Music Video Finale

P1T1 Girls Just Want To Have Fun from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

The final project of the year, as eighth graders our final project in GT, the music video project. This year my team is Meagan and Tu, we are doing the song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. We chose this song because we wanted to do a fun upbeat song that we would have a lot of fun creating and filming. At first we were just going to have a bunch of girls having fun in our video but as we got advice from Mr. Sandrel and began production we found that it would be better to have a story. So we decided to split the three verses among the three of us, Meagan has the first verse, I have the second verse and Tu has the third verse. Meagan's verse starts with her walking in the house kind of upset and then her mom yells at her "when you gonna live your life right," Meagan then proceeds to lip sync to the chorus of girls just wanna have fun. The shot transitions to me sitting outside of school doing home work looking upset, Meagan and Tu pull me up and I throw the papers into the air

My favorite fast-edit montage sequence is the one that we used before we started the second verse.  It starts off as a wide of me doing homework, then at the first down beat it switches to a medium shot, down beat close, downbeat back to wide, downbeat new shot. I really like this fast montage sequence because it is editing to the beat of the music and it makes the video look super cool with so many different shots in a matter of seconds. This part of the story is my part, I'm very frustrated with my homework and then two girls come and pull me up to tell me let's go have some fun. The shot then changes to a shot at my house where my dad is yelling at me and telling me "What you gonna do with your life," we then proceed to silly string him while lip syncing "girls just wanna have fun oh girls just wanna have fun......." This whole sequence of shots really contributes to the story and make the video more interesting and less predictable.

This music video showcases my best work by showing the editing and filming skills that I have learned over the past two years. This music video shows that I know how to make good video using the compositions techniques that I have learned. It also shows that I know how to make good video using the things I have learned about working the camera.  It shows the editing techniques I've learned because in my music video there are many color enhancements that show that I have learned how to work iMovie. Also editing to the beat and syncing the song with the lip sync is complicated and getting it right shows the editing skills and precision that I have learned to use while editing. I also think that the story line to my song and the way we portray the song shows something about what I've learned about how to write a story and go to good "sets" to match the story and what is happening in the story. For example, I have learned that to film a scene that should take place at school I have to go to a school or film it in school not on the beach or at home on my couch. I have really enjoyed doing this music video project and I have enjoyed GT, this music video project is
a good project to end middle school with.

Animated Life Lessons

Title: Animated Life Lessons Label: GT Portfolio
I: Tell us about your teammates’ personal character traits & how your story exaggerates who they are.
B: Explain how you use humor in your story and how your life lesson or message relates to us.
C: Considering you’ve never worked together before, describe your team’s level of productivity, biggest challenge & best moment during production.
Embedded Vimeo, Storyboard Screenshot, 3 BTS
Have you been taking behind the scenes photos?

My teammates for this project, Asha, Alani and Chazz, each have their own individual traits that we exaggerated for this animation.  For Asha we exaggerated her perkiness, for Alani we exaggerated her "hunger sneeze," for Chazz we exaggerated his negativity and for me we exaggerated my loud clumsiness. In our animation Asha is very happy and is convinced that this is going to be the greatest experience ever, Asha is happy and perky but not as perky as we make her. Alani only sneezes once when she's hungry and it doesn't happen very often, in the animation she sneezes every other word. Chazz is very negative, but not nearly as negative as he is in the animation. I am very loud, and clumsy, but I know when to be a little quieter and I don't yell every word that I say.

We use humor in our story by exaggerating everything every character says and does, this makes the video a lot funnier. In our animation the life lesson is that you have to try and get along with your group even when you don't like them or don't know them. It's about how when you start to work together, things will get done to the best you can get it done.  This life lesson works well for the audience because we all have to do group projects and we need to try and work well with them no matter what.  There is no way anyone can get through life without working with a group and a lot of times you are going to be very different from them but you still need to try and get things done. 

My team for this project was Alani, Asha, and Chazz, never working with this group before did come with many problems. At first we were getting stuff done and we were all pretty excited about the project and our idea, but as we started animating and the deadline was approaching and no one was even close to being done, my team kind of just gave up. On the day of the deadline, my team decided to try and get stuff done and we got a couple more seconds of animation, but not enough to fill our entire audio, so we had to copy and paste it to fill up our timeline.  I think our biggest challenge or my biggest challenge was probably when everyone gave up and I was kind of trying to get it all done by myself, I got really frustrated with my team and with myself for not being able to get it done. On the last day, my team and I had a team meeting as we were all sitting there frustrated, stressed, and upset with each other, a kid in the group next to us said something really funny that made us laugh so hard and I think while we were all laughing the negative energy that we had kind of left and it was replaced with everyone wanting to try and to at least get something done.