Thursday, September 17, 2015

Comedy Writing


We have just started a new project, this is a comedic monologue project. It is important to have a sense of humor because this project might be easier to you than others because of it. If you are adjusted to being humorous in front of others, it will be easy for you to record your monologue or to write it. However, for others, like me, it is a littler harder to come up with a funny monologue. Another reason a humorous trait is important is because everyone loves a little comedy sometimes. Having a humorous trait can really help in a project like this.

Now I will explain five tips for writing a humorous narrative. I don't find my narrative humorous so I'm not sure how helpful this will be. First tip is to help you come up with an idea. First, racial jokes aren't always funny to everyone, especially if its making fun of them, so try to avoid that. Second, a good idea is to make fun of yourself rather than others. Telling a humorous story that happened in your life can be very funny. Third, another idea is to be sarcastic. If you find something annoying, you can say you like it, just make sure your sounding sarcastic so they audience knows what your doing. For example, my project is about how I absolutely LOVE when I ask someone a question and they say "Its your choice." This could be funny depending on how your tone of voice is. If you sound like you genuinely love it then no one will get it. If you read it in a sad tone, they will get the wrong idea. If sarcastic is what your are going for, them make sure you sound sarcastic. Fourth, when telling a joke make sure its not to long or short. For example, if my joke was REALLY long then the audience would fall asleep in the middle of it. If its too short, its just not as funny so if you have a really good joke that's too short, just try to add a few more words. Fifth, nonsense. A lot of people find a lot of jokes funny just because its just dumb or obvious or just plane simple. But, if you do decide to do a joke like this, make sure it makes just a little sense. If you were to say something like, "Why did the pickle cross the road? To kill the turkey's pork chop!" then, well, not many people would find that funny because it sounds like you just thought of it right then and there without giving it any thought. Although another tip is not put TOO much thought into it. It you put too much thought in anything it will turn into a disaster. Anyway, an example of a dumb joke is this. There was a plane at the airport and a service truck was approaching it. Then, the truck hit the plane. A guy then came along and said "Good thing it didn't hit the plane while it was in the air." You probably didn't funny but it followed that last step, also that was a true story by the way... Anyway, an example of a simple joke is "Did you hear the joke about my bed? No? That's because I didn't make it yet." That one make me laugh when I saw it. It was posted on Google+ by one of the GT eighth graders. But, those are all my tips to writing a comedic monologue, hope you find them useful. I also hope you enjoy my joke monologue that I will post in about two weeks. Oh! I almost forgot, one of the most obvious tips I have is to not mess up. When ever I tell I tell a joke I ALWAYS mess up, so make sure you don't.

Now to explain my comedic monologue. As I said in the last paragraph, my topic is when you ask someone a question and they say "I don't know, its your choice." I don't find it funny because it is my own comedic monologue but who knows, maybe someone in my class will. Anyway I remember when I was thinking of an idea i had no idea at all. My mind was blank. But luckily Kyla came over to help me. Her monologue is about how she absolutely LOVES homework. Her monologue is sarcastic that's where I got the idea to do a sarcastic monologue myself. She asked me what I don't like or what annoys me and I sat and thought for a moment. I remembered the day before, I was ranting to my brother about how much I hate when I ask someone a question and they say "It's your choice". So then I came up with my topic. I asked Kyla what her thoughts were and she said she finds it quite annoying herself so I decided to do it. I have to explain to how its funny so I'll try. I think my monologue is funny because its sarcastic. I think sarcastic is pretty funny. Well that's the end of this blog post, in about two weeks another will be up and most likely with my monologue in it. See you then! Also before I go I just wanted to say that if you don't recognize the two girls in that GIF then that's Ashley Ricciardi and Myself. 

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Motivational Poster


We are working on a new project and in this project we must create a motivational poster. In this poster we must include our personal quotes, manifesto, symbols, and more. We must have a portrait picture of our selves and three pictures of our personal symbols. We also need two text layers. The first will have my manifesto and the other will have my personal quotes. With these two text layers we must fill the whole page and there can not be any blank space. Now for the design requirements. We have to do some kerning so the text will fit the page. We also must use a "triadic color scheme". By this I mean we need our own three colors that we must use in our project. I chose a greenish turquoise, a purple and magenta kind of color, and a kind of dark yellow. The yellow isn't very visible though. Another thing we need is visual balance and adjustment layers.

To start off our first Photoshop project of the year, we had to first, of course, create a new document. Next, we had to copy and paste our manifesto and personal quotes that we came up with a few weeks ago. After that we started kerning our words to make them fit the page. After about a day of kerning, we added in the images in the background. Three of the images are symbols that symbolize our selves. The fourth picture was a portrait of our selves. After we added in all the images we got back to kerning. Kerning took up the most of the time we worked on this. The next step was to add color! We had to have a stroke, bevel and emboss, outer glow, and a drop shadow effect on our text. Then we needed to add the color by using a triadic color scheme. The last step was to play with the color balance to match the color scheme. After that we just needed to turn them in and finally, we were finished.


In my opinion, Photoshop is an amazing program but, when it comes to projects and due dates, it can get pretty stressful. I find Photoshop projects to be challenging so there not exactly my favorite thing to work with but I still find it fun. This was the first project of the year so I didn't expect many people to finish, including  me, but somehow I managed to turn it in on time. I ended up getting a four out of four grade and I agree with that because I worked really hard and tried my best to meet all the requirements. The thing I found challenging the most was kerning. Kerning took the longest and that's probably why some people didn't finish. I went in during recess and lunch a lot so I think that's why I finished on time. I also tried not to be absent at all so I wouldn't be behind. Another thing I did that Mr. Sanderl said to do was to kern one line at a time. This was a very, very, stressful project because it was our first. To make it even worse, it was due on the day of mid - quarter. So that means anything and everything we turned in from the first day of school, to that day, counted as our grade. Of course mid - quarter grades don't matter that much but still, I know everyone in GT wants a good grade weather its mid - quarter or not. GT can cause us to stress, but it is fun and so worth it. To prevent myself from stressing way to much, I just think of my friends. As cheesy as it sounds, its true. My friends are always there either to help me get my job done or to help me recover from my sadness of getting a bad grade. I guess thats how I solve all of my GT stress issues. Overall, I think this project was pretty fun, but I can't  wait until our group projects come along.