Creativity & Activity LO2 (01/19/20) Reflection & Growth from Documentary Filmmaking

As I had hoped to get to do in this term, I was able to grow my repertoire of skills and build on my past experiences working with professional music recording equipment Adobe Premiere Pro. Due to my experience with recording equipment from making music and interning in a recording studio, I really wanted to learn more about the process of recording and how to use the audio equipment. I learned how to set up and handle the microphones, audio recorders, and microphone boom to use in the filming of my group's documentary. Our documentary was an interview with a husband and wife who own local bars and cafes in the area. During the whole process, our group faced many unforeseen obstacles. We faced difficulties when scheduling the interview, shooting the whole interview in the wrong framing, and spending hours trying to get rid of the background noise and music that was playing in the cafe. However, we worked to the best of our abilities to find a solution to all of the challenges that we faced and persevered. It was a very tedious process and although our documentary was not of the same calibre as the ones we had watched, we all still felt proud to call it ours and now know what factors and potential issues to plan for in the future.

                                    

                                                

                                    


                                    

Creativity & Activity- (01/07/20) LO4 Documentary Filmmaking pt. 2

On the first day of the course, we watched a documentary about filming documentaries. Through this film, we were able to learn about different styles of documentaries. We also watched a few videos that explained the different types of shots that are used in films. Both of these activities would give us the right tools under our belts to allow us to plan and make our own documentaries.

Today is the second day of the filmmaking term. Today, we dipped our toes into what it is like to film a documentary. Before we start to film our actual documentaries, we worked on some short 60-second docs to get some experience with using the cameras and film equipment, how to successfully interview someone, and editing footage. To understand how to structure a short documentary, we looked at a few 60-second documentaries on YouTube. When most people hear the word documentary, they imagine a longer film with a lot of detail on the subject so it was interesting to see how documentaries can be short and sweet. For the documentaries we made today, we each interviewed each other in the school and had to find solutions to work around challenges that we might encounter as documentary filmmakers. One of the unforeseen challenges that we had to work around today was figuring out the lighting. We had planned to use the lighting equipment that the IB film class usually uses. However, the equipment was nowhere to be found so we had to try and figure out places in the school where the lighting was good enough to film. Normally if you want good lighting, you can film in the sunlight outside but the constant drone of the Houston traffic on 59 keeps us from being able to capture audio outside of the building. When making our 60-second docs, Ms. Harrison had us incorporate a few different shots and cuts that are often used in interviews. These are the close-up shot, extreme close-up shot, wide shot, and a cutaway shot. A cutaway is basically when the audio from one clip plays while the video from a different clip is transitioned in or out. This is sometimes explained as a scene away from the action or subject. Using the cutaway shot was useful for some students to get the video taken outside in the sunlight while the audio from the interview plays. Each of our interviews turned out quite differently but at the end of class we all sat down together to watch and critique the lighting, framing, cuts, and editing of each of our documentaries.  After today, we now know what to look for when choosing how we film our scenes. Although the editing was a little stressful it was really fun to see how each mini-documentary turned out.

Activity- LO4 (03/31/21) Jiu-Jitsu & Kickboxing in the Dojo

Over the past two weeks, I have been learning jiu-jitsu and kickboxing. Although I have sustained quite a few injuries and may have a broken thumb, it has been a really good experience for me and has challenged me to be in better physical and mental shape. One of the highlights of my time in the dojo was when we received our jiu-jitsu robes which are called gi. Gi means uniform in Japanese and is the word used to describe the uniforms in most forms of martial arts. The gi are white and made of a thick material which allows for better grip when performing jiu-jitsu holds and takedowns. However, our uniforms would not be complete without a belt. The very first belt awarded in jiu-jitsu is the white belt. We all received our white belt after completing three acts of kindness outside of our training that showed selflessness. Although it is only the first belt, it still felt very rewarding to receive my belt from the instructors.

Receiving our White Belts

The most challenging aspect of the course for me was performing the jiu-jitsu takedowns and holds. Memorizing the movements and performing everything correctly while making sure not to harm my partner was quite challenging. The rear-naked choke was the first chokehold that we learned and can be used to prevent blood from flowing to an attacker's head, causing them to pass out. To ensure nobody accidentally took a choke-induced slumber, each person and their partner made sure that they could tap out of the choke. This chokehold can be performed from the ground or standing position and can be learned by anybody. The other takedowns and chokes were not so easy but I know that the training is helping me get in better shape based on how sore I am after completing our introductory course!

Creativity- LO2 (02/17/21) Camping from Home

 To be quite honest, this week has been a living hell for many of us in Houston. With the mass amount of homes without power, running water, and shortages of bottled water throughout Houston and throughout the state of Texas, many people I know have been freezing and hungry in their own homes. Two days ago, our power which had already gone out earlier in the week, once again went out. This time for around 26 hours. Keep in mind, that this happened during a week in which the weather was actually cold for once. We had snow here for the first time in a few years, and the whole state seemed completely unprepared. Although my family was bundled up with our winter clothes on, we were freezing and had no way of warming up besides the fireplace that we had never touched since we moved in. Since we have a cat and don't have a grate for our fireplace, I had to create a makeshift barrier to prevent the cat's curiosity from getting her burned before we lit the fireplace. Once the fireplace was lit, we were able to warm up a little bit but not by much. By this time, we had a boil water advisory and little to no water pressure from any of the sinks or toilets. However, we still had gas in our stove which let us cook a few things like instant ramen and heat up leftover soup from last week. About 6 hours into the day, my mother started to show signs of hypothermia or carbon monoxide poisoning and was panicking so we decided to book her a hotel room in town, where there was still power and running water. Until then, we had to take her out for a ride in the car so she could get fresh air and warm up. This helped her to feel better which was good since my dad and I were getting really worried. I decided to stay at home to make sure the cat and house were alright. I decided to try and make the best out of the situation and have a little fun so I grabbed a tent from the garage and set it up in the office downstairs. I had never set up a tent before so it took me a while to get the tent up. Surprisingly, the tent actually helped me to warm up by staying in there. I grabbed my sleeping bag, and guitar and camped out in my house for a few hours; pretending the whole time that I was camping in a forest. However, because of this, I now know how to set up a tent and how to stay warm in the cold.  By nighttime, I moved back up to my room to play some guitar in the candlelight. This was pretty fun and helped me to relax and calm myself down a little bit. When the power came back on I was ecstatic! The first thing I did was run to the fridge and heat up the leftovers that I had been wanting to eat since the other day.

Activity LO3 (01/23/21)- Birthday Outing and Skateboarding

 Today was my birthday! Besides renewing my license earlier this week, I had not really gone out to do anything outside of the house for a while. Today, I decided to ask a few friends if they wanted to meet up with me to go skateboarding in Houston. I grabbed my board and drove into Houston to meet them to grab some lunch before we went skateboarding. I decided to take them to Jus' Mac, a great spot that I have been going to since I was a little kid. After we grabbed a bite to eat, we headed over to the museum district and brought our boards with us. Since I had learned kickflips a few months ago, I wanted to practice this trick today while we rode around the smooth new concrete surrounding the MFAH and Glassel school of art. Unfortunately, just riding around on the sidewalk got us kicked out in the first five minutes that we were there. However, we still got a good workout and skateboarding session by skating around the area and found a parking lot where we could practice tricks and doing grinds on the curb. Although I fell a few times, it is a part of the sport and only helps me to overcome fear when trying new tricks and feel more comfortable both riding and falling off my board. By going down the steep ramps in a parking garage or trying to land a trick off of a jump or ledge, you learn how to keep calm while under pressure and also enjoy the thrill when succeeding at trying something that requires you to take a risk. I feel like once I started the sport again, I have been able to feel more confident with trying new things and also being myself. I also feel like skateboarding has allowed me to be able to better conquer my fears. I think this is because, in skateboarding, you are constantly having a mental battle to try new tricks or obstacles. It was a really fun day and I'm glad that I was able to plan a day outside with my friends.

Creativity LO5 (12/26/20)- Holiday Cooking

 Recently, I have been trying to improve my skills in the kitchen. Last week, I found a picture of my great aunt's family mac & cheese recipe that I hadn't made in over a year. It is by far the best mac & cheese recipe in the world and I have not met one person who doesn't agree with that statement. Although it is fun to make, it took me quite a long time and a lot of work grating cheese to prep all of the ingredients, cook the pasta, make the sauce, and bake all of it in the oven. However, it is worth any amount of time to make the food of gods and it turned out better than any of the previous times I had made it. Today, I wanted to try cooking something else. This time, I would be baking some sugar cookies with the help of my girlfriend. Since neither of us had made them by ourselves before, we went through some recipes and picked out one that looked good and pretty straightforward. We got to work prepping and getting all of the ingredients that we needed. It was nice to have someone else to cook with since we could each work on prepping different ingredients and help each other. While I cracked the eggs, she worked on measuring out the sugar and flour. After getting the dough ready and onto the pan we put them in the oven. The first batch was pretty good but like always the second batch was better. After they came out of the oven, we put homemade almond icing that we had made on one batch. Unfortunately, we went through them pretty quickly. I guess more help when cooking means less food when you're done.

Activity- LO2 (11//20) Skateboarding and Setting Goals

    In the past few months, I have been skateboarding quite a lot. I have been able to relearn a few tricks that I had learned a couple years ago but had lost due to not skateboarding for a while. One of the first tricks that you learn on a skateboard is an ollie. It is when you pop the tail against the ground, drag your board up with your front foot, and jump with your board simultaneously. Although I know how to ollie, I have been struggling with ollieing over bigger obstacles. So today, I worked only on improving my basics and trying to get a higher ollie. I immediately tried ollieing over a big cardboard box with no success. I realized that I needed to start off with smaller obstacles and gradually ease myself into ollieing over bigger ones since a large part of the trick is training your mind and overcoming the fear in your head. I started off with doing the trick over a crack in my driveway then worked my way up to a hat, basketball, and eventually the cardboard box. Using this strategy was really helpful as it broke down my goal of ollieing over the box into smaller achievable steps. I think that this is a good strategy to have for any goal in life. Since I sometimes struggle with getting larger assignments done for school, I want to implement the same strategy of breaking my work down into smaller and more gradual steps. If I can do this, I think my schoolwork and work habits could improve drastically and better prepare me for the times when there are a lot of big IB assignments due.