A Day in Silver Spring

For this challenge, I decided to do a montage of shots I filmed while roaming around my neighborhood. I compiled a good list of shots throughout the life of the assignment  but once I went in to edit the shots, all of them were gone. Apparently, something happened to our computer and all my shots were lost. Now, I had a total of one day to both edit and get new shots. With the limited time, I decided to use my phone instead of my camera to film. I filmed the sky in the morning, the drive to Sunday School, some kids at recess at Sunday School, the drive back from Sunday School, a local field in my neighborhood, and then the sky at night. After I got all of these shots, I started editing them using VideoPad, but then the program decided to spazz out. I lost all my work, yet again, and I had to start a new project with 3 hours until this assignment was due. Lastly, when I finally fixed all the glitches, all my text overlays stopped working. Therefore, I had to take snapshots and insert them in. The fact that my computer was acting extremely slow didn't help. This is not my best work, but it was the best I could do given the circumstances. I really enjoyed the idea of the challenge, but I regret that I wasn't able to embrace it. Now I fully understand the meaning of, "What can go wrong, will go wrong."

Super Size Me

For my documentary analysis, I watched Super Size Me, which follows a guy named Morgan Spurlock around for 30 days as he eats nothing but McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I chose this documentary because, first of all, there's the movie poster in the classroom. Also, I eat fast food, not a lot, but enough to be interested in the effects it has on you.

After watching the documentary, I was surprised at the effects eating McDonalds had on Spurlock. Of course the results are a bit exaggerated because, hopefully, no person eats McDonalds for all three meals every single day, but they were still worrying.

The documentary didn't have any fancy editing or lighting, which gives it a home movie style, which gave it a realistic, personal feel to it where everything seemed real. To transition from one topic to the next, Spurlock uses art picturing McDonalds in a very negative way.

Super Size Me was definitely both an expository and interactive documentary, as Spurlock is trying to inform us about the harms of McDonalds, but he is the main focus of the film. The main sounds are diegetic and narration. Spurlock is the narrator, and the diegetic sounds are used when he is in McDonalds or talking to the doctor.

At the end, Spurlock uses text tracks to tell the story of what happened after his documentary was released about how his health progressed and other useful information. In the text track, it says that McDonalds removed the SuperSize option after this was released, but denies that it was as a result of the documentary. Despite the denial, I still think the documentary had something to do with this decision which surprises me, because I wouldn't think a documentary would have that huge of an effect.

Spurlock uses fades to transition from one shot to the next, which worked because it was a subtle reminder of a shot change.

Spurlock sometimes used low-key lighting for a purpose. For instance, when he was not feeling very good, he would use darker places to shoot while when he was eating, it would usually be in high-key.

Overall, this documentary was very effective. Will I stop eating McDonalds? Ehh, probably not. Will it make me think twice about eating McDonalds often? Most definitely. 

Pressure

The stress that comes from school is always being talked about, and I have used it as a go to topic whenever one was needed, but now is when I'm really feeling it. This year has been a huge stressor, and I can see it in my friends as well. We are always tired, and always working. Me and Rachel were talking the other day about the amount of things we do, just to get the tiniest bit closer to being recognized in college. We both do sports year round, and we both take high level classes from CAP to Honors PreCalc to Honors Chem, as do a lot of people we know. The amount of time that these courses and activities take up are a lot, but we both hoped that it would all pay off in the future.

The problem is, we can't always guarantee that everything we do will pay off in the future, which is unfortunate. Sometimes, it just has to do with luck. 

Documentary Topics

Oh gosh, time for the picking of documentary topics. There were so many good ideas presented in class that I don't know which one I want to do yet. Maybe I should do a profile on my friend's dad who is a former NFL player and now owns an investment company. Or maybe I could do it on the conceptions of beauty, where I could go around and interview people in the school about what beauty means to them. Hmm, or maybe I could do it on the immense pressure that students feel to do well in school since that is accessible. OR I could do a documentary about how sports affect people's lives.

There are just so many things that I am interested in, that I can't decide on one topic. I can visualize what each of these would look like, but, unfortunately yet fortunately, I can't do all the topics. I guess I will have to decide sooner or later. But my top three are probably:

1. Profile on my friend's dad
2. Conceptions of Beauty
3. Pressure in School

Those aren't in any particular order.

Fallen Leaves

This is my Capture the Fall project. I had much more fun doing this project rather than the 5x5 independent film project since this one was more challenging and involved more creativity. This project gave me a chance to be artsy since it, to me, involved nature. I filmed it with a Canon T3 and I think it came out pretty nice. This is one of the first project/assignment that I haven't procrastinated on in a LONG time. I was actually excited to do this project since photography is a passion of mine, as is video editing. I also got the chance to play around with the video on my T3 which I haven't done much in the past.

The film spots ended up being random places I went throughout the time of the project. Since I take my camera practically everywhere, I was able to take it out whenever I saw an opportunity for a good shot. I filmed outside my house, at my mosque, at my cousins' house, and random places on the road. I had a lot of other shots that I felt were strong but I couldn't include them since they didn't have to do with leaves.

I used a video editor called VideoPad since I heard the YouTube editor was basic and I didn't like my past experience with wevideo. VideoPad was surprisingly user friendly and it gave me good results.

The ending of the project was a bit chaotic. I had started off using a song called New Soul, but then I realized I had to use Creative Commons. I hastily found a song to use and it actually ended up fitting in well with the video.

Overall this was a fun project, and I look forward to future video challenges.

End of Quarter Numero Uno

Quarter One is FINALLY over.



Many people have warned me about sophomore year and the stress that comes with it, but I never paid it much mind. Walking into it, however, was a completely different story.

The quarter has been extremely stressful, yet I could never pinpoint the actual cause of this stress. I did know, however, that school was definitely a part of it. No matter how hard I tried, I could never organize my schedule. I got home from practice at 6:30 but due to dinner and showering, I wouldn't be able to start my homework until 7:30, that being the earliest.

The end of the quarter was the most stressful. We had two days off due to the hurricane, and I only had three days to bring my grades up. In addition to improving my grades, I also needed to meet several deadlines, such as the Dystopian Trailer.

In addition to that, procrastination is also a problem I have. I tend to procrastinate more than I should, and this also added to the stress. Going into the second quarter, I need to learn how to better manage my time through Ms. Cullen's calendar technique and through to do lists.

I also need to find time to study and revise, as I find myself coming into tests without having had studied due to no time.

All in all, it was quite a quarter that I learned a few lessons from, that I will definitely apply going into second quarter... hopefully.

Eid

Friday was Eid-al-adha, a Muslim holiday. This is a day of celebration including food, friends, and family. My Eid turned out great, and it was definitely the best Eid I've experienced in a long time.

First, I had to wake up at 6:00 am to get ready to go to the mosque for the first prayer. This was a bit annoying since it was supposed to be my day off, but I was waking up early anyway. But,surprisingly, I felt very awake. At the mosque, I saw a couple of friends from school and spent some time talking to them after prayer.

After that, my dad and I went to get new tires for his car and get them aligned. Immediately after, we went to  my uncle's house to visit my cousins since their dad was in Saudi Arabia making the pilgrimage called Hajj. Once there, we had fun laughing and eating.

After a while, us kids got bored while the adults talked so we decided to go outside and roam around the playground since it was such a beautiful day. At the playground, I got some footage for the new independent film project about what fall means to me. I also took some pictures of my cousins acting crazy at the playground.

Later, after we left my cousins' house, I went to the last Varsity volleyball game at Northwood. Although we lost, it was such an interesting game. I was also able to see my fellow JV teammates at the game which was also fun. We all lost our voices from cheering too much.

After I left the game, I went to my other cousins' house. There were a bunch of us here, and the more cousins the better. We played computer games, we played Xbox games such as NBA 2K13 and dance central. We also had some cake, and I LOVE cake with all my heart.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted. I got home, changed, and passed out on my bed.

This day was just the break I needed. I've been so stressed lately that this was a nice breather. I also learned the value of friends and family. The reason my day turned out so great is because I was able to spend it with them. I also realized how much of a community the Muslim community is. I felt immediately at home once I reached the mosque as multiple "Assalaamu Alaikums" and "Eid Mubaraks" were thrown around.