We all know that a music video tells a story in a sequence of shots. But what if I told you, I've watched a music video that told the story in just one shot? Pretty cool, right? Now what if I told you that this particular shot had no actors or actresses in it? So, how would they tell a story, in one shot, to fill up 2 minutes and 27 seconds, with no actor's at all? Well, for this week's reflective response, I'll be talking to you about a one-shot music video for the song, Knock Knock by Brunettes Shoot Blondes. I've stumbled along this video under the staff picks on Vimeo and I have to admit, it's pretty impressive. This music video shows an interplay [the way in which two or more things have effect on each other] of Apple devices playing little snippet's of animated video. So basically, it's video of short separate animated fragments, but these animated fragments on the devices have to be synchronized, or else everything won't work as smoothly. It probably took a bunch of takes to get it perfectly, all the devices playing at the same time in harmony, and all the devices in the right spot. I really like this music video because of it's uniqueness and cleverness. Being that they used Apple devices, it was really cool how they incorporated Apple devices' features, like apps, the lock screen, the notification bar, into the video. I admire this video and it's crew because of the hard work they had to go through with, to make the animated clips, to get it all synchronized, to get everything in the right place, this music video took a lot of work to do, even if it's only in one shot and there's no actors in it. That's all for my reflective response, Thanks for reading. Also make sure to read my constructed response, "My Stress Relievers!" Bye!

     Hey Everyone! Wow, I'm going to be honest with you now, this week is chaotic, and indeed, very stressful. Why is it so crazy? Well, for one, it's final's week, so we have all of our big tests for our other classes, and on top of that, our first quarter projects are due NEXT week, and Herenui and I also have to juggle our Inside Scoop Radios that's due a day after our first quarter projects are due. This week is very busy, and puts a lot of pressure on all of us. But do not worry, with bad, comes good, and with stress, comes stress relievers. I've come up with some tips to share with you on how I deal with stress. To avoid stressing out, I listen to music, relax, and I try to think positive.
      One of the things I do to avoid stressing out is I listen to music. Music for some reason just calms me, even when things are hectic. It replaces all negativity with good energy. It drowns the outside world around me and I'm able to focus and concentrate better. The thing about listening to music, is that you can multitask while listening, so you can get things done. You don't have to go somewhere to listen to music; it's portable! If you have a phone or electronic device, you can bring it with you. Listening to music is also inexpensive. Even if I'm on a tight schedule, I can listen to music, let it calm me, focus better and get things done. If you like to sing, sing along! Or if you like to dance, dance to the song! Anything that will get you into a happy rhythm and in a happy attitude. But if you are going to listen to music, don't pick sad or slow songs because that will just get you into a negative, lazy mood. Instead, pick happy, up-beat songs to get your mood up! I listen to music a lot, walking to and from school, when I'm doing homework, and during my free time. I usually listen to music while I'm writing my blog's because without it, I tend to get distracted and procrastinate, but like I said, while listening to music, I'm positive and can concentrate better. Fun fact: I am currently listening to music while writing this blog. So I listen to music to get me in a better mood.
     Another thing I do to not stress out is to relax. Take a break and just breathe. Breathing exercises will help calm you but Meditation is also a popular technique for relaxation. It may sound silly, but meditation is actually known to refresh your body and your mind. Another way to relax is to talk to a friend. Find a supportive, and a good listener to talk to and tell them what's on your mind. But what actually relaxes me while I'm stressed out, is chewing gum. You are all probably laughing at me right now, but it's true! During STN I've probably gone through like 4 packs of gum. You'd see me chewing gum everywhere! Anyways, do whatever relaxes you to get your stress level down. Whether it's just taking a break, eating, or chewing gum like me!
     Thinking positive always clears a bad state-of-mind. If you're stressed out and all you do is think negative, nothing will get better and it will just get worse. As Mary Engelbreit once said, "If you don't like something, change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it." So even if thing's are crazy, if you think positive about it, chances are, you'll get thing's done and not be as stressed about it. But if you don't get thing's on time, instead of saying "I'm a failure" say, "I've tried my best". Always be optimistic for yourself, and for others. As Kaycee would say, spread the "Positive Vibes" around. If you're positive, then your positive vibes will spread around and will influence the attitude of others. But if you think negatively, then your negativity will spread and also influence the attitude of others. So you make your choice: do you want to be happier and make other lives happier? Or do you want to be stressed out and make others stressed out? Think Positive. Be Optimistic. Spread the Positive Vibes. [Also check out this website] 

Hey Everyone! We all know that Apple has been releasing a bunch of things lately, such as the new iPhone 6 and of course, iOS 8. I have downloaded iOS 8, and so far, it seems to be slow and has a bunch of bugs. However, that's not what I'm here to talk about. So for this week's reflective response, I'll be talking to you about the new camera features that come with iOS 8, including timers, focus and exposure settings, panoramas, and a time-lapse option! I really like the new features, but of course, we can't take photos in school, but out of school, it may come in handy. So even if you don't have a nice DSLR at home, you can still try to make the most of it with the new features.

First of all, Apple has finally put in a timer! How many times have you been with family or friends and have wanted to take a group photo? Many times, right? Well how many times would someone be missing from the photo because they were the ones behind the camera? Now with this new timer feature, those days are long gone! You can set a timer for three or even ten seconds and get everyone in the picture! Pretty amazing, right?

     Another new feature is that you can now manually change the focus and exposure settings! In iOS 7, focusing and exposure was just a tap-to-focus, and it would focus automatically on whatever you tapped and also change the exposure. In iOS 8, however, that option is still available but, brings in the option to manually adjust the settings. You can be focusing on something and also change the exposure, by dragging the slider to the right of the sun icon, up, to bring it up, or you can drag it down, to bring down.

    The next new camera feature is for all you iPad owners, panoramas. The Panorama feature is the option to take a wide-angle photo that covers a great distance by rotating your device slowly from left to right. It's really useful when you have to take a photo of something wide or large that doesn't fit in the frame, but with the panorama feature, you can get that shot.

The final camera feature of iOS 8 that I'll be talking about, is the time-lapse option. If you've read any of my past blogs, you'd know that I really like time-lapses. I think they're very beautiful because you can see how the world changes as time passes on; moving and changing colors. Anyways, this new feature allows you to take a video that automatically converts and speeds up, into a time lapse. It's really cool because you don't need to record long, it could even be a second or even a few days, and it will speed it up depending on the duration. Another cool thing is that you don't need to do any work! This feature allows you to just tap to start, and tap to finish recording, and the time-lapse will be made. Click here to watch a really cool time-lapse video made with iOS 8 or watch it below.

    iOS 8 provides us with many fun and helpful features such as the timer, manual adjustments of the focus and exposure settings, panoramas (iPad only) and a time-lapse option! Now we can take photos better, even if we don't have nice cameras like the ones we use in class. That's it for my reflective response! Thanks for reading! Bye!

    Hi Everyone! As you know, Herenui and I are currently working on our first quarter project and are about a week away from our deadline, October 1st. Our topic is about the new color-coded rating systems in restaraunts, Placards. To read more about our Quarter 1 Project, click here to be directed to my first update. Anyways, It is now September 19, and we have 12 days left until the whole completed and edited project is due, and Herenui and I are unfortunately behind. We are behind because we haven't gotten our script finalized, we don't have enough b-roll and we haven't started to edit yet. However, we have plans to make sure we get caught up to meet the deadline. Read on to find out more on why we're behind and about our plans to change that.
    First off, Herenui and I haven't gotten our script finalized. We submitted it on September 2nd, when scripts were due, and we were given back revisions. But we had to change our five points a lot and it was really challenging for us because all of he interviewees practically said the same thing, on how it was positive. For our second quarter project, and other future projects, I plan to create our five points prior to getting interviews so that we won't be stuck in this predicament. Herenui and I changed our five points again today and fixed our script and now we have to show Mr. M our revisions and see what he thinks. But if our script and five points aren't good, I don't know what we'll have to do because like I said, they all said the same thing and had the same ideas. Would we have to get more interviews and hope for good sound bytes which would push us even further behind? Or could we establish a different point? We'll just have to see what Mr. M thinks about our revisions on Monday.
    Secondly, we are behind because we don't have enough matching b-roll. Of course, we've shot lots of b-roll when shooting interviews but we really have to think, are all of them good shots to use, and do they match our sound bytes. We'll just have to look through our b-roll and ask ourselves, is this enough? Are these good quality shots? And will we need to go out again to shoot more b-roll? We also have to take photos of the placards Darren gave us since we haven't seen them implemented here yet.
    Last, we are behind because we haven't started to edit yet. Editing started on Wednesday and right now, Herenui and I haven't done much since our script isn't finalized yet. I've imported most of the clips, but I still have to import a couple more. I've also watched the Final Cut 10 tutorial videos so I know how to use it and it won't take me long to get the hang of it. I'm hoping that Herenui is also watching them so we can quickly fly into editing when it's time.
    On the contrary, Herenui and I do have plans to catch up and finish this project on time. We also have radios that are due on October 2nd, but we plan to put our news story first and radios second. We are almost done with all of the radio scripts so I hope that doesn't take up too much of our time. We also plan to show our script to Mr. M first thing Monday and make any changes from there. I hope we will be able to make these changes from our transcripts and not have to go out and interview more people, chancing it. When our script is approved, we will get straight to editing. There, we can see what kind of b-roll we need more and go out to shoot. It's really helpful now that we have our laptops because we can take it home and edit, extending our editing time. But I really want Herenui to do part of the editing so she learns how, but if it's on a laptop does that mean she can only edit in schol? I'm not sure, but those are our plans to hopefully get caught up while balancing radios at the same time. But all of our plans really rely on getting that script approved, so I hope we can get it approved as soon as possible.

    In conclusion, Herenui and I are behind on our first quarter project because our script isn't finalized, we may not have quality matching b-roll, and because we haven't started to edit yet. But, Herenui and I will hopefully catch-up, hoping that our script is approved and then we can quickly get on track. Thanks for reading! Wish us luck! Bye!

     Hey Everyone! For this reflective response, I'll be talking about a time-lapse video I watched. As some of you may know, I absolutely LOVE time-lapses! So today on vimeo, I just happened to stumble on a time-lapse video called "Shaped by Time" from Enrique Pacheco. Anyways, I think this time-lapse is just amazing! It shows the effect of erosion on different landscapes in the world. It's very interesting to watch these parts of the world that I haven't seen, away from regular buildings and houses. But it's even more interesting to see how it's been shaped over time, battling weather, harsh winds, heavy rainfall, who knows what it's been through to get like how it is now? What's pretty unique about this time-lapse is that the camera moves slowly while the landscape is being, well, "Shaped by Time". It's almost like they're using a slider. Well, it is actually because they are using a slider! They filmed with a Sony A99 using a motorized slider, and boy, that would have to taken a long time to film. That's the thing about filming time-lapses; it takes time. Not only time, but patience. Anyhow, If you've read my blog, "Beautiful Time-Lapse" instead of using a motorized slider like Enrique did, they used a tracking tripod; a motorized tripod that rotates the camera as the Earth rotates. But of course, with any good time-lapse, is good music to fit it. The music soundtrack is from Peter Nanasi, and the music is ominous, suspenseful, almost scary even, but it also gets a little inspiring. However, the music fits and matches the video; it sets the tone. My favorite thing about time-lapses is the sky, especially at night. You can see the passing of clouds, the stars, shooting stars, and the colorful sky moving, you can really see time going by and how long the photographer had to film. That's it for this week's reflective response! Below are some videos, photos, and links.Thanks for reading! 

     Hey Everyone! For this week's reflective response I'd like to do something different then what I have been doing for the past month. I'm going to be talking about a Movie Trailer because there has been a lot of new movies releasing, which of course, means a lot of new movie trailers! One of the more recent and popular movie trailers is called If I Stay. I'm sure you may have heard about this movie, When music-talented Mia and her family get into a serious accident, Mia, in a coma but has out-of-body experience, faces a difficult decision: to stay, or to leave, a choice with consequences that come along with. Anyways, this movie is a book adaptation, and yes, before you ask, I have read the book, however, I haven't seen the movie yet. The trailer starts off subtle; calming with soft mellow music while showing shots of Mia and her boyfriend, Adam, and Mia playing the Cello. Everything is going well and fine, and is leading up to the climax of the trailer. I especially like the voiceover transitioning between, "Isn't it amazing how life is one thing, and in an instance it's something else? Like here I am, Mia who thinks about the cello, and Adam, and Juliard...then just like that...". When she say's "...then just like that...", her cellow bow drops, the truck tires shift, then you can hear silence for a dramatic effect. When at the accident site, you can see a lot of cinematic movement. They make the shot kind of revolve around Mia, this gave the effect of like spinning, as Mia was turning and looking everywhere. It had nat sounds of the police sirens and policemen talking, and the voice over echoed a bit. All of these things really made me feel like I was apart of the scene, like I was really there. When I first watched the trailer, I was confused. I asked myself, "Was she a twin?" The answer is no. She is has an out-of-body experience while in a coma so she is able to see what is going on. Another thing that helped the trailer was the music in the background. While sad moments were going on, "Say Something" was playing in the background and I thought helped incredibly. It intensified the drama and the sadness. I also liked how the trailer ended with Adam saying, "Stay". Overall, I think this movie trailer really reached out and touched the audience's heart and that it will be a good one. Thanks for reading! Bye!