Verbal Landscapes

Hi everyone! This is the 2nd project of my 2nd GT Year! This time in GT, we are doing time lapsed nature videos! Nature impacts my life in many ways. For example, nature really helped me when I was younger, I constantly used to climb trees in my backyard, go on hikes, run around in the field. If it wasn't for nature, I would have been inside my house all day, only playing video games (Specifically the PVP ones.) To sum it all up, nature kept me physically active (although not even close to being athletic) when I was younger, specifically ages 6 - 9. Plus, doing activities like exploring caves and hiking got me to spend time with my family, which is way more preferable then spending days playing virtual games.

Time lapses is when you take a large amount of video, lets say 15 minutes. Then you will compact the video together, which can optionally turn a 15 minute video into something as short as 5 minutes, or if you want, a 1 minute video! Slow-mos are literally the exact opposite of a Time lapse. Slow-mos is slowing down the video to make it longer, while a time lapse speeds up the video. Plus, slow-mos makes the video longer, such as turning a 15 minute video to 30 minutes, etc. However, time lapses require bigger film, if you were to speed a time lapse up, you will most likely need a good amount of film to still have a normal amount. Since if you speed up a time lapse fast enough, a 15 minute time lapse can being a 1 minute film.

The hardest part of this project was most likely finding a good area to take your time lapse or slow-mo. For example, I had to go to the beach at a "odd" hour to avoid anyone swimming or walking in front of the camera. Another hard part of taking time lapses and slow mo-s is getting the right time of day. Such as a sunset, a sunrise, or even a normal afternoon. Plus, you would need to watch out for clouds, since it would be really dreadful for it to start raining right in the middle of a 15 minute time lapse. My favorite part of taking time lapses and slow-mo's was waiting while the camera was filming. This really gave me time to get familiar with a different type of camera, especially some of the controls I didn't know about. Such as the record button.

In my critique, I was voted to receive a 3 out of 4, which would be a B. I believe this was a fair grade, since my project really wasn't exceptional to the standards of the rubric. For example, I didn't really read my poem with expression in my voice over, and some of my horizon lines were tilted. Plus,  I could have waited for better times to take the time lapses, such as when the sun is high over the camera, or when the sun is rising or setting. However, it really did help getting rated one of the best videos.

Poetic Personal Statement

Hi everyone! Summer just ended and I am back in the Gifted and Talented program! Our first project for 2016 - 2017 GT is a Poetic Personal Statement. I think poetry is a very interesting and mysterious art. Poets tend to precisely tell a story or/and express feelings through a fluent, well thought paragraphs. Famous people, such as William Shakespeare did poetry to express their feelings or write about past experiences. Poetry also has a appealing fluency to it, (it rhymes). To sum it all up, Poetry is a way for someone to express their feelings in writing form.

The ocean breeze around me, shooting from the north sea.
I walk around my house, carefree.
Ocean waves pounding across the sand from the bay.
Ideas around me, bright as the day.
My imagination taking flight, despite the fights.
My soul peaceful, blocking out all types of evil. 

In my poetic statement (above), I used rhyme by rhyming the last word of every sentence. For example, I would say something like "I live by the bay. The time is day.". To help me with that I used a website called Rhyme Zone where you can give it a word and it will generate words that rhyme with that certain word. If I were to put in the word rhyme, words like slime would come up.