I have learned a lot during my years in the media class. Every year I learn new things and improve on current skills. I won't be in CKTV next year because I will be at Kauai High School. Even though I won't be in the class, the skills that I learned will still be helpful and can be improved. I will have lots of free time over the summer, time that I can use to improve media and film skills. Some ways that I can do that is by taking pictures, making iMovies, and borrowing my mom's camera.

Summer break is always fun. I enjoy going to the beach, hanging out with friends, and doing other fun activities. One way to make those memories last is by taking pictures. In media I learned how to use angles, lighting, and color to make the photos interesting or have a mood. I can use those skills and practice by taking pictures over summer break. Now I sort of have a hobby of finding things that look interesting or pretty and taking pictures of them. I normally like to play around with filters and use different angles. Summer will be a great time to practice and improve that.

I will have lots of time and I can practice making videos with iMovie. In high school I won't have the CKTV laptop, which means that I won't have access to Final Cut Pro. I might want to make school video projects in high school so I want to learn and practice using iMovie. With iMovie I can make fairly good videos. I know the basics of iMovie but over the summer I can get better by watching tutorials and just playing around or experimenting. I hope to improve my knowledge on using iMovie over the summer break.

My parents might get me a camera later on. I do know that my mom will be getting herself a new camera and she said that she'd let me borrow it. I can get better at using cameras from that practice. I can experiment with different setting and with manual mode. I could always use more information and experience with using cameras and learning the settings and controls.

I'm really looking forward to summer break and that time will be great for practicing and improving media skills! I'm really going to miss the media class, this is my last blog post for CKTV. Being in the media class was so fun. I've learned so much and made many new friends. Well, that's it for this blog. Bye!

I was watching TV on the Disney channel and I saw a cool short video. It was a text message and emoji animation of the movie Tangled. I thought that it was interesting and unique, so I looked it up. I found out that Disney has a couple more 'As Told by Emoji' videos. They made one for Frozen and another for Alladin. They were cool because the story was told without talking and in just a few minutes. There was no dialogue and only a few text bubbles, but they still told a clear and easy to understand story. The animations summed up the whole movie and plot in just a few minutes! They summarized it really well because the animation told almost the whole story and still made it easy to understand. I've watched those movies so I kind of knew what would happen, which probably made it easier to understand. Even if you haven't watched the actual movies, you should still be able to get a basic idea of what it's about. I just thought that they were really cute and fun videos. I loved watching them because it told some of my favorite Disney movies with cute emoji characters. I love watching Disney's animation videos, and these were great. You should go watch them because I thought that they were pretty entertaining. Well, that's it for this blog. Bye!

(for week of 5/16 to 5/22)

       I'm a third year media student, so I've been in the class for a while. I've learned so much from this class and it has also changed me quite a bit. I have picked up a few small, but useful tips that I'll be sharing today. The first is about checking to make sure that your tripod has a shoe. The second is to always check audio. And the third is to put your SD cards in a safe and easy to remember place.

      Tripods are important to get steady shots. If you try to just hold the camera with your hands, it will not be steady. Whenever you film, you will almost always want to bring a tripod. Something that your tripod must have is the shoe. The tripod shoe is what attaches the camera to the tripod. Without it, the tripod is practically useless. When checking your equipment, always make sure that your tripod has a shoe on it.

       During my years in media, I have made many mistakes. When filming, audio is normally a big part, something that you want to make sure is good. Usually, half of your video quality is dependent on the audio. Bad audio, equals lower quality. It is extremely important to check your audio and equipment before filming. It would be horrible to go home, look through your footage, and realize that you have no audio. Checking equipment will prevent your time, and other people's time from being wasted.
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      SD cards are very important. You need them to film and that's where the files and footage will be stored. If you lose the SD, you lose the footage and can not recover it. I have lost many SD cards throughout my three years in media. I probably lost three to four SD cards. Luckily, none of them had super important things on it. The reasons ranged to not getting them back after people borrow them, to simply misplacing them. Put your SD cards in safe places so that you don't lose as many as I did. Popular SD containers are pencil cases, small backpack pockets, and Altoids boxes.

       Those are some tips and important things to remember that I learned while in the media class. I learned a lot of these things from personal experience. But hopefully, you won't have to experience the frustration of these things. Well, that's it for this blog. Bye!

     A video from Wainae Intermediate school has been winning a lot of awards. They won first place in STN and Olello. Obviously, it was a good video and one that would be worth watching. It did really well and was enjoyed by a lot of people, so I decided to check it out. I can see why it won, because it was a super good video. I loved the story. The video was about a homeless boy, Lorenzo. He lived on Wainae with his mom. They stayed in tents in groups with other homeless people. He stayed with his mom at first so that he could help her out. They were struggling to survive. Lorenzo was enrolled in the Boys and Girls club, quickly making friends and becoming a role model. The instructor found out that he was homeless. Out of kindness and love for the kids, she took him in. She let him live at her house until he later could move into another. This was a touching story, which was one of the reasons why I liked it. I am always amazed as to how Wainae finds such good stories. They always get unique stories that are made into amazing videos. I really enjoyed watching 'A Home for Lorenzo. It was a really good story and I definitely recommend that you watch it.

(for week of 5/9 to 5/15)

     We are well into the fourth quarter, and we are all working on our fourth quarter projects. I am working with Javlynn on a video about middle school. The title is, "How to Survive Middle School". I think that we are behind schedule because we still need to film. We just started filming, but we are supposed to be finished with that on Friday. I think that we can still get it done on time.

     Filming is supposed to end on Friday. We just started because we just finished getting our scripts approved. We don't have as much time to film and will need to edit quickly. We have about two weeks to get all of our filming done as well as edit. We will have to work more quickly to get it done. We will spend the next week filming and getting all the shots. And the week after that will be used for editing and revising.

      We are supposed to have begun to edit and put our video together. Because we have only just started to film, we can't really edit yet. That's another reason as to why we are behind. We don't have a lot of time, so we will have to edit as we go. Once we get the shots we can start to put them into the timeline over the voice overs.

     We did start filming voice overs in the past two classes. We have a lot of voice overs to record and got only about a third of them done. We will take home equipment for the weekend so that we can continue recording and hopefully finish them. We have voice overs under almost everything so we will start putting those into the timeline as well as our titles. We plan to start actually filming the scenes on Monday. We still have a lot to do.

       As you can probably tell, we will not have a lot of time to film and edit. We are behind schedule, but I think that we can still turn it in on time and have a decent video. I think that we will still be able to pull it off. We will just have to work harder and faster than normal. Well, that's it for this blog. Wish us luck!!

     The eighth graders of the media class are in charge of making the 8th grade slideshow. This is played on the last day of school at the banquet. This is the eighth graders' last year at Chiefess. Many people are going to different schools and moving, so it's bitter sweet. That's why our theme for this slideshow is memories. We got interviews from a bunch of different students, asking about their best memories from their years at Chiefess. We procrastinated A LOT. At the beginning of the year we were like, yeah we are going to get this done and not procrastinate like the others did. But, that didn't happen. We were putting it off, which was not very smart. I wish that we could have gone back and spent more time on it during the beginning and middle of the year, so that we wouldn't be so stressed at the end. We are trying to get it done. We have a bunch of pictures, songs, and some interviews on the laptop. We are starting to edit the pictures together as people continue getting interviews. We kind of made a plan. We assigned students in groups of two or three with people to get interviews from. We also take turns bringing home the laptop to edit and work on it. Hopefully we will get it done on time and well.

     As you know, we all made PSAs for our third quarter projects. We all entered these thirty second public service announcements into the Olello Youth Xchange. For each category there are three finalists who get to go to Oahu for the awards ceremony. I entered in the general PSA category and got selected as a finalist. I got to go to Oahu so I was happy. It was pretty fun! I didn't win, but I still enjoyed it. The food was really good! It was like a brunch so we had eggs, bacon, sausage, and breakfast type foods. I also thought that it was fun because we got to see the winning videos. Some of the videos seemed interesting and good. There were a lot of unique and creative videos that people made! One that I liked watching was, "A Home for Lorenzo". It seemed interesting from the clip that they showed so I decided to watch it. I thought that it was a great story and liked it. Luckily, we had one video win. The "Chain Reaction" video about taking assessments seriously was the one that won. It was made by two beginner media students, Ikikea and Kieshelle. Their video was creative and humorous. That's it for this blog. Bye!

      I love listening to music. Music plays a big role in our lives. I can inspire us, help us study, and affect our moods. Many people love music and a person's taste in music says a lot about them. I like lots of types of music and listen to different ones depending on my mood and what I'm doing. I normally listen to music on Spotify. Some of the artists who I really like are Adele and Melanie Martinez. They have great songs, personalities and so much talent.

​     For studying I normally like to listen to classical or indie music. Those types of music just help me to focus and do my work. Those songs are often softer and slower than other music genres. I also enjoy listening to pop and alternative music. When I don't know what kind of music I want to listen to I normally listen to the top charts playlists. I love listening to music and do it a lot. Music is also a way for me to relax and relieve stress.

     Adele is a British singer. She has an amazing voice and made many great songs. Some of her famous and recent songs are 'Hello' and 'When we were Young'. Many people, definitely not all, but some, in the music industry make songs focused on things like drinking or drugs. Adele makes meaningful songs that are thoughtful. She plays instruments and writes her own songs. She has so much talent and I love her music. She is a great role model. Her strong, passionate, and optimistic personality shows in her songs. She has worked hard, combining talent and unique personality to have an extremely successful career.

      Another artist who I love is Melanie Martinez. She is an American alternative singer. She was a singer on The Voice but unfortunately did not win. Some of her songs are Dollhouse, Cry Baby, and Carousel. She wrote a lot of songs. A lot of her songs are darker, with deep meanings. For example, 'Dollhouse' was about a dysfunctional family that appeared perfect. Her songs are intriguing and thought provoking which is a reason as to why I enjoy her songs. She sings about interesting topics, setting her apart from other artists. I love her music and she is an inspiration because even though she didn't win The Voice, she kept trying and was able to get a pretty successful career as a singer and songwriter.

      I love all kinds of music. I listen to music from pop to classical. Music is fun to listen to and can be relaxing. There are many inspirational people in the music industry who are great role models. Well, that's it for this blog! Bye!

     Everyone makes mistakes. We make mistakes all the time, some are big, and others are smaller. Bigger mistakes often have worse and more noticeable consequences. The little mistakes usually have smaller consequences and are more of a nuisance. I have made many mistakes, more than I can count. One of them has to do with media and radios, the next one is about almost losing my phone, and the last one is nail polish related,

     We had to record our radios, but we couldn't stay after school. This meant that if we wanted to record, we had to pack up the equipment quickly. We couldn't stay in the library so we rushed through packing the equipment, forgetting something important. Later, we got out the equipment, ready to record. We realized that we forgot to cords to connect the microphones with the recorder. We couldn't go back to the library so we had to pass around the zoom recorder. This was inconvenient because it took longer to record and was more difficult. I learned that spending a few minutes double checking would have saved a lot of time.

      Over the STN trip we went to New York. We went to Chelsea Piers one day and I went to use the bathroom. I didn't have any other pockets besides my jeans so I put my phone on the toilet paper thing. I forgot about it and as I was walking away from the bathroom, I realized that I left it there. I rushed back to check the stalls, but it wasn't there. It was in the lost and found. I got lucky that a nice person turned it in and didn't steal it. I learned to be more responsible from that. It could have gone very badly and lost my phone.

      A while ago I was removing my nail polish. I was sitting on the floor in my room. I had the nail polish remover open on the carpet and I knocked into it and spilled some, That was a very unfortunate accident because it smelled really, really, really bad for a couple days. The scent was strong and not very pleasant. Now I am careful to have a towel or do it at a table.
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       Well, those are some of the recent mistakes that I have made. I make them all the time and try to learn from them. Sometimes I do end up repeating my mistakes, but I try not to. That's it for this blog about mistakes! Bye!

 This week Friday is Earth Day! Lots of people are celebrating and promoting today with videos and posts on social media. Earth day is when you try to help to clean the environment. Some ways to do so are picking up trash, riding bikes or walking instead of driving, recycling, and even planting trees. Other things that help to clean the environment is renewable energy that is generated by the sun, wind, water, or other natural ways. For example, Apple made two videos for Earth day. The first one was a text message. I said that every text that you send goes to an Apple data center. Then it said that the Apple data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy using wind, sun, and water. It's good that big companies are using more environmentally friendly energy sources and promoting that. I thought that it was a pretty cool PSA/Ad because it's short, unique, and interesting to watch. They made another short video that showed how Apple recycled old phone parts to make new phones to reduce waste. Many other people made Earth day videos, but these were two that I thought were cool.