Animated Life Lessons

P3T2 Friends Clean Garage from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.


My teammates are Steven and Tierra. Tierra is really athletic and doesn't like to sit still. She is also very neat and orderly. Steve is also neat and gets distracted quickly. He has a bunch of different hair colors that he like to wear. In our story, both these peoples traits get exaggerated to form our story. In our story, both Steven and Tierra are neat freaks. Steven is very easily distracted by talking. Tierra is very neat and careful in our animation.

Our animation is pretty humorous. It looks kinda weird with everyone dancing, talking or trying to work! Also, at the end, we threw in a funny little joke about a garage cleaning business. Check it out when you watch are animation! We also have life lessons. They are that everyone's different and you should respect that. Also, by working together you can get things done. Plus, you should make sure everyone's ideas our heard.

Our team had a lot of challenges, especially since we had not worked together before, it was difficult to know who should do what.  Some of us in our team did not work as hard as others, which probably created some hard feelings. Also, none of us were particularly well-versed in photoshop. As Mr. Sanderl accurately says, we have a "love-hate" relationship with photoshop. However, we are gonna get through it, and that's what counts! We have had differing levels of productivity during this project. Sometimes we were doing great, some times not as much. I'm not really sure what our greatest moment was, but getting it done was definitely fun! Also, animation, once you get started is really entertaining.

Character Devolpement

Hi  everybody! Now we are doing some awesome animation in class.

Photoshop cut-out

I have a kooky personalty and I can make people laugh.  I want to make people happy by making them laugh. I am smart and I dance all the time. I'm dancing right now! I am neat freak at heart, but if you saw my room you wouldn't believe me!  I absolutely love to sing songs.  I'm such a animal lover. I refuse to kill insects except for mosquitoes.  I smile when I'm nervous. I'm also dramatic. I have a lot imperfections. I chew with my mouth open. To be honest, I misspell when I type on the computer and have to check my spelling later. I also tell bad jokes a lot. I also love to tap out beats with my hands or pencil. I read when I'm not supposed to if its a good book. So, I definitely have humorous and relatable imperfections.

My awesome GIF!

The character traits I plan to exaggerate on is definitely my open mouth chewing. I'm going to make it look like I am a cow chewing her cud! (nom nom!) You might see me ridiculously misspelling words while on the computer. That is a humorous trait, not necessarily for me, but definitely for other people.  Also, I will be saying like, the worst jokes ever. (Ha, groan) Now that's not necessarily funny for other people, but it is to me! I'm also doing a funny little dance in my GIF. It kinda looks weird, but I'm okay with that.

Green Screen 

There is a lot of steps to create our GIF! First off, you have to take, or have someone take for you, a photo of you. You should try to have this done with a very simple background, or in our case, a green screen. You should be facing the camera with your hands and legs spread out. Basically, pretend you are making a snow angel standing up. Then, take that pic to photoshop and using the quick selection tool, cut out your body from your background. Then, go to windows > animation and make sure you have frames at the bottom of your screen. After that, make a copy of yourself. Using your first copy, you should have yourself enter the screen. You do this by creating several frames and in each one, move your character toward it's place. If you want your character to move into the frame, move it a tiny bit each frame. Now your beginning is done! To make your ending, select all of your frames of you entering the screen and click the "new frame" button, right next to the trash. You will now have you entering twice when you play your animation. Now select the second set of frames and go to the tiny drop down menu at the far right of your frame timeline. Click the option "reverse frames". If you play your animation, you will be moving in and out of the screen. Cool, you now have your beginning and end. Time for the middle! Between your entrance and exit, make several copy frames. Turn off the your first layer of yourself and make sure your second layer is on and selected. Then, go to edit and puppet warp. Now, place pins on yourself. Only put them in areas that you don't want moved or warped. Move the pins to make your body move. Now keep doing this, and you have a GIF. I like my GIF and I think it's lots of fun.

.MOV Film Festival

P3T1 Girls Use Technology from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Now we are doing an awesome project, filming!! The keywords for my group's video are:

computers

first time

Alex "modeling" for the camera! 

humorous

bickering

teaching

cooperation

challenge

These keywords will connect with audience because they are all words that people would often use to describe something like their day.  People may have even had a situation that they would have described with our keywords. Then our keywords would definitely connect with those people. These words are also connected to our video because our video is all of those words. That's why we picked them! Hopefully these words will connect with our audience just like our film will. Our film is all of these words. Its about the challenge of the first time with computers, where two girls bicker as their tutor tries to teach them. They finally cooperate at the end of this humorous film. 

Christina needed a nap after working with us!

Gillian and Alex discussing things. 

My message for my film is that it takes awhile to get used to using technology. Our characters definitely go through a change. Gillian (played by me!!) and Christiana (played by Christina) go through the change. At first they do not want to cooperate with their tutor Alex (played by, yep you guessed it, Alex), so they are not getting anything done and they are complaining about that. Alex gets fed up and tells them that they will not be getting anywhere if they do not listen and the girls finally realize that it's true. They decide to listen and a couple hours later they have figured out how to do some simple stuff. Then they go out for shave ice to celebrate. The two girls go through the change, because it is they that have to listen so they will understand.

Gillian and Christina hang out at the library.

The biggest challenge we faced was working together. Our team is made up of natural   leaders, so no one really wanted to follow each other. We had a lot of trouble figuring it out. During the script writing stage, it was difficult to make a solid script, because people kept changing their lines. Finally, we decided to take a fair, diplomatic approach, a.k.a, we took turns doing everything. Filming, directing, acting, scripting and editing was all shared. This worked great! However, like everybody, we had our rough spots, especially during editing. In the end, though, we pulled through and was able to create our video!

Tiny Spherical Worlds

AltmanG_Polar1.jpg

There are several reasons why making images of composite photos are very popular. For example, in making photo montages it is very cool to see multiple views and positions of the same thing. Also, and I can speak from experience, it is very fun to put multiple photos together to form an image, like we did with our photo montage. Also, even though a panorama doesn't seem like a bunch of images, it is, because when you take a panorama with a smartphone, or a camera that does panoramas, it is taking a bunch of pics when you are holding down your shutter button. So, panoramas are really popular because you can see a really big landscape. Also, in the kind we are doing now, the polar and spherical images, are made up of a lot of images that a photo editing program will help you make it like a sphere.

Okay, on to the next thing! There also several differences with polar and spherical panoramas, the most obvious, (to me), is the perspective. The polar panoramas' perspective is looking down from a spaceship onto a planet. The spherical panoramas are slightly different, because their perspective is from inside the planet instead of outside. You feel that you are in this really cool planet where there is stuff on the walls. Also, in the polar panoramas, the sky is on the outside while in the spherical  panoramas, the sky is on the inside. There are also technical differences. For instance, when  you are using Photoshop, you do different processes to make polar and spherical panoramas. However, you take polar and spherical panoramas the same way, the difference is how you do it in photoshop.

AltmanG_Sphere2.jpg

AltmanG_Sphere1.jpg

AltmanG_Polar2.jpg

You obviously have to do multiple steps in Photoshop to make your tiny worlds believable. I mean, seriously, who would want to look at a image that looks completely unrealistic. So, you have to things to make it look as realistic as it can be. This is done by using the "clone stamp tool" in Photoshop, which is basically copying and pasting parts of your images to other places, which creates a much more realistic effect on the viewer. Another thing you need to do when taking your pics is to make sure nothing is touching the sky, like a tree. If you do accidentally do this, your tiny worlds will not be as realistic, because you will have a tree in your planet's atmosphere.  Also, as a handy tip, rotate your edited world by 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise to distract the viewer from any slight mistakes you might have. Plus, it looks way cooler if you do that. ;) Also, when you are taking the photos that you will turn into a tiny world, you need to have it look like a good panorama, so when you turn it into a world it looks like an awesome world.

Hockney Style Joiners

Hey guys! Since were doing really fun and awesome photomontages, we are writing a post about them.Yay!


My photomontages are very different from David Hockney's. First of all, he uses a way better camera than me, because I mostly use my dad's tablet or my Nikon camera.  Plus, he invented photomontages and I obviously did not. Mine are also more abstract and have more blank space than most of his work. His work also includes many, many photos, whereas mine mostly contain about 15-25 photos. For example, the third photo of his work has a lot more photos than my photomontages. David Hockney also uses a style of photography that takes photos from multiple points in space. This is shown in the second photo. I also think that several of his photomontages are designed to provoke an emotion. This could possibly shown in the first photo.

Images can be positive or negative and can provoke positive or negative reactions. For instance, a photo showing adorable kittens and/or puppies at the Humane Society definitely is positive. I mean, who would not, upon looking at a photo like that, not have the positive reaction of either wanting to  find homes for those cute kittens and puppies, or adopt all of them.  That is a example of a positive photo provoking a positive reaction. However, photos can show and provoke a negative reaction. Any photo showing or promoting drugs, smoking, alcohol, abusing substances, or anything inappropriate is a negative photo. That is like, the definition of a negative photo. Those photos will also provoke a negative and often inappropriate reaction.   There are many examples on different social media sites. For instance, when I am looking over my dad's shoulder at his facebook account, I will see positive and negative photos posted by random strangers (mostly the negative photos) or my dad's facebook friends (the positive photos). Recently I saw a cool photo of Gandhi, which is totally a positive photo.However, there are some completely inappropriate stuff on facebook also. You should take only completely appropriate and positive photos, not only for school, (obviously) but also for fun.

I hope that my photomontages' positive message will be easily identified by the viewer. In my final photomontage, my message is that trees are awesome and they should be respected. The avocado tree that I photographed is my favorite tree ever, and I just feel like all is right in the world when I am with it.  Climbing it is super fun too! Talk about a birds-eye view!  Plus, it produces fruit so that's definitely a plus! Also, trees give you oxygen and therefore, we are dependent on trees to survive. We should not be killing the lives of trees just for wood and paper. I hope that my photomontage represents the message that we need to respect trees and they are also the best thing ever!

My final photomontage

My school photomontage

I got these photos from http://joinerphotography.com/How%20to/1JHowTo.html

My Mother, Bolton Abbey

The desk

Pear Blossom Highway

2016 Aspirations

First of all a little song! ;)

"We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
and a Happy New Year!"


 Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week!

#kmsgt_fruit

This year, I have five goals that I am trying to reach. My first goal is to exercise every day. I took three types of dance for three years each, and I certainly don't want to lose all of that physical health! I also want to stretch regularly, too.  My second goal is to be more careful and aware of things. I am forever bumping into things and getting bruises! My third goal for the new year is to write in my planner more at school. I sometimes forget to and I have to strain my brain to remember all my homework. My fourth goal for 2016 is to help my parents with cooking more often and to maybe learn or invent new recipes. My fifth and final goal this year is to be doing more art projects. I really love that kind of thing, but I haven't been doing it very often lately.

#kmsgt_sky

My most important goal out of my five is my first goal, to exercise more. This is important because I want to grow stronger and become more flexible. Right now, I can't even touch my toes when I bend down! :( However, I know that exercising and stretching daily will help me with that. Also, my mom stretches every day and she is very fit, so I want to be like that when I'm an adult. Plus stretching and exercise keeps your heart and other internal organs healthy. If I regularly exercise then it will become a habit, and I want to practice building good habits. These are the reasons why this goal is my most important one.

#kmsgt_flower

Of course, you have to have steps to ensure your success in completing your goal. For me, I have several steps. My first step is to write a note that I will put on my bedroom door that says, "exercise every day". I also will write a similar note in my bathroom and in my planner. My second step is to follow those notes and exercise daily. I will also stretch every time my mom does and maybe during recess and lunch too. My third step is to eat foods that do not have any food coloring and hardly any sugar, because when I eat that kind of thing I do not want to exercise . My fourth step is to have a chart where I mark a box off every time I exercise. Hopefully, these four steps will ensure my success in completing my goal by the end of 2016.

Scratch Game Design

Scratch Platformer Game                            Scratch Chase Game

Scratch Freedom Game


I wanted my game to be easy to play, but still creative. I also wanted to make sure none of my game had any glitches or bugs in it, because I know from playing other people's games that glitches were very annoying. I also, made sure that my sound was working before I published my game so I was sure to have it work.To make sure my game was 100% user-friendly, I played my game each time I added to my code so I was sure to catch any glitches early. Also, I wanted to have my game be super fun and interesting, because I have played games that are super boring, which I didn't like.

My game has a blue ball and a green ball. The user is controlling the blue ball. You are chasing the green ball to try and touch it. My background is black which makes the two balls stand out a lot. I had experimented with a white background, but it was harder to win and it didn't look as good as the black. I also have a scoreboard and a timer, both of which are essential to complete and win the game. Each time you play the game, the timer starts at 60 and the points at 0. Once you get 15 points, you win the game!

On my platformer game one of my best features was my platforms that my sprite jumps on. My platforms change as the level changes.It is unfilled in during Level 2, but they are solid black during Level 5.  Also, my sprite character, Giga is great looking and goes with the backgrounds. My backgrounds change as the level changes. It is yellow during Level 1 and green during Level 2. It took me a long time to come up with the right backgrounds. My game includes a countdown timer that starts at 40 when you start the game and countdowns to 0.


In my freedom game, I think that my mazes and my caves that my frog sprite has to get through is my best feature. My frog sprite is very cute and moves with your arrow keys. In Level 1, the frog has to get through the blue stalagmites to reach the yellow ball. In Level 2, the frog must go through a maze to reach a yellow star. In Level 3, my final level, my frog sprite must go through another maze to reach its' ultimate prize, a colorful butterfly. During each level, as soon as my frog touches one of the pries, the ball, the star or the butterfly, the prize disappears and the background changes. Once you have completed all 3 levels, my game switches to a fun, colorful background that says "You Win!". It is a very fun ending to my freedom game.

I think that my best code was how my sprite in my platformer game jumped. I think this because it was probably the hardest thing for me to figure out. It was absolutely my most difficult bug fixes. I also had a lot of trouble with getting my ball to move in my chase game. And it defintley took way more that a few tries to get my levels in my freedom game doable. Probably my best code is my sprite movement in my platformer game. It took me a  long time to figure out, but now it works great!



Screenshot of my best code: