Metamorphosis Animation

The last project we did was an animation project with a metamorphosis theme. My team (Kaylene, Izo, Audrey, and me) took the assignment really literally. We had to use at least two different types of animations. Our group used stop-motion, digital animation and claymation. The video we made was about a rock that wasn't happy with being a rock, so she decided to become a human; that was the focus of our animation "Rock Alters Self". The first scene, was stop-motion. In it the rock discovers a magic wand, then he picks up the wand and it slowly turns him into a golem. At this point the stop-motion turns into claymation. After he turns into a golem he drops the wand and then picks it up again. Using digital animation, the wand makes him shrink into a little dot and then grow into a human. A that point it turns back into stop-motion, and the now human rock puts down the wand and then disappears.

We were critiqued by our characters, sets, and props (all in one group). We were also critiqued on our creativity, originality and execution, which was also in one group. Those two groups were scored from "Room for improvement" to "Meets Requirements" to "Above and Beyond!". Our critiques were very good. For our characters, sets and props, 74% of people thought we were "Above and Beyond!", and 26% said we were at "Meets Requirements". For our creativity, originality, and execution, 70% of the people said that we were "Above and Beyond!", and the other 30% said we were at the "Meets Requirements" level. The results are in the picture below.

Words of Wisdom

The "Words of Wisdom" video project was a project for Hiki No. Basically what we had to do was find a person with some words of wisdom or advice and interview them. The interview would share a story about the person and then tie in with wisdom or advice. My team for this project was Audrey and Kaylene. We interview Fifth Circuit Family Court Judge Edmund Acoba, but we didn't interview him about his life as a judge. Our interview was about being a karate sensei. Me and Audrey interviewed him and got all the b-roll. Kaylene edited everything, as usual.


In his interview, Edmund talked a lot about how he has to manage his time between his job and teaching karate. That was actually his advice, be sure to manage your time. Also, that you should take time for everything, especially the things you care about. it's important that you aren't so stressed that you want to rip your hair out all the time. For Edmund his release is karate, weather he's teaching, taking a class or going to a seminar or something.

Five Tips For...

We did a "Five Tips" video in our GT class, and my group, Kaylene, Audrey and Kaya, chose the topic "Five Tips For Living Healthy". We chose this topic because it was easy to do and our group agreed on it. We decided to film it all in school during class. Audrey and Kaya were the actresses, I did the voice overs and Kaylene did all the editing. Me and Kaylene also filmed the entire video. Our five tips were:

• Exercise Often
• Try Meditating
• Eat Healthy
• Remember to Relax
• Sleep More

To make this video better we could have made sure there was absolutely no camera movement in any of the shots. Also, the voice overs could have been a lot more clear and slow, so that they would be easier to understand and I could have made it sound more natural because in our video it sounds like they were read from a script. One other thing we could have done was add more interesting shots and angles to make the video look better and keep the viewer more interested in what they were watching.

Practice Profile Story

The purpose of doing the practice story was so that we could get a feel for what we had to do. It was so that we could practice on a different person before we actually went and made our real video. We didn't really know what to do, but after doing the practice story we had a better idea of what to do. During the practice story we learned how to get good b-roll, how to set up a good interview composition, and many other useful things. We chose to interview Audrey about practicing her painting. We chose Audrey because it was the most convenient, Kaylene and I didn't want to be on camera. We were all doing a painting project in our art class, so it was an easy thing to get b-roll for, and it was easy to talk about because, it's not like she had to go back to when she was seven and remember something.

Profile Project Progress

In our newest project, Words of Wisdom, we interviewed Edmund Acoba. He's a district judge who presides in the Family Court of the Fifth Circuit, and a karate sensei. We went to the Island School Gym, where he teaches karate and interviewed him. We chose to interview him of all people because he has to completely different jobs and a family, but manages to find time to fit them all into his life. There's a lot of people out there balancing their lives between two jobs, and this video could be used to help them. He talked about how he maintains his jobs and doesn't get overwhelmed by them.

B-roll and voice overs are two really important components in an interview. They help a lot in making the story flow better and make it more interesting. B-roll is footage that helps the viewer connect with the video more and they show what the person's talking about. Voice overs are used to take storytelling even further. In this case, we're using voice overs as a sort of transitions that help the story flow better. Transitions make the story flow by taking you from one subject to the next so it makes sense.

I teamed up with Audrey and Kaylene for this project. I think we're doing all right so far. Everyone on the team has their own job to do, and we all do our jobs. Audrey and I did the interview, filmed all the b-roll, and did the transitions. Kaylene's gonna edit everything together. We all did the pre-production planning together, so none of us are sitting around doing nothing all day.
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Our rough cut got critiqued by the class the other day. They told us the main things we need to work on are pacing our voice-overs better, and get b-roll from a different place, like the courthouse. We have a camera signed out for the weekend, so that we can get b-roll from the courthouse. Also, we decided to have Audrey redo the voice-overs, so that they're more clear and better paced. Right now she sounds rushed and talks a lot faster then Edmund, which throws off the balance of the video. I think if do those things we can definitely get our video from
good to great!

Composition Techniques

The four main composition techniques are rule of thirds, framing, unusual angles and leading lines. The rule of thirds is when you break down the shot into nine equal parts that form a grid with three horizontal and three vertical lines. You then find the most interesting part of your subject that you want to focus on and position the camera so the part you want to focus on is at one of four points on your grid. Framing is when you draw attention to your subject by blocking other parts of the picture with things in the scene creating the effect of a frame. Framing gives your image sense of context, depth and layers. It also tends to lead your viewers eyes to the main focal point. One other thing framing does is it intrigues your viewer. Unusual angles are when you make the image more interesting by changing the angle you're shooting the picture from. A variety of perspective is always a good thing. Some ideas for new perspectives are lying or crouching in front of the subject, or going for a birds-eye-view. Leading lines are lines that can be found in the image that can add a dynamic impact and change the overall mood of the image. Leading lines, like framing, tend to draw your viewers eye to the main focal subject, if the subject is at the end of the lines.

Three Shot Sequences

Three shot sequences are an important part of great visual story telling. They make the video much more visually appealing. They also have technical benefits such as the fact that they promote continuity. Also, sequencing compresses shot time, so your video isn't too long. They will also make your video more professional looking.

To make good three shot sequences you should use a variety of different angles and shot types. Sequencing can make a long boring shot into a shorter more interesting one. Also, in just one continuous shot it can be hard to see whats going on. A sequence will take you from seeing the entire frame to seeing just one detail. Sequences are key in making your video appealing and interesting while it still makes sense.

An example of a three shot sequence could be a wide establishing shot, then a cut in to a medium so you see the subject better, and then a close up to get a better view of all the little details. In our video "Kaya Drinks Water" we start out with a wide establishing shot of Kaya sitting in the grass holding a water bottle. Then we cut to a medium shot of her beginning to open the bottle. There is much less distracting the viewer from looking at Kaya in this shot, compared to the previous one. After the medium shot we cut in even farther to a close up shot of her actually drinking from the bottle, in this shot all you see is Kaya the water bottle, and the background.