Digital Story: FINITO!

For the first time, I finished a project on time (or before the due date since the quarter hasn't ended yet). I am so proud of myself. But just like there's an up, there is also a down. For the millionth time, I was once again late to Mrs. Weigand's class. I am always making poor Mrs. Weigand get up from her seat...
I'll work on that.

Digital Story Reflection

Digital Story Reflection

For this project, we were to take pictures from home or the Internet to create a story that narrates something that happened in our life. It did not necessarily have to be about anything super special, just as long as it was a story and had some type of meaning to you. The “rules” of this project was that your story had to be at the least one minute long and have at least six pictures. You were also encouraged to record your own voice instead of just having pictures or words popping up on the screen. In addition, having background music was not a requirement, but I personally think it makes your whole movie much better and more interesting.

My digital story is about myself growing up combined with my Sweet 16 (since having a Sweet 16 symbolizes growing up from a girl to a young lady). In the whole process of completing this project, I mainly had in mind my parents, especially my mother because she is a really special person in my life. I just thought it would be a good idea to dedicate something like this to her knowing that she has done so much for me. Also, I want to show my parents that ever since I was little, yes, they did do a good job. The images I used to create my story were mainly from my Sweet 16 because that was a very specific event that people would easily recognize and know what I’m talking about. I also included some pictures from when I was a toddler because I was showing the process of myself growing up.

The reason for why I chose the theme of my story to be growing up/my Sweet 16 is because it was a very important event that happened to me and also for my parents. Like I mentioned before, I wanted to dedicate this project to my parents (especially to my mom) because they have done so much for me. I think that for any girl who wants a Sweet 16 or Quinceñera (Spanish Sweet 15) it’s an important event because it means a lot to them and their parents.

I think I did really well on this project. The only thing I would change is the audio. The song was perfect for my theme but I felt that at times, the song would overpower the audio of my voice; you can still hear what I am saying though. Besides that, I would say everything else went smoothly… At first, I had trouble coming up with the lines that I was going to say for my movie, but after putting up my pictures, the story came easily to me.

I really liked using iMovie. I learned how simple it was to make movies on my own using my very own pictures or other pictures from the internet. If you’re big on making videos (like myself), it comes handy when posting things on sites like YouTube. I am so sad that my Digital Media class will soon be over. I enjoyed having this class so much because I learned how to use an Apple computer and also how to use all the cool programs you can install on there. I think the most useful thing that I learned and will definitely use in the future is iMovie. I would love to learn how to add all sorts of different effects on there and later on post my videos on sites like YouTube, Tumblr, and Blogger. I really like singing so I hope that in the future I will be able to use iMovie to posts some of my own videos.

Growing Up

Frustrations Lead To Eating... Chocolate Cake

I am baking my frustrations away!
I am making German chocolate cake.

The Two Songs!

So I was stuck in trying to decide which song I should use for my project. I finally narrowed it down to the songs I just posted; I'm going to go with My Wish, by Rascal Flatts.

My wish~Rascal Flatts w/ lyrics

There You'll Be ~ Faith Hill

Finishing Up

I am finishing up my digital story/movie project. So far, this is one of my favorite projects.

A Nervous Wreck

I am super nervous about my driving test today. Right now, I am actually shaking while trying to type, it's that bad. What made me this nervous? Learning that I have to make a 3-point turn on the test today...

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE...
I really like the current project we are working on in Digital Media class.

Because My Brain Is Wired Differently...

...I can't start off by writing my story. First, I have to see all my pictures, add my music, and then finally, come up with a story. I work backwards and the hard way is usually the easy way for me. I wrote my "story" but it honestly sucks, and it is super cheesy. I am upset; what am I to do?

Photographic Truth

Photographic Truth Reflection

            This quarter’s assignment was called “Photographic Truth”. The point of this assignment was to pick a theme, find pictures related to that, and then insert your own pictures of yourself in those pictures. The point was to get people to think/look twice at the picture because they couldn’t believe you were in there because you made it so believable.  

                  The first thing you needed in order to do this project is find a theme that you wanted to use. The teacher suggested that you use a historical theme so that it can be relatable to other students. After you found a theme for the project, next you were to go online and find pictures of that theme. For example, I searched for pictures from the Beatles and Rolling Stones since that was the theme I chose to do. After you found your pictures, you were to take pictures of yourself in different poses that you chose that would fit in with each of your pictures.

                  To me, the phrase “photographic truth” means that not all the pictures you see are necessarily true. With the technology that we have available to us, we have to be careful with what we see; it is very simple to insert things to the real pictures and still make it look believable. The technology of today is amazing.

                  The theme for my project was 1960s music, and the two popular icons of this time are the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I had to do a lot of work in order to try to make my pictures look believable. I mainly dealt with color and texture for all my pictures. The tools I used for this project were the magnetic lasso, the crop tool, the move tool, the stamp tool, the magic wand, and the burn tool. I had to adjust the color by going to image, adjustments, and variations. To replace the color I went to image, adjustments, replace color. These were the main tools I used to complete my project. It sounds really simple, but this project actually took time and over all patience.

                  The reason for why I chose to do this theme was because I really like music, and the Beatles and Rolling Stones are one of those bands that don’t necessarily die out but are still alive with the youth of today. Another reason for why I chose this theme was because I would have loved to go back into the time when they were really popular. I would have loved to also sing along with them and travel. Putting myself in those pictures was a way for me to symbolize my presence with them. If I couldn’t be there in real life, at least I could be there in picture form. The thought of me being with these two bands is fun and really cool to me.

                 What I have learned about this project is that not all pictures that we see (especially on the internet) are true. Today it is very easy to change a picture and make it seem like something else was really happening. Something new that I learned to do in this project is to better use the stamp tool and to also change the color of my own pictures so that it matches with other pictures. Like I said before, this sounds really easy but can actually be a hard and tedious task. This was an assignment that I really did like. I learned something else to do on the amazing Apple computers. At the beginning I was frustrated that I could not think of a theme, but after I had a theme, everything else was good. I did find this project to be difficult because I really wanted the pictures to look believable. I did think I was successful in this project. Although you can tell where I am in each picture, I thought that I did a good job matching the colors and textures. If another person who did not know anything about the Beatles or Rolling Stones, I think they would very much believe that I was in the pictures. If I were to do this assignment all over again and had more time, I would work a little bit more on the color and trying to clean up the edges of each of my own pictures. Although you can’t really tell that much, these are things that I would like to perfect.