CAP Hollywood (Reflection #3)

As our CAP Hollywood project's deadline is soon approaching, we still have a lot of editing to do. Although we have a rough cut of our film finished, we still have to work on the audio. Our audio is not the best, we did not pay close enough attention to the audio of the dialogue while we were filming. 

On a positive note, we finished our poster and opening. We also put in all the music and credits and put in the necessary voiceovers.

We still have to polish up the audio and some final things, but I think it is coming together nicely. I think we will be able to complete the final proejct by friday

Movie reflection

We just finished our first week of our editing process of movie "Criminal Murder". We divided up the roles in our movie. Some of my group members edited the move production and others did side jobs that needed to get done. This past week,I found music that would work well with our theme. It is slow piano music that has a gloomy tone. It works well with our movie because it takes place in a dystopian society where the government is forcing the main character to kill some of its innocent citizens. We might add another piece of music at the end which is sounds more rebellious and a little more intense.

This coming work, I will finish up the music than move onto another role. I will help my group members edit the movie, giving some suggestions. Also I will help work on the movie poster.

Overall, the process is going really well. We are looking good time wise. I'm pretty sure we will finish in time with a good product.

Cindy Cole Cup

On Saturday my boat and I in the competed in the Cindy Cole Cup. It is one of the smaller races, my crew team competes in. Although we did fairly well coming in 3rd place out of 8 boats, we thought our race could of gone better. First of all because the race is only about 1500 meters, the start is extremely important. Our start did not go well because of bad communication, we started a second after everyone else. Second, the racing conditions were terrible. There was a lot of wind and there were strong white caps on the water. Because of the conditions, we had trouble keeping  our set which is basically the stability of the boat. However, I am proud that we were able to advance in the race. Apparently,we started the race in last place and we were able to power ahead into 2nd place out of 4. Because there were two heats, ( In the first heat there were 4 boats racing and in the 2nd heat, there were 4 boats racing) we came in 2nd in our heat, but 3rd overall ( for the overall they compare the times between both heats.)  This week we will work on our set and our start for our upcoming race, next sunday.

 

Here is a picture of us ( with the red oars) from our last race, approaching the boat in 1st place. I am the one 4th from the back.

Documentary Reflection

In the past few years, for various reasons, thrift shopping has become more popular. That was the focus of our documentary. We captured how the attitudes about shopping at thrift stores have changed.  We were able to interview two experts, our classmates and also we were able to do some shopping at thrift stores. It was great to also interview our classmates. They shared their experiences with thrift stores and what they loved about the stores. Making this movie has made me even more interested in thrifting. I learned that people have careers and hobbies in finding outfits constructed mostly of items bought at thrift stores and then they blog about them. We interviewed two experts who devote their lives to buying cheap outfits from thrift stores and blogging about them. As we made this documentary, we pursued the topic even further. We decided to enter a contest where someone had to model an outfit constructed of clothing bought from a thrift store. Although we didn’t win, it was great that this documentary enabled us to explore the topic even more in depth.

It was great that we could choose our own topic.  It gave us the opportunity to explore a topic that we are interested in. Choosing a topic is a crucial part in the documentary process. We had to find a topic that we are not only interested in, but also find a topic that we can make a documentary about in a specific time frame. It was amazing the number of jobs and steps there are in the process of creating a documentary. One person had to find the music, another was more in charge of the editing and another needed to create a title slide.

Even though our documentary was overall a success, we did face some challenges along the way.  The most difficult part was the editing. We faced many computer problems, so it was hard to work around them. If it was either our computer was being slow or we couldn’t import the proper clips, It seemed like every day we had some sort of issues. Therefore the most challenging part was probably overcoming with all the different technological issues. After having to change computers and mostly just being patient with the computer, we finished the documentary.  If I were to do it again, I would try to interview manager of thrift stores. It would be great to get the manager’s perspective on how attitudes have changed about thrift shores.

My only criticism about the whole process is the amount of time we had to make the project. Although I know, we were running on a tight schedule, it was hard to finish the project in time, considering all the technical difficulties.  I think we should of spent less time on the researching phase, so we could have had more time on getting footage and editing.

I am very pleased about how our documentary turned out.  It was at times a very stressful process, but I think we did a good job of capturing how attitudes of thrift stores have changed. 

Crew Workday

I am on the Crew team at school. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring Water Practice (for the past 3 months, we've been working out at school because it had been too cold to row on the water), so today was a workday to get ready for practice. We all went down to the boathouse and we preped the boats and oars. We rerigged the boats. A rigger is a metal things that holds up the oars that are next to every seat, so we had to put them back on the boat ( at the end of last season, we took all of the riggers off) We had to make sure all of the other parts of the boats are in place like the shoes and seat.   Also to prep the oars, we had to replace all of the handle covers. It was hard ot take the covers off because they were glued on.  You had to twist the covers off and sometimes use a knife to cut them off. By the end of the day I had blisters and cuts from removing the handles and we haven't even started the season!

I am really excited to get back on the water! And I hope we have a great season!


Here are the parts of the boat:

Too Many Words...

For about the past 2 hours, I've been trying to memorize 60 words for my English Test that I am taking tomorrow. I've been starring at my computer screen, trying to think oof what to write and I glance down at my vocab book and I decide that I can write a post on what I've done for the past few hours.
I've always had a pretty bad memory, so I absolutely hate vocabulary test. Everyone says there the easiest kind of test because all you have to do is memorize, but they are pretty difficult when you cannot remember a thing.
This year, we take a vocabulary test every couple of weeks and because I am not so succesful at them, I decided I needed to change my study method. In the past, I've stared for hours at my vocab book, repeting each word and it's definition out loud, but that was not a very successful method.
For recent vocabulary test, I've decided to try something new.  I write down all the words on index cards and then I go through each one.  If I know what a word means I put the card in one pile and if I don't the meaning of the word, I put the card in another pile. When I finished going through each word, I pick up the pile of the words I don't know and I go through the process again. I do it over and over again until all the cards are in the pile of Words that I do know.
Hopefully this method will work for my test tomorrow!



The process sometimes takes forever because there are so many words. Next time,I'll start it earlier...

Thrifting

When I was younger, a majority of my clothing came from thrift stores and consignment shops, I remember always feeling kinda embarrassed about it. In elementary school, all my friends would be wearing the "popular" brand- named clothes like hollister and aeropostale, and I felt out of place in my second hand clothing.

Recently, due to the economy and other reasons, thrift shopping has become more popular. That's why I am excited about making our documentary on the rise of thrift shopping.  It's interesting to see how times has changed. How in elementary I felt like I was the only one not wearing the named brands, however, now a majority of students have at least some clothing that they have purchased at a thrift store.

Now I am not embarrassed about shopping at thrift stores. It's cheap,you can find clothes in good shape, for less. Sometimes it takes a while and you have to do a lot of digging through clothes, but you can find something really nice that you might not of come across anywhere else


We found a website called "http://thriftstorerunway.com/" which holds contests every month, where people model their clothes bought at thrift stores. The only requirements are that you must spend under $50 on the outfit and most of the outfit has to have come from a thrift store. On the website, there are some really nice outfits where the person only spent $30

We decided it would be a great touch for our documentary, if we were to enter, so we did. Annaleigh modeled some thrift store clothing and we put the pictures up on the website. Sadly, we didn't win, but it was cool to do!

Here are some of the pictures we put up: