Metamorphosis Animation

   


     Our most recent project in my G.T. class was a metamorphosis animation. In my group, was Gabby and Claudia. Basically, we had to create a story that showed change throughout it. Either emotional change or an actual physical change. In this project we had to use at least three different types of animation. We used a flip book, a whiteboard, digital, and stop-motion animation. Our Focus statement was Prom Strengthens Friendship.
     Our story was about girl who is really excited for prom. She gets her makeup, hair, and dress on and then goes to wait outside. She waits for an hour, and soon realizes that she got stood up. Right when she's about to go inside, her friend comes riding up on her bike. Her friend then packs her on the bike and they ride off to prom together.
     When our class critiqued our video we got 87 percent of the class to give us an above and beyond for characters, sets, and props. For creativity we got a 100 percent above and beyond. I thought we did really well. For our overall video, we got second place. I am very proud at what our team accomplished in just a few weeks. It was hard, but the end product looked awesome. It is amazing what you can make happen with stop-motion animation.

Words of Wisdom

For our major 3rd quarter project, we were assigned to take someone we know and film an interview about them and their words of wisdom. Claudia, Gabby, and I chose my gymnastics coach. We all know that gymnastics is a very demanding sport, both physically and mentally. In our video, we focused on Coach Jack's words of wisdom that help his gymnasts achieve their dreams. It took us about 3-4 days to film all of our b-roll. We kept having to go back because it was really hard to get sequencing. Gymnastics goes so fast that creating sequences without Final Cut Pro tricks was a challenge. In our video, Coach Jack mentions that you have to train without regret to perform without doubt. I think that he means if you do your best during practice then you will give the best performances possible. Practice makes perfect. It's important to know this because being a gymnast myself I get a lot of days where I don't complete what I wanted to complete. For example, I can do a back hand spring on high beam by myself, but I am too scared to do it without my coach standing there. It frustrates me when I try so hard, and know that I can do it, but my mind won't let me just do the trick. Having Coach Jack's words of wisdom let's me know that I just have to be patient and do my best every time.

5 Tips For Preventing Injuries

My team's topic was preventing injuries. We chose this topic because we felt it could really be useful to the general public. Many people in our society play sports. These sports often cause injuries. Most people don't know how to take care of their injuries to make them heal faster. In our video we explained how to take care of
yourself when you get hurt. I think that my team could have worked together and split up the work a little more. We kind of gave everybody one job that they stuck to the whole time. This made us not work together as well. We could have taken turns editing, or filming. Instead of just one person doing this the whole time. Overall, I think that our final product came out finished and organized. It was actually aired on one of our local television channels. That was pretty cool. I am proud of my team and what we accomplished.

Practice Profile Story

The purpose of our video was to show the viewers why Gabby loves dancing. We wanted to get across the story of Gabby's outside activity at Aloha Dance Studio. We chose Gabby because we thought that if we did a dance story it would be easiest to get cool shots of b-roll that matched with her story. This story helped us practice for our main story that we are finishing now called "Elder Words of Wisdom". I believe that this story really showed us how to get the story across to the viewers in an interesting way.

Profile Project Progress

Our current project in my G.T. class is an "Elder Words of Wisdom" project. What we have to do, is chose someone who we respect. Someone who tells good stories, and interview them about what they do, or how they use their words of wisdom. We got into groups, Claudia, Gabby, and me, and we chose my gymnastics coach to interview. We chose him because we thought that in order to be a great gymnastics coach, you have to have good words of wisdom to help your gymnasts achieve their dreams.

The most technical parts of this project would probably have to be the voice-overs and B-roll. These key components are what go on top of the interviewees voice or in between, to tie everything together. Voice-overs are important because you can't rely on the interviewee to give a perfect interview. The voice-overs fill in the missing words that help the interviewee get across their point. B-roll  is most important when covering up the edits and giving the viewer a visual aspect other than just seeing the interviewee talk the whole time.

I would say that my team works pretty well together. If I were to point out some things that we could do to work better as a team, I would say we could have planned out who was going to do what before we actually did it. We kind of winged it when came down to who was going to shoot b-roll and do the voice-overs. This created some confusion between the group. Overall, I think that if our team works together to divide the work evenly, and everyone is always doing something, than we can meet the deadline with a high quality finished product.

I plan to go from good to great by getting some more sequencing so we don't have to use Final Cut Pro X features to crop the sequencing. Also, we can work together to stay on task with the editing and meeting the deadline. Today, Gabby and I will go to Kauai Gymnastics Academy for one last film session.

Composition Techniques

Composition Techniques are what makes a video go from good to great. The four main types are rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, and unusual angles. When a person takes a picture, the subject is almost always in the center. That can get boring, so we use rule of thirds. It is where you place the subject out to the side, so that it isn't smack dab in the middle. Leading lines in a photo draw the eyes of the viewer to the subject. Often these kinds of shots interest the viewer. When you use framing, you take the subject and use the natural surroundings to frame the subject. Such as trees, or a wall and ceiling. Often people use the same old "take a picture holding the camera level to your shoulders" method. But this can get boring. To make a shot better, you could get low and shoot up at the subject, or get high above it and shoot down. These four simple techniques could make your shots way more interesting to the viewers.

Three Shot Sequences

A sequence is a combination of wide, medium, and close up shots that make a video more pleasing and interesting to the viewers eye. A good shot sequence explains an action or event without the extra stuff. That means you can express more ideas in less time. Long video clips bore the viewer to death. That's not what we want. To create a sequence you need to first identify the action that you want to shoot. Then you need to get the interesting shots. For example if you want to shoot someone scrambling eggs, you could get a wide shot of them cracking the eggs in the bowl. Then you could get a medium shot of them scrambling the eggs in the bowl with a whisk. Lastly, you get the close up of them cooking the eggs in the pan. This combination of shots will not only compress time, but it will catch the viewers eye in a way that one long, boring shot couldn't do.

Practice Story Assignment Reflection

Our most recent project in  my G.T. class was a practice story. We had to get into teams and choose one of us to interview. That person would communicate a story in the video. My team consisted of Claudia Hanson, Gabby Mahoney, and Me. Our story was why Gabby loves dance. We had top notch Cannon cameras and wireless microphones. One of the requirements was B-roll. This is important in telling the story. B-roll is just video over the interviewees voice. We were graded on the sound quality, the storyline, and the video quality. This assignment was just a warm up for what we're about to do next. An interview of one of our elders telling their words of wisdom.

During the process, I thought my team worked well together. Sometimes we disagreed. I feel like we weren't always working great, but then again we never really butted heads. Claudia worked on the transitions. Basically, just adding some voiceovers in between the interview so that the whole thing kind of ties together. Gabby worked on the transcription template. This is a basic outline of how we were going to shoot the video, what questions we were going to ask, and the b-roll or transitions. All of us did the editing in Final Cut Pro X. We were a little late on the deadline, but I feel like the quality of our video was good. Getting B-roll was tough because we didn't have any props and there is only so much we can do with footage of Gabby dancing. 

Overall I believed that this practice story was great practice for what we have coming up. I do think that it prepared us in terms of working together as a team and meeting deadlines. That is the most important part. Even though the audio and video needs to be a priority too, we can't get that stuff done without cooperation and teamwork.

Polar Panoramas

Here are my two examples of Polar panoramas. First, I went to a nearby location and took some pictures. The only thing different about these pictures is that I had to take them going around in a 360 degree rotation, each having a 10-15% overlap. Then I edited these pictures in Adobe Camera Raw. After that, I compiled them into a panoramic image using Photoshop's PhotoMerge plugin.

Next, the rectangular 360 degree panorama was resized to be square and flipped upside down. Then they were filtered with the Polar Coordinates. Lastly, the final polar panoramas were selected using the elliptical marquee tool, and feathered by refining the edges. A black or white background was applied before saving the finished composite image.

Sperical Panoramas

Here are my two examples of spherical panoramas. First, I took a 360 degree panorama of a beautiful

location. All this means is that I took pictures going in a circle that slightly overlapped. Then I edited these pictures in Adobe Camera Raw. After that I compiled them into a panoramic image using Photoshop's PhotoMerge plugin.

Next, the rectangular 360 degree panorama was resized to be square and filtered with the Polar Coordinates. Lastly, the final spherical panoramas were selected using the elliptical marquee tool, and feathered by refining the edges. A black or white background was applied before saving the finished composite image.

Final Photomontages

Here are my two photomontages inspired by the famous photographer David Hockney. He created what he called joiners. I used a digital camera to take multiple pictures of an inspiring location, Adobe Camera Raw to edit, and Photoshop to compile my finished composite image. Although these joiners are unusual, they tell a story when you take a closer look.

To create these joiners, all I did was take pictures in rows. Starting from left to right, I took about 4 pictures and then moved up a little bit to get the next row. I continued with this method until I reached the top. Then I used Photoshop to place the photos in an imperfect manner so that the viewer needed to use their brain to get the story.

All About Me

Hey viewers! Here is a little background info on me and my life as a 13 year old...

My name is Mia Ricciardi. I am an 8th grader at Kapaa Middle School on Kauai, Hawaii. I am a part of the G.T. program at my school. This program covers all things media. Whether it is taking amazing photos, streaming videos on the internet, or just running the morning announcements at the school, the G.T. program does it all. My awesome teacher is Mr. Sanderl.

I have lived on Kauai my whole life, and I love it. Theres nothing better than spending most of your life at the beach. It is truly an experience that most of the world doesn't get.

Outside of school I love to do gymnastics. My gym is Kauai Gymnastics Academy. There is something about flying through the air that gives me a sweet sensation. I also play piano, the musical instrument that sort of runs through my dads side of the family.

And that pretty much sums up my life! :)

Magazine Cover

This is my finished magazine cover that I created during the fall of 2013 at Kapaa Middle School. I used digital cameras and photoshop to create a multi-layered image that shows who I am.

I love doing gymnastics, so I decided to make my magazine cover all about it. I also incorporated myself in some of the headlines. Some of my favorite magazines helped with the inspiration of my own creation.