Capture the Fall

For my Capture the Fall challenge, I filmed a park in Virginia last weekend. It was a great place to film because it was close to water and surrounded by trees. It really portrayed the beauties of fall For example, the leaves were all different colors. It was a beautiful view. In addition to the amazing view, it was a great day to film. The weather was an amazing fall afternoon, not too cold and not too hot.

I filmed this using my friend's DSLR camera, which was a great in comparison to the Iphone that I used to film my  last 5x5. The DSLR's shots were wayy better quality than the Iphone's. It really helped show nature's beauty.
For this project, I used 10 different shots:

1.  The first shot was the trees that I shot on a trail.This was a great show in my opinion because you can see all the different colors of fall. For example the leaves were brown,yellow and green.
2.  The second shot was of my friends running to a tire swing that we found on the trail.I included this one because it showed the joys of fall and I found the house behind it adorable.
3. The third shot is of them playing of the tire swing.
4. The fourth show is another shot of trees. The camera starts at the roots of the trees and moves up until it is pointed at the sky.
5. The fifth shot is more trees and the front of the adorable house that I spoke before quickly moving by. I shot this in the front passenger seat of my car, I held it right out of the window as my mom drove out of the park.
6. The sixth shot was zoomed in on the leaves. In the middle of the shot, you can see my friend come in the shot to play with the leaves
7. The seventh shot is a shot of the water surronded by trees. The view is absolutly amazing! Than the camera zooms in on the leaves on the tree.I included the second part because I loved the way the sun is seen through the leaves
8. The eighth shot is another shot of the nature trail. You can see people enjoying the fall weather.
9. The ninth shot is really short, but I wanted to include it because I loved the lighting and the water in the background that is barely seen, but creates a nice view.
10.  The final shot is of my friends walking away on the trail

The hardest part of this project was finding good music to put in the backround. It really wanted it to signify the joys of fall weather. I used a creative commons website, www. jamendo.com, and I settled on the song "Built to Last" by Fall Walk Run. It's upbeat, but not too crazy.
I used Wevideo to edit my video.It wasn't too hard this time because I used it to edit my 5x5. However, it took me a while to figure out how to upload the song, but finally I figured it out.

I hope this video captured the fall!

Later Start times for schools.

I have recently read an article about starting schools later in the morning. I completely agree with the article.
Most high schools start about 7:30 in the morning which is completely ridiculous. I personally wake up about 5:30 am every morning to catch my bus and go to sleep at about 11 pm- 12 am every night, depending on the amount of homework I have. According to the article, teenagers my age are theatrically suppose to have about 9 hours of sleep every night ,but I get only about 5 and half or 6 hours every night.
According to the article sleep  deprivation can lead to alcohol/ drug abuse, social problems and depressions. Personally, my lack of sleep reflects on my grades and attitude at school. Last week, I did not get much sleep because of homework and other activities which lead my whole week to become miserable. For example,i had a couple of tests last week and even though I studied for all of them really hard, I knew I did not do as well I could of done. In addition, the whole week I felt pretty sick which was probably due to my lack of sleep.
If school systems would simply push the start times back only an hour, I feel results would be extremely beneficial. The article talked about two studies done by Center for Applied Reaseach and Educational Improvement  in two different schools districts in Minnesota. In "Minneapolis-area school district—Edina, a suburban district who changed their high school start time from 7:20 to 8:30, and the Minneapolis Public Schools, who changed their start time from 7:15 to 8:40." After CAREI recorded data  on grades and school habits of the students and the data  "showed that there was a significant reduction in school dropout rates, less depression, and students reported earning higher grades."
 I think school systems around the country should follow the example of the these two districts. 
Click here to see the article