I'm Back

I haven't blogged in awhile because of spring break (which was fantastic) but, quite unfortunately, break is over... so I'm back to the blogging.

Over break, one of the books I read was The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin.  This book is about Rubin spending a year working on her happiness.

Rubin is married and has two children and had a happy life.  One day, however, she decided to spend a year devoted to her happiness.  Each month focused on a different element of her happiness and had different resolutions.  For example, in January Rubin wanted to focus on her energy level.  She found ways to include more exercise into her day and go to bed earlier.  One month, Rubin started a blog, also called The Happiness Project.  I liked this book, and if I were older, I would have probably have been inspired to start my own.

I also saw a French Canadian movie over break called Starbuck.  I really liked this movie.  It had lots of really great lines and really memorable characters.  The one thing about the movie that kind of bothered me were that the subtitles are in white and sometimes they were hard to read because there would be an off-white background underneath them.  That is just a minor thing though.

Anyways, I recommend both The Happiness Project and Starbuck, so go to your library or the movie theater/video store.

Why I Am Fed-Up With School Computers

So I know that last week I said I would be posting my documentary on my blog but when we were trying to export it the computer freaked out.

This wasn't the first time that I have had problems with a school computer while working on my documentary project, or any project at all for that matter.  While some of these problems may have been my fault/someone in my group's fault, some of them were also computer malfunctions.

Problems I have had that have not really hurt me include the computer just not logging me in, the computer taking a solid 20 minutes to log me in, the computer not logging me out, or the computer taking at least 10 minutes to do absolutely anything (open a document, go to the internet, go to a given website...)

Other problems that I have had have more affected my work.  During the documentary project, our project got saved to some random folder and it took us an hour to find it (this problem was probably self induced.)  Also, during the documentary project, we would try to render what we had made so far and it would take anywhere from 45 minutes to and hour.  Another time, I clicked on a document to open it and then all of the sudden the most high pitched, obnoxious beeping anyone could possibly imagine started happening.  We finally got it to stop by unplugging the computer - which obviously made us lose the most recent work we had done.

The most recent experience I had - which is why I am not posting my documentary on my blog this week - is that my group mate went in at lunch to export our documentary.  The computer said it would take an hour, so she left and went to class.  The next day, I went in at lunch to try to upload it to my blog and my group mate was still logged into the computer and there was a message up saying the export had failed.  Not only was this extremely frustrating, but I had to make sure that the documentary was not altered in anyway.  I know that maybe had she stayed something could have been done - but everyone in our group had class.

This entire experience has been very frustrating, but for some reason I am still looking forward to our next video project.  I will probably begin posting about it soon so...

 

This is a picture of a Final Cut Pro screen - the program we use to edit our videos

Image Source: Final Cut

A Not So Short Reflection on My Documentary

           This post is a reflection on the documentary making process.  We will have ours finished and exported by Thursday, so expect to see it on my blog next week!  If you click on the documentary project label that I put with this post, you can see all the other posts I have done on it.

            My group filmed a documentary about the closed lunch policy at Blair.  Blair has always had a closed-campus, meaning students are not allowed to leave campus during the school day.  Recently the school engaged the support of the restaurants near Blair to enforce this policy.  Now the restaurants will not serve Blair students during the school day.

            We interviewed the principal and the head security guard at Blair, as well as students.  Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to interview many of the managers of the restaurants in the nearby Woodmoor shopping center.  We did interview an employee at Santucci’s Italian Deli, however he did not want to go on camera; and we did not have time to interview employees at the other stores.  Our documentary would be stronger and more complete if we had been able to include the stores’ perspectives.

            From making this documentary I learned how much pre-production planning really needs to be done.  Before making the documentary I did not have any idea about what to expect.  We knew what our topic was and who we wanted to interview, but we had no idea about what direction to go in.  While we were planning what to ask in our interviews we did not consider how the questions would play into our documentary.  While we were editing, we still had no clear idea of what we were doing.  I think that we would have had a much easier time had we dedicated ourselves to more planning.

            I also learned the importance of selecting a topic, as well as group members.  I was not particularly interested in the topic of closed lunch and I feel as if the topic was a challenging one for first time documentary makers to take on.  In relation to group members, I learned that sometimes it is not necessarily easy to work with your friends.  While in the end we did complete our documentary, at times we got distracted.  Not only that, but the work load was not evenly distributed.  It would have been more advantageous to me to choose a group that would have worked well together to complete the project.  If I were to do this project again, I would have chosen a topic that more so captured my interest.

            Aside from our lack of planning, general confusion, and various computer malfunctions throughout the project, we only really had one major problem.  We planned to test the enforcement of Blair’s closed lunch policy and film it for our documentary.  We had approval from our principal and our parents.  The plan was to go to one of the local restaurants for lunch, filming ourselves through the process of leaving campus and either being served food or denied service.  Our teacher was going to accompany us.  Unfortunately, the assistant principal did not allow us to do this.  We instead filmed ourselves pretending to leave campus.  It would have been more interesting had we actually been able to test the policy.

            All in all, I think our teacher did a good job of helping to guide us through this project.  There are, however, a few things that could be done differently next year.  In pre-production it may be helpful to have each group submit a script of what they anticipate their documentary to look like and then submit a revised or updated script during the production phase.  Also, during the production phase it may be helpful to establish stricter checkpoint deadlines for the students, for example, music by X date and a rough cut by Y date, and to be more readily available after school if the students need to borrow a camera.  I liked that there was time for research in class and that checkpoints were given to us with the research (three note cards by Monday, for example).  During the production phase, I appreciated the feedback we received on our documentary, including the advice on things like what shots to keep or not keep and where we should put different pieces of b-roll.  I also appreciate that we are allowed to continue working on our documentaries on our own time for an extra week.  It is really helpful to make up for time lost because of technical difficulties and such.

            All things considered, I think this project was a good experience.  It taught me the importance of planning and making sure everyone is dedicated to the project.  Even though the topic of our documentary was not my first choice, I still enjoyed learning about something in my school and hearing different people’s opinions.

Saying Goodbye To The Ombudsman

 

This is Patrick Pexton (Sorry if this doesn't show up very well/at all on my blog)

Earlier this morning I read Patrick Pexton's final ombudsman column in The Washington Post.  He has been working there as ombudsman for around two years.

For those who you who don't know, the ombudsman is the  person who works for a newspaper that communicates with the readers and responds to their questions/complaints in a weekly column.

Pexton is leaving The Post because they no longer have the money to keep an ombudsman - so with the leaving of Pexton is the leaving of the ombudsman column at The Post.

Pexton's salary was that of a senior editor - so a good chunk of money a year - but with the rising popularity of the internet and new technologies and the decline of people actually reading newspapers, it is harder to keep funds coming in.

The ombudsman is special to the readers as well.  The ombudsman helps the readers get their voices heard.  They respond to readers' concerns.  They talk about different moral issues from the newspaper's point of view and can explain certain decisions the newspaper has made.

As a side note, that is sort of still on topic: Earlier this year, Patrick Pexton came and talked to the CAP Program that I am in about his position.

Click here to read a short description of Pexton and his ombudsman position.  It also has links to his articles underneath.
Click here to read the some of the reasons why The Post ended their ombudsman column.
Click here to read Pexton's final ombudsman column.

Image Source: Patrick Pexton

The Oscars

Tonight (Sunday, February 24, 2013) are the 85th Academy Awards (a.k.a. the Oscars)!  I'm really excited!

Here is a link to the Oscar website which tells all the nominees, a little bit about the movie, and a trailer for it.

I though I might try to explain the voting system for the Academy Awards.  Members of the Academy are the ones who vote (pretty much everyone who is part of a movie is a member of the Academy - except for extras).  The members are given a list of all the nominees in each category and then they rate the movies/actors/directors/things in the other categories in the order of preference (favorite to least favorite).  Let's say that the votes for Best Picture are being counted:  all the number 1 votes are distributed to their respective movie.  Then, the votes from the number 1 movie with the least votes are redistributed to the movie that the voter put as their number 2.  This continues with number 3, 4, 5 and so on until there are only the top two movies left.  Whichever has more votes wins.  The Washington Post made a really good sample of this where it takes you through the process with your votes.  Here is the link.

There may also be some potential firsts in tonight's Oscars.  At nine years old, if Quvenzhané Wallis wins Best Actress, she will be the youngest person ever to win an Oscar.  At 86 years old, if Emmanuelle Riva wins Best Actress, she will be the oldest person ever to win an Oscar.  

The video below is called Paperman.  It is nominated for Best Short Film - Animated.  It is made by John Kahrs.

 

Cabin In The Woods Horror Story

*Warning: If you do not like horror stories in the slightest, stop reading now!*

The other day I heard a horror story that I found rather weird and rather horrifying (probably the point of it being called a "horror story").  Anyways, I thought I would share it on my blog as my weekly post.  Sorry if this is not as scary as you are hoping - I'm horrible around scary stories so this one is super terrifying to me.

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Cabin in the Woods

One day, four friends and their dog decided they would go up to a cabin that one of them owned in the woods.  The friends really like going up to the cabin and they go around once or twice a month.

They stopped at a gas station on their way up to grab a few snacks.  When they were paying the cashier struck up a conversation.

"Where are you girls off to?" he asked.
"Just up to the woods.  I have a cabin up there," answered one of the friends.
"You better be careful," he warned, "A guy recently escaped from an insane asylum and is said to be hiding out up there."

The girls laughed, thinking that the cashier was just messing with them - trying to have some fun by scaring four young girls.

They went up to the cabin and went to bed.  The next day it was beautiful out and they spent the day hiking and swimming in a nearby lake.  That night, they each retired to their bedrooms and fell asleep easily, worn out by the day's adventures.

"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"

The friend in the far bedroom woke to the most horrifying shriek she had ever heard.  She thought it was just a dream, but then she heard

thump, thump, drag.  thump, thump drag. Then a moment of silence, and another scream.

Now she was getting nervous.  She heard the sounds again.

thump, thump, drag.  thump, thump drag.  And a scream.

She was really scared now.  If there was someone in the house, the only person left to scream was her.

She heard the sounds.

thump, thump, drag.  thump, thump drag.

She put her hand down next the bed to pet her dog to give her courage.  She petted his matted head, got out of bed, ran to the window, jumped out, and ran screaming.

The next day, she arrived back at the gas station and told the cashier what had happened.  They called the police who went up to the cabin and found her three friends and her dog all dead.  They also found the man who had escaped from the insane asylum.

He had no legs.  The thump, thump was him putting his arms on the ground and the drag was him pulling his body along.  The surviving girl never pet her dog.  She pet the man on his head.

The End.
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I hope you enjoyed/are scared by this horror story.  Here is a picture of a cabin the woods so you can get some sense of where these girls are supposed to be.

 

Image Source: Cabin in the woods

Gross Feet!

 

Last week CAP hosted around 14 foreign exchange students from England.  During their stay we were assigned a project where we had to make a 60 second film in the one week.  The catch is that we had to use a random prop.  Ours were these huge, gross, disgusting feet. 

When we first saw the prop we got we were all freaked out.  If the feet look horrible in the film, they looked even worse in real life.  Then, we had to start brainstorming for out video.  It took awhile, but eventually we all agreed on an idea.

The premise is that there is a new girl who has normal feet and everyone else has the weird feet.  The new girl thinks that her new class is strange and they think that she is strange.

From this project I learned how to crop the screen on final cut pro.  I didn't know how to do that before and I think it is a good skill to know.  I also learned how important it is to plan your script in advance (ours didn't have the greatest detail which made filming difficult) and how important it is to take multiple shots (we had to go back and redo one or two shots and some we didn't have time to redo so we just made the best with what we had).

I thought this project was pretty fun and I also liked how it was different from everything else we've done.  Originally I thought we would not finish, but we did, and I am happy with the results.

A list of our shots:

-Setting the scene that this is a classroom.  We are trying to make everything seem normal.

-The new girl comes in and seems a little bothered.

-The class sees the new girl and seems bothered/grossed out.  Sorry that the camera is a little shaky.

-Close-up of the new girl's face.  She is really freaked out now.

-Shots of the gross feet.

-Girl's face being freaked out.

-More feet.

-The new girl's "normal" feet.

-The class being freaked out about the girl.

-The teacher introducing the new girl.

-The teacher's weird feet and then the new girl's "normal" feet.

-A student asking the new girl what is wrong with her feet.

-The new girl being totally freaked out.