Hey Everyone! Today was our Crazy 8's competition. Our room got up at around 6 and we all met in Uncle Don's room at 7 for breakfast. Thank you Uncle Don and Aunty Jodi for the delicious food! I ate some eggs and strawberries. After that, the whole class met in on the atrium (I think?) floor to get our Crazy 8's assignment. This year is different than the others. Originally, two people would have to attend a contest briefing that has an overview of the contest, a Q&A session, and then finally you'd get your topic. But this year, we just picked up the prompt from a basket. There are two teams for Crazy 8's: news magazine and film. The competition started at 8 and no entries were excepted after 4. I am on the news magazine team, formally known as broadcast. Our prompt was "Science and Technology". I was pretty surprised. I expected the prompt to be something Atlanta or Georgia based. My group members, Mia Thompson and Destrey, immediately started brainstorming of ideas. Most of our initial ideas didn't work out. We thought the Georgia aquarium could connect to science some how but it didn't open until 10. The same went for World of Coca-Cola. We looked into places near the Marriott Marquis like the 'Escape the Room' places but those didn't open until later either and it didn't really fit our topic. We called this CDC center which was a center/museum that educates the public on stopping the spread of diseases but they said that no interviews would be allowed. We saw this one business, an Atlanta Tour company online. But when we called, the numbers we got didn't work. A lot of our ideas were dead ends. It was already late 9 and no one had any ideas or stories so we decided to walk to Cennentenial Park. When we reached the park, there were a lot of people filming, whom were most likely apart of the Crazy 8's competition, too. 6 minutes away was the ATL-Cruizer Electric Car and Segway tours business that we saw online. We decided this was a lead we should try out. We walked with Uncle Cory (Thanks Uncle Cory!) to the business and saw the hours it was open. We were an hour before it actually opened! But we still knocked, and thankfully, they opened up for us! We told them what we were here for and asked them if we could do our story on them. They agreed! We talked to one of the workers named Mira Dunn. She was really nice and funny. We asked her questions about how their tour business is affected or connected by technology. Our story ended up being about how the business, the electric car and Segway guided tours, are done totally digitally and electronically. They chose to do this to be more careful with the environment because of the rising ozone levels and the landfills. We got a lot of b-roll sequences. We got back to the hotel after an hour or so of filming. I started editing while Destrey and Mia wrote the 5 points outline and voice overs. All four story groups had to finish their stories completely by 2 for the final editors. We finished our story and turned it in at 2! By the way, that was a total improvement from our practice which we turned in 70 minutes late. I'm pretty proud that we got it in on time! Though our small story group finished, I wasn't. I shifted into Convention Recap mode and started shooting. At first it felt a bit awkward and creepy like because I was filming other people. I took a break for lunch and shared a sandwich with Nicole. When I got back, there was about an hour left until the deadline for Crazy 8's. Some schools started to submit their entries into the baskets so I thought it'd be a great time to start shooting with the Osmo. But I had A LOT of complications with the Osmo. First the card wouldn't read, then the batteries started dying but the main problem was that it wouldn't connect to the app! The Osmo would connect with the wifi, but when I opened the app, you couldn't see the viewfinder. It was like you were shooting blindly. 5 minutes until the deadline and everything got 100x more hectic in the ballroom. Everything got more intense, and people were yelling under the pressure. For me, I wasn't that stressed because I turned in our story and I had faith in the final editors. I was more pressured that the Osmos weren't cooperating and this was my opportunity to get some good potential shots! It started working and I got a couple of shots near the end of the contest. Everyone started clapping for those who finished even if they were our competition at the end of the day. Overall, each team, film and news magazine made the deadline! Congrats to each team!! After Crazy 8's, we met with our pen pals for our gift exchange. I got to hang out with my pen pal, Ileana. She's really nice. We went to dinner with our pen pals at PittyPattys Porch. I had some fried chicken. The Castaic pen pals are really friendly. We then went to the opening STN Ceremony. Kaycee and I filmed for recap. Shaelyn was there also. We heard some really inspiring and humorous stories and speeches that got me excited for STN. Then we debriefed and went back to our rooms. Tomorrow, Kaycee and I will continue filming for our recap video and other teams will be competing! Good luck to them!
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