Scratch Game Design

In our most recent project we constructed our own games! I wanted everything to be paced smoothly and correctly so I had to do a lot of research to make that happen. The goal of the game is to see how many points out of 12 you can get in the amount of 60 seconds. For every 5 seconds you stay away from the vampire mouse thing you win a point. I tried to make this somewhat simple so the the viewers of my first game could understand it better also because it was my first time making a game.

My chase game was a smoothly paced game, the sprites move in an evenly fashion and don't stutter when moving. The chase game that I made also switches backgrounds every ten seconds, I wanted the game to switch backgrounds every once in a while so that the player wouldn't get bored. Another thing my game features is that  the sprites both say something at the beginning of the game to kind of give you a heads up that the game is going to start.

I believe that my best code in my chase game was making the backgrounds change at a certain time, I had to do thorough research to get this code and it's my longest line of code. My biggest bug fix when making my chase game was making the sprites move smoothly, at first i was having a hard time getting the sprites to move right and left. I finally found a way to make them move and then I had to make them run smoothly.

Invention Commercial

Hello! For our invention commercial I think our main goal as a team was to persuade the audience to purchase our invention and to make it entertaining. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of footage, because we only had one time to film out side of school and we had made other plans to film but all ended up being busy. We definitely had some struggles planning, I think we all know that we could've improved greatly. I honestly have no clue to how we came up with this invention, I guess it just came to one of us. We did a class critique on our Invention Commercial and I believe that our scores were pretty accurate. If we were to do a project similar to this I know that I would improve from all the information iv'e learned.

I think that one of our best team moments during this production was trying to memorize our lines, it was really funny because it was hard for Lucy to keep a straight face while saying her lines because she had to say the lines that were meant for people to laugh at. We were all laughing cause we couldn't keep a straight face and we finally realized that we had to get it done and tried hard to not laugh.

During our editing process we all had important roles faced upon us. We each did something to contribute to the making of our commercial. Meagan did voiceovers and made the animation of the Zip Zip, I told Lucy what would look good and where to put it and she arranged the footage in a organized fashion she also chose the sound effects that we added. We all had an equal amount of work and we all took the project seriously. We definitely would've had an easier time with this project if we had been able to film for a second time, so I learned a lot from this project.

Composition Scavenger Hunt

Hello everybody! So we have two group projects, I'll be talking about the first one we did in this post. My team and I had to take a footage of the different types of composition techniques. I think that the most important composition technique is rule of thirds, rule of thirds is very important for interviews. You have to have a specific shot for an interview, this specific shot is rule of thirds. It is a very important technique to learn and use, so learn it!

In my opinion the most difficult composition technique to use is leading lines because you have to space your subject in the perfect place and there aren't a whole lot of things you can do with leading lines. Leading lines start at the beginning of a shot and run through all the way to the subject. Leading lines are hard to use because unless you're in a corn or some kind of crop field it's going to be difficult to find an are that has appropriate lines that can be properly used. I think that you could use leading lines more when you are trying to be different, if you are wanting to be unique with your footage I recommend it because it is quite different.

My teammates  are very easy to work with, we all get a long really well and never have huge challenges when working together. Meagan, my first teammate, is very good at using the camera. She has a great sense of humor, nice and all in all a really great person. She's always very focused and is very good at planning. Lucy is a great worker as well, she's always pretty focused and is really good at editing! She knows what transitions look good and how to place things appropriately. Lucy is really kind and thoughtful. We all had our own roles and tried out the different roles as we go and kinda switched off every now and then. Go check out their blogs!

Cracking the code

Hello everyone! Im back from fall break, a new quarter and a new project! We are focusing on coding while we are going to be doing our group project, but i'll get into that later. So one of the questions Mr. Sanderl asked was "Do you think everyone should learn to code & why?" I think that it is very important to learn how to code because it is used in our everyday life, almost every device has a small computer chip that is coded to make that device work. Although coding is not for everyone. If you are interested in learning coding check out coding.org it has a whole bunch of different lessons to learn from! I am excited to learn more about coding because I think it will be very useful and maybe I will get good at it and make a career out of it.

My first experience with coding was a bit difficult, it took a lot of focus to learn where to put the blocks. I am really glad that I learned because if I wanted to I could possibly make a career out of it! The first time coding is going to be hard so if you're going to try it out you should keep that in mind. I enjoy coding honestly, it's definitely getting more and more difficult to do but it's fun! I hope that I can continue to do well in coding.

If I could produce a program it would be an amazing experience, I would make an app that would work as kind of a personal assistant. You would be able to schedule anything and have this "assistant" remember all of the information you gave it. The assistant would be similar to Siri but would remember everything and help you solve your daily problems. I know that producing an app like this would be incredibly difficult but if I have do decide to try I would hire someone to help out. My app would not cost a lot of money, the most it would cost would probably be $2.00. I'm all about cheap apps, I mean who wants to spend $5.99 on an app you might not even like, so I would have a free demo that you could download to make sure it's worth the investment.

My Humorous Monologue

VietsA_Comedy from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Hello everyone! I have learned a lot during the filming and editing in this project. It's a struggle for me to figure out how to edit everything correctly, we had a few people that have been in this program for a couple of years come up and show the class how to edit properly but it's a lot to remember. Although using iMovie is not completely easy to use, i'm sure I will get used to it and eventually be great at editing footage. Another thing that I have learned is that coming up with something funny is a lot harder than it looks, especially when you are put on the spot. I had to really think hard to get my joke/monologue in play, I spent about 2-3 days just trying to find something funny and make it into a joke plan.  Another thing that I learned is that remembering pad is hard! I am happy that I am getting this experience and I am happy that I am learning a lot from this program. 

So what is pad? you're probably wondering. Okay so pad is the five seconds you put in front and at the end of a video. You do this because the camera usually takes a moment to start recording, so if you just immediately start talking your voice may get cut off. Pad is very important when making a film, because if you were shooting something important and didn't use the 5 seconds before or after then your important footage wouldn't show up. Remember to use pad, trust me it will make a difference!

I definitely had a hard time with planning this project. Figuring out when you can film and figuring out how much more you have to film is difficult and takes time. I know that I could've done better and I know that if we ever do a project like this again that I have room for improvement. I got pretty good scores for the class critique. If we were to do a project similar to this I would like to try working with a partner.  Although I didn't make it into the finalist I am glad that I did pretty good.

   

Comedy Writing

Hi everyone! We are now in the second half of the 1st quarter, so that means we have a new project ahead of us. Our assignment is to make a comedic monologue, a great sense of humor is needed for this project because we aren't allowed to copy off of somebody else's joke. The first reason why humor is an important character trait is because making other people laugh can brighten that person's day. Secondly, having humor could get you a job, I mean just look at Jerry Seinfeld he makes billions just from having a great sense of humor. Another reason why having humor is a great character trait is that you can build relationships better, no one wants to be friends with somebody that is no fun! People want to be able to laugh with their friends.

There are many ways to writing a humorous narrative, although I highly recommend researching around comedy before starting to write a humorous narrative/story. Here are five tips to writing a comedic story. The first tip is to research, researching before writing my humorous narrative definitely helped me through my writers block. Just looking up how to write a comedic monologue on wiki how could help you get some kind of idea! Another tip for writing a humorous narrative is to know that everybody has a different sense of humor, so if you don't make everybody in the audience don't beat yourself up about it. The third tip to writing a humorous narrative is to concentrate, focus and you can pretty much make anything funny. Don't wrack your brain over it, you will come up with something eventually. The fourth tip for writing a hilarious story that I have for you is to hang loose and to try to relax while presenting your story. I am shy and I don't necessarily like to get in front of a camera or be in front of a big crowd but you have to learn to overcome these challenges when doing a project like this. The last tip I have for you is add expression to your details, adding humor to something will definitely help enrich your story. It's all about the adjectives!

For this project I decided to write a comedic narrative, I am including two of my friends that happen to be in the same GT class as me in my story. Tessa, Emma, and I have died for some reason and had gone up to heaven and God told us not to touch the pink cloud. Well anyways we all go wandering off for some reason or another and somehow we all end up touching the pink cloud, and somehow we all come back with a really ugly looking dude with us... except for the last person that wanders off (Tessa) comes back with a really good looking guy that explains that he is the one who touched the pink cloud. This joke is funny because everyone comes back with ugly guys except for the last and at the end one of us comes back with a really good looking guy that had touched the pink cloud, pretty much saying that Tessa is ugly. My joke is slightly offensive, so I made sure that it was okay with Tessa before I used her in that way.

Motivational Poster

For our project on personal manifestos we had many requirements that we had to incorporate into the poster. I struggled on this assignment because I am new to GT and don't quite know everything yet, but i got threw it. This project held many challenges because it all has to be perfectly aligned and perfectly kerned. I was lucky to have had people in this class that were able to help me understand better of what I was doing. I hope that my manifesto puts a smile on your face and inspires you to do the stuff you love! Happiness is better then anything and it's contagious, it will affect others that are around you.


One of our first requirements is to have two text layers, one of them being our manifesto, and the other being your personal quotes. Another one of our requirements is to have four total images. Three of them being symbolic images that represent yourself, and one of them being a portrait of your face. We also had design expectations, meaning all of our writing had to be completely kerned to fit perfectly across the page. We wanted our manifestos to look even cooler so we had to make a triadic color scheme, meaning one dominant and two harmonious colors. The last requirement for the manifesto project was our blending options for our text. We had to mess with many options to do so, (dropping shadow, stroke, outer glow, curves, levels, exposure, etc.) I think that the biggest challenge for me was kerning the whole thing to evenly space around the whole page.

Personally I had a difficult time completing this project. As you know I am new to the GT program and so I am still getting used to using all of the different programs. I think that the biggest challenge for me was the kerning, it had to be perfectly aligned. I definitely think that i could have improved on this project. I was not able to finish properly kerning and I was also not able to put a triadic color scheme or add effects to my images. I am excited to start on other projects and learn new skills. 

Personal Manifesto

Our class is currently working on a personal manifesto project, here's a few interesting facts about me. I have done gymnastics since i was three, I have a half brother that lives in Oregon, I have never been to a foreign country, I have lived in Hawaii my whole life, and I have wanted to be a pediatrician for as long as I can remember. My Manifesto is going to be based around happiness, I want to help everybody put a smile on their face.

My manifesto is, “Be happy, Believe and achieve, Smiling is key, Enjoy life, Always keep a smile on your face, Surround yourself with happy people, Never stop dreaming, Keep a positive attitude, SMILE, Happiness is a choice choose it, You can change the world one smile at a time, Live in the moment, Find your own happiness, Happiness is contagious, Set your own goals, Live your passion live your purpose, Live worry free, and learn from your mistakes"

My manifesto is surrounding happiness, I would like everyone happy and everyone smiling. I am hoping that when you see my manifesto it will either put a smile on your face or even just give you a little spurt of happiness. It's hard to be sad and feeling like you not worth it, so that is why I hope that when you read this manifesto it will motivate you to do great things with a positive attitude. Every body has those days when you feel worthless or not good enough and you just have to make the best of those because you got to have the bad days so that you can enjoy the good ones even more.