trapped, unable to move your head for hours. Now she has a story she'll never forget.
_____________________________________________________________________________

CBC adds a new twist to twist to the Lance Armstrong case: reportedly this criminal used rugs. I wasn't able to find the video footage of this newscast, but if I were to guess, I would say it was a typo. Most likely they were trying to give the viewer a new angle on the story, informing us that he used mugs to drink the water to swallow his performance-enhancing pills.

Speaking of mugs, would you buy one of these?

When I don't know what to do... ( Random Blog Search #1)

There is the occasional week when I have no idea what to write about. This is one of them, so I've decided to start a new series where I find a random blog and right about it.

Here it goes:

6:27 PM-- Well, I encountered my first problem. I've been to 5 blogs and they are all in other languages, including Spanish and Finnish.

6:35-- I give up!! There is so much garbage or stuff just pertaining to a person's life. I'm now going to try going to Google Blog Search and type in a key word.

6:39-- I plugged in "israel palestine documentary" into the Google Blog Search engine, not with the intention of watching a documentary, but with the hope that somebody may have reviewed one that I could later go and watch. Sure enough, I was linked to a Blog post with a review.

6:43-- I am now going to use the Diigolet to annotate this post. Haven't read it yet. Hope it's at least somewhat interesting.

6:45-- Well... it's hardly got any information. Time to return to the results page on Google and try again. I feel stupid.

6:48-- I found an article on the Huffington Post. At first glance, it looks to be a news story but I'll find out when I annotate it.

7:34-- I had to eat! But I'm back now...

7:42-- I am finished annotating! You can see what I did.

7:44-- In brief, this article talks about two Israel-produced movies and how they were so successful. The movies' techniques are very different. One was made with six retired directors of Israel's spy agency talking. They were informally dressed, but B-roll footage made the film appealing. The other was made by an amateur filmmaker with his camcorder, filming his daily life.

7:53-- Well... that wraps up this post. The process should be easier in the future now that I know what my approach is. I shouldn't have to make this into a log of my time. I did it this time because I knew I would go on a wild goose chase because I had very little idea what I was doing, as you can probably tell by my vague introduction. From now on, I'll go to Google Blogs and type in some key words related to something that interests me or just words that pop into my mind. I'll click on a link that seems interesting, glance over the article to see if it's worthwhile, then annotate it. I'll then write my post and summarize the article in a little more depth than I did today at 7:44. This post was more of an experiment. Going forward, I might do videos as well, but this is all if I don't have anything noteworthy to write about.

8:00-- I am out.