Ski Trip

I did my independent video challenge on a ski trip to Whitetail Ski Resort.  I used a point and shoot edited it with iMovie.  I really like the first shot where the camera comes down from the dark sky into the light, which gives it a purple pink effect.  From the lift I filmed skiers and snowboarders, and I got some good landscape shots of the rest of the mountain.  I used guitar music from free music archives.  

Capture the Fall

I uploaded two video for my meaning of fall project which are exactly the same, expect for the music.  one with the song "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone", and another with a song I found on musopens.org.  I'm not going to go into what I think about having to use creative commons music (although I may later) because that's a whole different story.    

This week I learned how to do the cup thing that goes with "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone," among other songs.  I really have no idea how to explain it so I posted a video.

Once I learned how to do it I couldn't stop, its unbelievably addicting. There are also other tricks I've learned, like doing rounds, or passing the cup around.  And I've been singing this song all week.

Capture the Fall with "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone"

Anyways I think this one is much better.  Admittedly I may have been editing this one around the song, rather than just editing it and then putting in the song, but that's how it should be done.  If you watch this one first, I think the second one will be very disappointing.  The thing is I don't really mind using websites like free soundarchives.org or musopen.org, but once I watched it with this song, it just fit, I just wouldn't see using anything else.      



{Real Capture the Fall with all Creative Commons}

Dystopian Film Trailer Script

     For our trailer we created a dystopia where the government gives aid (food, supplies, medicine) through a "Nurse Nancy" to the poor, unemployed, sick and disabled.  In a year if they haven't shown signs of improvement, their food is poisoned.
     We will use propaganda (posters of Nurse Nancy) constant surveillance, (the government can tell if they are improving or not) Uniform expectations, utopian illusion ( it sounds like a good ideas for the government to be providing aid) and restricted information.  Our script has 13 scenes, but since this is a trailer, a scene will only be a few seconds.
     We will mostly be using voice overs, but still have a little dialogue.  We will be starting and ending with the ring of  bell.  It will also be rung when aid arrives.  It will create an eery effect.  I really like our idea, and our script is going really well.                    

5X5

1. Crossing the street
2. Sparkly shoes
3. Soccer
4. The swing
5. Down the slide

I used an olympus SP-600UZ, I have no idea what that really means, but I'd consider it an advanced amateur camera.  Since I already knew how to use iMovie and how to upload to Youtube, this was an easy project.
At first I thought this was a weird project, because it doesn't tell a story or really have a point to it at all, but actually like how it turned out, it has a nice flow to it.
For our next independent project I thought we could do something about lighting and lean how to film without just using auto settings.  Sort-of a get to know your camera thing.

Self Learning

I read the article "Preparing Students to Learn without us" by WIll Richardson.  It's about how self directed learning can be used by students, with the help of their teachers, in and outside of the classroom. Students can find their own ways to meet the school goals.  Students shouldn't be help back by the school curriculum  and be able to explore their own interests and learn from that they are passionate about.

I was surprised that at trinity School outside Atlanta, Georgia, the students have a choice of 23 languages to learn online.  first because 23 is an impressive number of languages to be offered at a school, but also because language ins't something that you can learn online, sure Latin maybe, but language is more that just about grammar and words.  The only way to really learn a language is to speak it.

One quote that I liked was "The ability to learn what we want, when we want it, with whomever we want as long as we have access creates a huge push against a system of education steeped in time and place learning".  At school it feels like its easier for teachers to just follow the curriculum, rather than to think of creative ways to teach and inspire.

Self directed learning sounds good in their, but unless students and highly motivated, it would never work.  Some students would slack off, and other need more of a structure to be able to learn.

 In terms of our class, we all have the resources to learn more about topics that we are interested in, but the point of learn learning is to do it on our own.  It sounds like we would have an assignment to go teach ourselves something, which is kind of the opposite of what self learning is.  Also, although I like filming and editing, I'm not interested enough in it to go learn about it on my own.  I am interested in criminology, which I realize is a very broad topic to learn about, but I would be willing to read more about it on my own.

Julie and Julie; review of a movie review

A.O. Scott's review from the New York Times of "Julie and Julia"Two for the Stove"" is a plot summary intertwined with his opinions of the adaptation to the screen, the acting, the choice of actors and how they complemented each other.

He doesn't talk very much about cinematic aspects, but since it isn't a drama or an action movie there really wouldn't have been much to say.

Mostly focussing on the acting, Scott praises Meryl Streep, not only for doing a fantastic job of portraying Julia, but he also talks about how it seems that in many of her movies her co starts are forgotten.  "Remember Anne Hathaway in 'The Devil Wears Prada?' Amanda Seyfried in 'Mamma Mia'? neither do I".

He goes on to say that the unevenness isn't only the actors fault, but stems form Julie being a blogger, who is unsure of herself, and Julia being confident, adventurous, and well, Julia Child.  "Julie and Julia" does have it's imperfections but all in all Scott recommends it, as do I.

Julie and Julia

I think for our quarterly movie review we should give a plot summary and our opinions about the literary, cinematic and dramatic aspects of the film, as well as out general perception of the movie. 

First Blog First Blog Post

Hi!  I'm Esther a sophomore in the Communication Arts Program (CAP) at Montgomery Blair High School.  Creating this blog is part of my CAP Writing News class.
 I like peach yogurt and mint chocolate chip ice cream.  I've been playing the piano for most of my life. I've recently been getting into a variety of water sports such as kayaking, rowing, paddle boarding and a little skim boarding.  I row of the Blair Crew team, which takes up most of my time.
I was in a film class in 6th and 7th grade.  Although I'm still not very tech savvy, I'm probably most interested in editing clips and putting movies together.  Outside of school a friend and I have put together or at least started many films.  My all time favorite being our Murder Mystery.  It started out being very well put together, with nice shots and a somewhat understandable plot.  It started going downhill after a while, for example we filmed part of it during spring break and another during the winter, so we said that we had traveled from Iceland to Greenland.
I'm not quite sure how we will use these blogs this year.  I guess we would use them to talk about and share what we created in class.

Inside