-Book Trailer- More Happy Than Not

More Happy than not is a book that I read in class and has been at the centre of many of my assignments from this unit including this one, the more Happy than not book trailer. In this assignment we chose one of four book options layer out for us and got into groups based on which one we chose. My group consisted of Adlih, Isabelle, Melika, Logan, and Luca. Me and the other members of my group all chose to read More Happy than not, a book about a teen boy who wants to forget that fact that he’s gay because of the pain that it has caused him, so he uses a special procedure called the Leteo Procedure to do so. We all completed the book, and now p our objective was to imagine that the book was to be made into a movie. We were supposed to create and film our interpretation of what the trailer for that movie would look like. 

We had to pick and choose certain passages and the most important scenes to include in order for the trailer to make sense. We put all of our ideas into outlines and storyboards that we used as a guide when it came time to start filming. We had planned out all the settings, costumes, music, and a script for the video, and it was finally recording time. In order to get all the shots we needed, my group and I traveled downtown to record different scenes that we needed for the final trailer. We had also filmed at people’s houses, different stores (with permission of course) and even the workplace of my friends mom who was kind enough to drive us downtown and let us film there. We also filmed at parks and other places that we came across while walking around downtown. 

 

After this, we edited together our first draft and it was time to review, critique, and revise. This is our first draft.

After revision, we completed our final draft and I quite proud of how it turned out. Our final video even included a self written song that Luca wrote and sang to be the audio for the trailer we created.

This is the final video.

Once finished, we took the QR code from our video that had been uploaded to YouTube, printed out a bunch, and pasted them on the inside of all of the books all the copies we had of our book, more happy than not. That way anyone can take a picture, scan the code, and be directed to our video. So basically in other words, this video will always be around to haunt us forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, I was so proud of our group for being so cooperative, easy to work with, and for all contributing in some way wether that be in the form of filming, acting, providing a setting suitable for the scene, sharing their ideas, writing the script, creating a storyboard, finding costumes, organizing when where and what to film, and so on. I learned so much throughout the duration of this project such as how to pick out a good setting and how to plan around everybody else’s schedule as well as my own. We really hit home with the visuals and music and the video turned out extremely well thanks to our hardworking group members, and peers who gave us helpful feedback to change things like the voice overs and quotes which we completed for the final draft.

Synthesis Essay

How do authors use text to teach us more about ourselves? This was the driving question for our synthesis essay and many of the other assignments in this unit. One of these projects was the book trailer, where we were made to pick one book from the few that we had to choose from, and get into groups based on who chose the same book you picked. My group consisted of Adlih, Isabelle, Melika, Logan, and Luca. Me and the other members of my group were all reading a book called More Happy than not. Once we  finished the book, our objective was to imagine that the book was made into a movie and create and film our interpretation of what the trailer for that movie would look like. To learn more about the filming process and final outcome of this project, click the link to be redirected to my blog post regarding the book trailer. 

The next project after this was the Synthesis Essay. The criteria for this specific project was basically to create a five paragraph essay answering the driving question of How Do Authors Use Text To Teach Us More About Ourselves? Using examples from not only the book that we read for the previous assignment, but also from another book called Persepolis, as well as the widely known movie The Breakfast Club, the next step was to research and brainstorm these three examples. Now with this newfound knowledge, we can answer the driving question in our own words and derive around five paragraphs of text doing so. Before writing, we looked at how to create an essay outline using the Standard Five Paragraph Essay Outline Format as a guideline. Writing this outline helped us prepare ourselves to write the final essay when it came time to do so in class, and it would help the writing process go a lot smoother.

When preparing to write my own essay, I chose to answer the driving question using the perspectives of the characters as proof to validate my thinking. I also practiced going over how I would format the essay itself and what information I would put where. After all of this preparation, it was finally time to Write the in class essay, and we had the whole class to finish it, some even staying to write through the break in order to get it done.

The whole process of completing the essay taught me many valuable things such as time management, formatting skills, as well as how to become a master at critiquing your own work.

I really enjoyed taking feedback from my first draft that I completed in class and improving my essay for the final draft which I will insert down below. Before I end this post, I will say that there were definitely areas that could’ve used further improvement such as my title and the  aesthetic aspects of the essay were a bit lacking. Keeping this in mind, there were also many things that I did very well in my opinion such as answering the driving question clearly, and creating a good outline beforehand.

Lively Adventures (a thrilling journey to the cafeteria and back)

Life is full of events and memorable moments and experiences, so why not capture one of those experiences by creating a live event video showcasing not only a specific event, but the video skills that we’d been practicing for weeks. That’s exactly what we did for this fun little assignment. The criteria explained that we needed to include things like time lapses, still shots, copyright free music, an interview with a participant, freeze frames, and more. I had a really difficult time thinking of an event interesting enough to film because I had nothing interesting going on at the time. Instead I decided to film me and my friend walking to the school cafeteria and back… it’s more interesting than it seems, trust me. I tried my best to keep in mind all the requirements for the shots that were required and filmed the journey started in the science room and walking down the stairs, outside briefly, then to the cafeteria and all the way back. Once I had got all the clips I needed, the editing process began. The I altered the speed sound and length of some of the clips, added copyright music that I found on the internet, added voice overs and text where needed, and a first draft was finally completed. 

Then I got friends and family to critique it, fixed some minor details, and this is what I created. This video definitely taught me to be more free with my creativity in my video because I found it really paid off for this assignment. It was a fun little project and I hope we can do something similar in the future.

Music (Blogging challenge #5)

For the fifth week of the blogging challenge, the topic is music. The goal is to try and get to know each other through the music we listen to.

Girl In Red

I personally have a very diverse taste in music that ranges from artists like Ghostemane, to other artists like Big L,  Florence+The Machine and Doja Cat. All of these artist produce very different music from one another which just goes to show how all over the place my taste of music is. 

Ghostemane

Some songs that I find myself listening to lately are Pack In My Bag by Danger Incorporated, Collard Greens by ScHoolboy Q, 1000 Rounds by Pouya featuring Ghostemane, Even Flow by Pearl Jam, and Summer Depression by Girl In Red.

Doja Cat

What’s your favourite type of music? Comment and let me know!

Emojis (Blogging challenge #4)

For this weeks challenge, we are focusing on emojis. I chose to revolve my post around emoji math. Emoji math is where you create equations where you have to figure out the value of each type of emoji to finish the problem.

I created my own emoji math using as app called Canva, see if you can figure out the answer.

Using Images (Blogging challenge #3)

For this challenge, the task was to choose some images, add them to our blog, and talk a bit about the images and how we made them. 


This first image is one that I took last summer. I chose this image because it brings back pleasant memories of the summer when I first started getting into photography. To edit this photo, I used an app called Lightroom. 

 

This next photo was taken around the same time as the last one, I love the vibrant colours and clarity of the image. To edit this photo I used Lightroom again.

 

This final picture was taken more recently. When I took this picture I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. I love the moody vibe of the photo and how the dark colours of the background make the colour of her makeup stand out. I edited it this photo using an app called VSCO.

 

Quality Comments

These are the quality commenting guidelines that I have created for those who wish to comment on my blog. I created this image using a cool app called Sketches Pro.

After creating these guidelines I was tasked to check out the blogs of other students that are participating in the edublogs blogging challenge. I commented on the blogs of three individuals, Lianna, Connor, and Jacqui. When commenting on their blogs, I was conscious to follow the guidelines that they had created for themselves and their blog.

These are the comments that I left.

 

Lianna

Connor

Jacqui

Angles Of The World

 

Our most recent math project has revolved around the concepts of trigonometry and calculating angles, as well as using solar panels and incorporating them into a scale model. The project required me and my partner Adlih to research a location of our choice, find the angle of the sun in that location, design dimensions for the support structure for a model that we would then build with labeled measurements, and finally we would create an instructional video to teach people about the ideal angles for solar panels in their location

When creating the model aspect of our project, me and my partner had to use trigonometry to find the degree of the angles as well as the side lengths of our structure. I learned a lot about this subject during the process, as well as a lot about myself and my learning habits. I learned that I memorize information very slowly and it takes more effort for me to understand a concept that it would for a lot of other people. With this in mind, I tried my best not to let this hold me back and kept trying. I even spent many days after school researching online and trying to better understand how to do trigonometry. By the end I was finally caught up and now I’m pretty decent at trigonometry, which may not seem like much but this was a big accomplishment to me because at the start I thought I would never be able to figure it out. 

Below is a mind map on trigonometry and everything I learned about it.

 

We created our model based on the location that we chose, which for us was Kharga Egypt. We decided to make our support look like a shipping container because we thought it would be more ethical, and we made the support white so that it wouldn’t absorb more light and make the inside extremely hot. The rest of the information is featured in our video which I will link to below. 

Recreating a masterpiece

Welcome back to those of you who take the time to read of my blog/learning portfolio. Today we will visit the topic of video making, which happens to be the subject that we have been learning all about in school at this moment in time. We have been practicing and perfecting the art of video making, and everything that comes with it. We started out with a group project which required us to recreate a video called Catch by Joe Hatzler. Recreating this video was definitely more challenging than it seemed to be at the start. I didn’t understand just how much more difficult it is to recreate a video than it is just to make one of your own. Recreations require a lot more attention to detail then you’d think. My group for this video project consisted of Lucas and Adlih. There were many different aspects of the video that had to be accounted for, including the lighting, script, sound, camera angles, setting, costumes, and much more. Time management was key to finishing this video on time while simultaneously meeting all the correct criteria. Some things we probably should’ve put more attention towards would be the the music, and the storyboard which we didn’t even do, at least not for this video. With that being said, there’s always gonna be things to improve, but there’s also parts of this video that were really positive like the overall shots and lighting which I thought turned out pretty well. Despite having little time to get this done, the final product turned out pretty well for a first attempt at a recreation video, and I really enjoyed making it.

This wasn’t the only recreation we made, we followed up that last one with yet another recreation project. The only difference is that this time we got to choose what video we wanted to recreate.with the same group as last time, we chose a video by Studio C called The 5 Stages Of Netflix. This video went a lot smoother than the last one because for starters we actually made a storyboard to help the filming process go smoother. The one thing we could’ve done differently would’ve been to pay attention to the length of each clip to make it match up more with the original video, but the end product was still a good piece of work that was still humorous and mimicked the original, which was what we were going for.

The last video that we created was a short film where we got to be in groups of two or three and create the most random and humorous video we could in the amount of time we were given. Me and my friend Melika worked together to come up with the most random storyline we could think of and put together this minute long masterpiece.

Something that I learned from all of these video assignments is that these skills can really be applied in all of our work, even outside of PLP, and are just overall good skills to have for the future

Happy Thoughts

With summer having come to a close and school beginning again, a new project has arisen. The project is based around a book of our choosing, and by reading this book we can find an answer to our driving question, that question being “How do authors use text to teach us more about ourselves?”. The book have chosen is called More Happy Than Not, written by Adam Silvera. I chose this book because the description made it seem like the type of novel that would keep me interested throughout the duration of the book, and me being the type of person that gets bored of books quite easily, I felt this was the right choice for me. Having only read the first few chapters, it’s hard to tell at this point what will happen throughout the storyline, but if I were to guess I’d say one of the main characters dies and the rest of them get their memories wiped to make the pain go away. That’s my guess, but I’ll have to keep reading to find out what really happens.

after reading the first few chapters, me and a group of classmates worked together to create a video depicting some of the key events and scenes from the book. Adlih, Logan, Melika, Luca, Isabelle and I worked together to plan out and film scenes from the book that we would then put together and share with the class. This fun Mimi project was one of many to come, be sure to read any of my upcoming posts to stay posted on this project and many more.

 

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