Cracking the Code

I: Do you think everyone should learn to code & why?
Code is a set of written instructions used by computers to do something. Your computer can follow commands that you make it do. You may ask why is this important? Well code is what lies behind the digital world. For instance, video games, apps, websites, calculators, and programs for computers all use coding. All around the globe this is used, so it should be taught in every school since its so heavily used throughout what we do daily even though we cant always see it on the surface.

Since,  I am totally new to coding and still learning because it can be complicating and hard to remember. My first experience to coding was in GT on a website and it was a struggle because I've never worked with anything like it before and along the way I did start to get used to it. What we used was a hour of code that anybody can type in and try it for free.

If I could design any program or game my first choice would be a maze thats twisted. What I mean by "twisted" is every time you want to make a move you will have to answer a specific math question. If you get it wrong you will not go as you desire, instead into a trap that will make you go back to the beginning.

My Humorous Monologue

For me this project has been a little of a struggle because I'm a reserved person who takes a little more time to become myself. I've loosened up and this definitely is a help to find something that doesn't make only me laugh but people who will understand my kind of humor. Monologues are popular in 7th and 8th grade at my school so its always good to practice and practice. If your looking at a career that includes speaking in front of an audience this will benefit you. even if thats not quite the career you were looking for this does help with social skills and vocabulary.

If you want a smooth, slick start and end for your video clips always add pad at the beginning and end. Pad is when you start your video recorder for at least 3 to 5 seconds and before ending your video wait 3 to 5 seconds then stop it. This helps when editing so you don't end up cutting off any voice or action in a clip. Another thing that is good about pad is everything goes smoothly when your audience is watching.

For most of my projects in G.T. I have a lot of things I need to improve on. Once in a blue moon I wont struggle on a big project like this. This time I was struggling with getting B-Roll done because I did not know what to film in the limited time I had which was my fault. My only strength in this project was witting up my monologue

Comedy Writing

Sense of humor is a very important trait. Do you know why? Well, in my opinion I know everyone has made somebody laugh and we all have that trait somewhere in us. However, this does not mean everybody will take in or understand what you said the same. When you try to make someone laugh the outcome depends on who you ask, sometimes it will be a soft chuckle other times it might be an obnoxious laugh. We all like having a buddy that can make us have a good laugh, its good for the heart, and makes life better. Humor also brings people together like family, friendships, and other relationships. If you laugh at the same things as someone and make fun of similar stuff then its most likely you have more things in common than you think. So get out there! Let your inner humor shine because theres somebody out there that you might never have thought you could be so close to!

Our class project is to write a humorous narrative hoping when we show our class they will laugh. Some tips that might be helpful to you when you are ever asked to do this or wanting to for fun is what I want to share. First, think about a very funny event that you heard or even happen to you, add some exaggeration, it doesn't all have to be real but make it up a little using your creative mind. Don't only think about if your audiences are gonna like it because if their willing to listen to it then they expect it too be funny, and good. If your in my situation were you sadly got to show your audience no matter what then you should think about what everyone may have in common. Once you find that make a story about it. For example everyone usually hates cleaning there room so I would use that. Give a twist to the story adding very unexpected things to happen. Tie up the overall story with a very humorous ending because thats when you want your audience to laugh the most.

  

When I had to choose my comedic monologue I thought about a funny little joke my friend told me. This joke was literally about two sentences so I had to add a little more to turn it into a real life story. The first things I start to talk about how Im in dreadful long hours in the car listening to my mother babble her mouth away. We are already going to wedding so Im not really in the mood. Trust me I love them and think its cute and all but bad things come along with bad things. (Then I have to add my favorite and funniest part of the joke for the last laugh.) I hate it when old people come up to me and say "your next" so when I see those same old people at a funeral i say your " next ". At first I thought this might be a little mean but its a joke and some people in my class might take this as offensive or rude but thats their opinion.

Motivational Poster

Our first g.t. project was the Motivational Poster but for this project we have to follow some layer requirements. First we need to have a total of 4 images, 3 being pictures that symbolize you, and the last being a portrait image of your face. Lastly, their is design expectations like all text should be kerned to fit across the entire page having no holes or blank spaces. Then, we need to head over to a triadic color scheme website and we find one dominant color and two harmonious accent colors. You can also use blending options like drop shadow, stroke, outer glow, and bevel & emboss. For adjustment layers we are expected to adjust levels, curves, exposure, and color balance.

One of the biggest struggles I had was trying to expand my images because the quality wasn't how I expected it to turn out. During importing images into the background behind my personal quotes I didn't transfer my pictures right so each time I tried to make them fit it would end up looking skewed even when I did hold on to shift.

Personal Manifesto

Good Morning ! My name is Nahele if you are new to my blog. Im a returning student in the G.T. program. This is my last year in this class and in Kapaa Middle School. Im 13 turning 14 and I love jogging after school to get rid of any stress over school or my day. Then im in a more productive, positive mood. Something I also like doing is going adventuring with my friends to different spots on this beautiful island of Kauai. Traveling would be a favorite of mine, I love everything about it. From getting on the plane, stepping foot on a new country or state, to experiencing different cultures, environments, trying different foods, and meeting new people. I will be looking forward to maybe going to New Zealand this winter break! My all time favorite food are bagels, doesn't matter which kind just if its a bagel and it has cream cheese. On the side of a nice tasting bagel theirs nothing better than some fresh Kombucha which is a fermented fungus that you can turn into a delicious, strong, flavorable drink.  Lastly, I enjoy writing in a personal journal to sort out thoughts, write poems, and look back at special events in my life that I had wrote about.

Some of my personal declarations I like to remember on a daily bases are "live like today is your last", "you only live once, but if you do it right once is enough", " you can only live a positive life by leaving out the negative" this is true because if you wake up with a positive attitude and view on the day your most likely to have a good day not caring all about the negative, etc.

This applies to my readers because in my manifesto my main point is this is our life and we can choose to do what we want with it, making it bad or good, not counting the days down but making the days count.

The first image is incense burning and I chose this because I go with the flow just how the smoke of incense does, Im very curious, and up for adventure. My second is how my mind is very hectic.

Lyrical Livelihood

Hello World, so for this blog post i'm gonna be telling you about my favorite song. So for the past two years I've been into indie music, r&b, and a lot others. The song I never get sick of is Skinny Love by Bon Iver. When I listen to this song it makes me relaxed and the beat just goes with my life. This song isn't just good for when your sad. I also like songs that you can listen too when either your in a happy mood or sad. It incorporates different phases of moods in the song.

So for the last quarter in G.T. we all get in groups with whoever wed like to work with. We all work together to choose a song. For the 4th quarter of our 7th grade me and my group chose "Stitches" by Shawn Mendes.  The reason why we chose this music was because it is a little depressing and everyone in this group including me has went through something depressing. In this song it goes from being a little sad, depressing and then it goes to a more happy chorus which makes you want to sing in the song and dance around. Thats another reason why we all agreed on this song is the chorus just matches us. We all enjoy similiar music so it was not a big challenge to choosing the right music.

For the visual story we are gonna try our best to make all of our shots more creative, and take all the shots that are taken in school in a way it doesn't look like we made them all their. Especially because every year the videos look like their made at school with no thought of anything out of school.

Our Animation Story

"Logan Challenges Schedule" is my groups focus statement and its about how logan was going to middle school and he was scared about the new schedule and thinking it be hard to get through the day, so when he first got to school he had a hard time trying to find his way and our group thought it be good for the schedule in our animation would be a monster that he could never get rid of. More and More as he got through his classes the monster got smaller and smaller. Its just showing that we can overcome our fears. No matter how hard whatever were trying to overcome is.

We dont know how strong we are until we face our conflict. From what I know, see, hear, and what I went through is that you can keep letting your mind engrave thoughts into your head, or give you negative ideas of what might happen. The only way you can possibly overcome the problem you are facing is by standing up strong and DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. If you think those negative thoughts are not affecting you and that it will help you in the meantime you are wrong. Its not helping you one bit its slowly making you weaker, which later on in life might give you a hard time.


You will have you ups and downs when working with a team/group. Having ups are wonderful because you may learn new things about that person, maybe even become close friends with someone you never noticed. Then, their will be your downs. Sometimes its frustrating like you want to yell, and scream even strangle someone at times. Thats not necessary though. Having downs gives you a chance to learn from mistakes, even help later on when you are going through the same thing again then you know what will be best for you to say or do. You might learn to have a better patience with others and that will come in handy.

The best memory I had with my team during this project was all of us working together on the White Board animation. We weren't able to put that scene in the video due to some problems but it was definitely fun drawing all as a team. Then their was also some not so perfect memories when wed all get in little arguments over the littlest things. We were not the perfect team because we all tended to get distracted easily and wed get thrown off. So its also good to go with a team that you know you'll stay focused not getting distracted.

Animation Outtakes

Good Afternoon, it is the final quarter and we have one of our final projects to accomplish we must all work as a team. Each team is required four students who we have never worked with through out the year. This will give us a chance to make new friends and to learn about one another before the year ends. So in my group we have Neliza who is a very humorous, kind student, that is very understanding, and a good listener. Next their is Logan who is out going, funny, sarcastic, and likes to spend his time working out at Cross Fit. Lastly, we have Diego who likes to joke around have a good time but can be serious when wanting to accomplish a task.

Stop-Motion is a technique in which a object, or figure is moved in small amounts and then photographed each movement to give an illusion of movement when all the pictures are played continually. .GIF's are formatted images that can move.

We are telling a story about a boy who attends school in the middle of the quarter and is being very negative thinking that today will not turn out well. So we made the schedule in photoshop to resemble a monster just caring him and giving him a hard time this animation is supposed to be about him overcoming his fear and negative thinking that he wont get through the day well and be lost. We should care because once in our lives we've probably felt lost and scared were we think something is going to turn out badly.

Typography Images

Typography is an artistic technique of text matter. This method makes a big impact with images especially if you add words that are symbolizing the image. It gives the audience a different perspective. From what Ive seen I never saw that much typography around so I'm excited to try this out. Artwork that isn't popular is one of my favorites because the more I see something the more tired I get of seeing something.

One of my biggest challenges was when Photoshop is lagging and doesn't let me finish on time. So Id have to exit to try and restart. Another thing I had a problem with was trying to get the size of the text to look like it was engraved into the picture of our teacher. What helped me is saving my work so that if I do something that couldn't be fixed I would just have the saved file to open up and go back to were I was. My favorite part about this project was stamping on words that described us.  Different words were stamped on different parts of our face depending on what shade our face was from shadows, mid-tones, and highlights.

Double Exposed Portraits

Dear Readers, lately my g.t. class has been working on portrait photography. This is taking a front view of a person that is showing some expression, or personality. The face should be more focused than anything else so their is a focal point. Portrait photos can be similar to profile view photography and silhouetting because you can still see the figure, shape, and figures of a person. Their is also a focal point in all of these types of photography. You want a focal point so people know were to look at.

Double exposures are created by first opening up photoshop going to Files>Script>Load Files into Stacks. Then, resizing your photos to how you like it but remember to hold down shift. if you do not hold it down you'll either look like you never ate enough or you ate way too much! Then you'll want to blend all your photos together by deselecting the layer > Blend Mode >  Screen. I would like to create this too see how much creativity I can put into this project. This might end up being the most complicated yet most Wonderfull finishing look. If I can make this pretty descent and successfully finish it how I want it too be no matter what grade I receive Ill be very proud.

In my visual I decided to use an old picture of me to kind of show the difference of when I was a youngling. I decided to blend it in my head area to give an illusion that I was thinking about that memory. The second photo I decided to take a picture of one of my favorite beaches called Hideaways on the North Shore of Kauai. All of the symbolizing pictures we had to take were taken with my phone because its not bad quality. At first I made quite a lot of mistakes by not cropping it right, Dodging different pictures to see how it turn out. I learned what I was doing wrong from my mistakes. The bell was about to ring in about three minutes, I was so stressed out but worked super fast creating it just how I wanted it. After I turned it in and looked back at how it turned out I had wished that I made the colors pop out more. If someone were to look at this id think they'd focus more on the old photo rather than the beach because its not popping out as well. The standard was to be able to see our symbolize pictures and if it was not seeable we wouldn't get any credit. We'd most likely have to go back after critiquing as a class to make everything that we put in our profile able to see so everyone knew what we were looking at. 

HDR Photography

HDR photography means high dynamic range and its when you take not only take one picture but you take a bunch of pictures in the same exact angle and spot at different exposures then put it together, this is a HDR photo. The one thing I like about HDR is that it puts a whole twist on a photo, adding more depth giving it a more interesting look to the audience. Something I dislike about is that sometimes its hard too take the HDR with any movement because when you put it together in photoshop it might come out with some ghosts. Ghosting is when the image is all blurry. It can sometimes make a cool effect but can also make it hard to see whats going on.

 Take a camera were you can adjust the exposure from -3 to 3 on the settings. Then choose an area to take your photo without changing the area then take a picture in each number on the exposure. This should add to 7 photos in all that look the same but are from super dark to super light.
When you are finished with the photos you can import it onto your computer that has Photoshop. Once they are imported go on Photoshop> File> Automate> Merge HDR> Browse> Select the photos and let Photoshop do its job and putting together all of the photos and transforming it into a HDR photo.
Now you can use your creativity to edit your High Dynamic Range photo and turn it into something that you prefer better. You can deselect ghosting or keep it but only if you want. Their is also other settings were you can change the vibrancy, saturation, shadows, etc.
After you are finished fixing up your HDR and turning it into something you like you can press done on the bottom right. If you like how it turned our File>Save As>and save it to your documents.

You may wonder isn't their an automatic function that phones and some cameras can do? Well actually their is, this is a more instant, fast way. Its a function that some cameras and phones have. Cameras have a more high quality look to it.For our home work we had to sign out a camera take 7 pictures of a person in the rule of thirds at different exposures, put them together in photoshop, try to edit them by playing around with the exposure, vibrance, saturation, and make it look surrealistic. Then you had to take 7 more photos of a landscape with something that is in the photo within the rule of thirds at different exposures.

Movie Trailer Critique

For second quarter are project was create a movie trailer of our choice. We first had to plan out everybody in the teams idea of a movie and see what would sound the most interesting that would grab our audience. We used a template on google that all of the members in the teas could be on at once. Then we discussed the plot, different scenes, and the characters personalities and typed it all out in the template. My favorite is when we get to go out of school with high tech cameras and tripods. All of us in the team had a good time working together and acting like we were in movies. As soon as we get to school we import all of our work onto the mac computers that we were assigned to. Theres an amount of time we had to get all of our editing done on final cut pro x. What was really helpful was when we have had rough cuts and thats when the whole class, teacher, including the team that worked on it watches it on the screen. We get to know what we did really good and what we could work on better because the more you work on it the better it is. The way I contributed was being one of the main characters. Are story takes place at my house and while we were walking their somebody kidnaps are good friend violet. This is too show others dont trust anybody who looks weird or mysterious. They could be dangerous and make you do things you dont want to.

The projects requirement was for every person in the team to create a movie poster that would be in our movie trailer but we had to choose the best out of them all. Are team didn't add a poster so thats a lesson learned because each of our grades went down from not adding a poster. Are team also had our own template that would help us when we were filming so it wasn't just some random scene that didn't get planned out. It was called the "Trailer Plan". Then the trailer had to be at least 1 minute and 30 seconds to two minutes.

Well the class critique is gonna have to be one of my favorite parts because this class literally feels like family so if their was a very embarrassing part I didn't really care. Its also cool to see everyone else's creative trailers and what they chose to make a video about. Each one of the teams had a either really funny, scary, or dramatic theme too it. We also learned good tips for the next time we have a project similiar.

Movie Poster Promo

In our new project we are to make a movie trailer and for that we have to include a poster. The poster i'm gonna create is gonna have the main character Violet hiding behind a tree while her other friends Gretchen, Jasmine, and Katey are seeking for her. This poster is supposed to show my audience that will watch the trailer to think that the main character is probably the one hiding and that something is wrong with her or that she's missing and her other friends are looking for her. Most of the trailer takes place at their friends house Gretchen. They all are having a sleepover and catching up on the latest. In the meantime, the main character is thought to be seen by Gretchen one of the characters.

The title of our movie is called " The Missing ". Each person working on the movie trailer has to make there own movie poster. We get to see who turned out to be the best and we will use that in the beginning of our trailer. On my poster I have a background image of the main character violet. One of her eyes is looking straight forward. Im hoping this will show my audience that the Violet is not normal the way that i'm designing her eye in photoshop. My title is gonna be warped into a photoshop effect giving the poster a little more texture, and weirdness. Something else we have to use in our poster is kerning. Kerning is when is when you adjust the spacing between the text and proportion it differently. This also gives your audience a pleasing result.

Our posters must involve a title that catches our audiences eyes so that they'll have to read it because it pops out so much. The title must need kerning, layer effects so its not boring. With layer effects you can give your title shadows, textures, embosses, etc. You are also supposed to take a picture or have some drawing of maybe a scene that gives an idea of what the movie will be like and add it to your background for your title. This just will give a glimpse of whats going on. On my title I used almost all of the effects to make it seeable.

Proactive or Procrastination?

After a long week of school I like to finish all of my homework right after school. The feeling of having all of my work done is relieving. There is no need for stress or being guilty while having a fun weekend. I learned from my mistakes last year because coming to class with no work done is not fun! I failed my teacher, my parents, and especially me. Knowing that I had time to finish it but was ignoring it till last minute was a bad habit. This year I have set a goal to get it done asap!

Being in a quiet, calm, steady environment helps me focus while doing home work and I get it done faster which gives me more time to have a fun weekend. Life is not about always Procrastinating and parting its about also being successful and a hard worker. If you dont get anything done in life then you will regret it later on in life and wish to live a fulfilled life.

Theres not that much I would change about my work habits because I get things done before theres time to enjoy my weekend. I had to change my work habits last year because I procrastinated a lot. Finally I set a goal to get everything done without wasting time. When i'm older I hope to have a successful job that will support me financially. In order to have a job like that you need to get everything done and set a good habit so people can count one you.

My Visual Poem

Dear Reader,

Our class had a new project for GT. We were to make a poem describing how weve been feeling or just a poem that has an impact on us. My poem is about my sanctuary which is my home, my feelings when im at home, what I see, and do. This makes a impact on me because theres no place like home where you can let free of worries. I also got footage of parts of my house. Something about my sanctuary is its different from all others. The looks, how it was built, and the history behind it.

The special effects on my visual affect it because my home is not a bright, happy home its darker, and cozy so I chose a more vintage, warmer effect. Descriptive titles were also added depending on what my poem would say id add a word that went with it.

I am satisfied on my results because I got to add footage of one of my favorite places in the world. The video was turned on the due day so that was a good thing. I could have made it better by making my clips more bright. Some of them were a little dark.

Finished News Story

Hello readers, my team members were Meagan, Lucy, and Ethan. We did a profile story on Ethan's mom. She designs and creates her own bikinis and has her own company it is called "CG Bikinis". Ethan and Meagan brought home a classroom camera home to do the filming. We all worked together to edit the story. 

When we finished the final we wished we had more time but we learned that we have to work together. We all know we could have worked together, finished successfully, and done better. Although we can not go back and time and fix it next time we are gonna do the best! I was happy that we finished on time. We are also happy we didn't get disqualified.

Looking back at the critique results I do agree on the scores we got we definitely could have tried harder.

Lessons Learned

Hey readers, The most interesting thing about are Hiki NO project is that we are doing our interview on a Bikini Maker. This is probably going to be the first time someone int he history of Hiki No does a profile story on that. This will have to be an appropriate story. The biggest roadblock are team had to go through was being able to schedule a time for when we can all as a team work together outside of school. Lately only one person has been going outside of school to get the interviews done and all the b-roll. I think the most valuable part of the film making process is getting all the interviews done because with no interviews there is no story.


Even though this is my second year im still able to learn from mistakes. I can still work hard and try my best to give the all my effort. Hiki No no can be kind of challenging because of how much time we have it goes by in one blink. This is a good thing to because in life no matter what job you have there's going to be rushing and trying to get things finished on time. Im learning from Hiki No to get things finished on time and not to procrastinate.

Hiki No Behind The Scenes

So for the first big project in g.t. were going to be put in a group of four. This project is also by Hiki No. We could choose to do two different kinds of videos a News Story about your island or you can do a interview video on anybody on Kauai. We chose to do a video on are members mom who has  a passion of making swimwear. It sounds pretty easy but its harder than it seems we have a hard time communicating and have to work better on that. Another thing we have trouble with is the interview its kind of hard with everyones schedule and trying to fit in shooting b-roll. Besides that we got some nice shots and are hoping to make an excellent video for Hiki No. When the camera is not rolling we are working on are videos with Final Cut Pro or we are working on are Pitch Sheet to guide us for when the cameras is rolling.

One thing I do to help my team is make sure that whatever is not being worked on is what I like to work if theres nothing to do. This helps because there can be some little things that might be forgotten and its not good to have things missing. Another thing I like do do is figure out what everyones schedule is so I can figure out when we all have a day we can just work on our b-roll and interviews.

The Expirement

The experiment was definitely something the teacher has never asked me to do. Me and my class were to go on Photoshop. Their was absolutely no rules we could literally try anything we wanted to. At first, I didn't understand why we were doing this but then I got it. We did it because we could learn by trying out all the tools, the different effects, brushes, and everything else that photoshop provides. When we learn by trying it ourselves we get it better and learn from the mistakes that we made so that when we do have  a project were we have to go on photoshop we know what not to do.

What was good about it was that I got to try out some new things that I didn't use last year and got to see what they could be used to do. It seemed like something super easy to accomplish but it was actually pretty hard because their were no directions and I wasn't used to that I had try out everything and just hope whatever I ended up with it wouldn't be such a disaster. Overall, it was a pretty fun experiment that was helpful and the more we start using photoshop ill get it.

Back to School

Hello world, Summer Break was definitely a summer to remember. I went up to another island, I stayed their for three weeks. I got to see some of my good family and friends that I haven't seen ever since I was little. Each day was crazy we never had a day to rest. Me and my friends would go to all the secret beaches, a inside trampoline area, we went surfing at beach where my foot hit the coral.

Im very proud to be back in school and return as a G.T. student. This is my favorite class because we get to learn a hand full of technical things on gigantic mac computers, and get to put all of our creativity into each project that our teacher Mr.Sandrel gives us and a bonus is I get to sit by one of my best friends. The best memory I had since i'm back in school is when me and a big group of my friends went running onto the middle of the field. We screamed to the top of our lungs,  running and going crazy. I think people could hear us from a mile away.

The biggest challenge lately has been waking up early for school. Hearing my alarm is the worst part I just want to put it on silent and go back to bed. If only school started a little later id be a very happy person. Since that cant happened ill be looking forward to the next summer were I can get all the sleep I want. 

This next year of me being a 7th grader will be successful by me going to sleep early so Im able to wake up and eat a full breakfast so I can focus better in all of my classes without getting distracted. I've also learned some lessons from last year it is too always turn in all my assignments before they are due, listen to directions carefully without going ahead unless I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, and lastly is too have an extraordinary blast because once were finished with middle school we never come back.