Verbal Landscapes

SacramedD_Retime from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

Nature seems to impact everyone's life in some way. Whether its only for a moment or everyday, all day. We all are affected by nature in some way. I rarely go outside but still, it affects me. Nature allows us to live so of course it impacts us. But, looking at a beautiful view from the top of a mountain or just looking at the ocean also affects us. Who wouldn't want to catch the sun right before it sets. Seeing an orange and pink sky is something that would probably change how we feel while seeing it. Hiking a mountain for an hour is worth it when you reach the top. Seeing the beautiful view just makes you feel like you've accomplished something.

Time-lapses are created by taking a wide angle video and speeding it up in an editing program. What we have to do is take a few videos thats at least 5 minutes long then import it into our computer and edit them. One of my time-lapses is a sun set on the west side. What I did was leave my camera on the beach for maybe 20 minutes as the sun set. I made sure it was a wide angle so you could easily see the sun set and the clouds around it move. Then what I did was import it to my computer and into an editing program. Then I used the retime feature to speed it up so the video was only a few seconds. As for a slow-mo, its kind of the opposite. What I did for one of them was a rock falling into a river. So I got close to the water and took a video that was around 4 seconds long of a rock falling into the river. What I did next was import it into my computer and slow it down in an editing program. That way the video would be around, maybe 8 seconds. When I watched back the video, you can see the water splash all around the rock as it hits the water.

I think the hardest part about this project was going all around the island to get our time-lapses and slow-mo's. It was difficult to find the time to do it. However, it was very fun. For one of my time-lapses, I went to the top of a mountain with two of my friends and it was a lot of fun. Tiring, but fun. It was also the first time I went to the top of that mountain. For another one of my time-lapses, I went to the west side with Shaday and Ashley. We all got a really nice sunset and we also got to swim. We did this right after hiking that mountain too so swimming was very well earned in my opinion. I did fall during the hike and got a few cuts which made it difficult to swim in salty ocean water. Overall, getting all the footage was difficult but really fun.

In class, we did a critique of everyones video and chose whether our videos were a 4, 3, 2, or a 1. 20 people seem to have given me a 4 and 7 gave me a 3. Luckily, I didn't get any 2's or 1's. I think I would have to agree with this. I mean I didn't think I would do this well in the first place so seeing this kind of surprised me. I did wake up at 5am in the morning for this project and go all the way to the west side for this. I seem to do a lot because a GT. I'm glad all that tiring work payed off because I got a quite a few 4's. I retook a lot of these videos which took my multiple days to get the actual ones I wanted. I'm just hoping I get an A for this class. 

Poetic Personal Statement

Its a new school year and our last year of GT. Its sad, and we'll all miss it but because its our last year, we will defiantly make it the best. The first project of GT is to create a poetic personal statement. I think poetry is a way of expressing your feelings and emotions through meaningful words. Poetry can be used to inspire or motivate others. It can also be used to tell a story. Poetry can be personal because it can describe someones feelings. It could be something the writer feels and is meaningful to them. It can also be personal to the reader if they feel the same way the writer does or if the poetry reminds them of something or someone close to them. It is a creative way to express feeling through words.

An awkward and strange person
Easily stressed making situations worsen
Trying my best to succeed
Staying focused is what I need
When I'm with friends, I enjoy myself
Other times, I grab a book from the bookshelf
I see myself in my own way
Which is how I make it through day after day


In my poetic personal statement, I decided to use a rhyme every line. I seem to doubt myself a lot so writing this poem was rather difficult. I thought rhyming would help me come up with more things to say. For example, when I used the word person, it helped my think of the next line because I thought of worsen, which rhymes, of course. When I wrote the poem, I had no idea what I was writing about. When I used rhymes, it seemed to help me a lot with coming up with ideas. Still, I don't really know what the topic specifically was in my poem, but in general it's about me I guess.