Hi guys! So I thought it would be good to give a project update, because since the last project update, we have gotten our script approved, and started filming. Except for turning  our script in on Tuesday (Instead of Monday, like we had planned) everything went just like we wanted it to! We filmed at my house and in my neighborhood on Wenesday, and we just need to film a little more at my house (which we are planning to do on Tuesday) and then the rest we can film the rest at school. I think we are on track, and if we keep it up, we'll meet the deadline with a great project!

This year in media, I have grown a lot in my skills and abilities, and have also learned many important lessons- lessons that have given me more knowledge and experience, and that I can use not only in media, but in school, and life in general. I think all of the lessons I've learned are all VERY important, and crucial to have in life, but when asked what the MOST important lesson I've learned this year is, I would have to say, without a doubt, it is to always try your best/hardest.

Now, most likely all of your life you've been told always to try your best (or at least I have). But I think lots of times (well, this has happened to me) is you do something that's kind of hard to do, and it turns out okay, and even if you have the time or opportunity to do it again, you don't want to. This happened with both my Bethany Hamilton project and my Third Quarter PSA. You see, with the Bethany Hamilton project, after Bethany's interview with the really bad sound, we had the opportunity too try to call Bethany again and ask her to redo the interview (which would be very embarrassing and take up our time, if she did agree) or just stick with the interview we had, which was obviously the easier and more...temping choice. We chose to ask Bethany again, and miraculously, she said yes. A similar thing happened with my PSA. After filming it the first time, I realized their were some errors that could be fixed, and even though my PSA was not bad, it was far from amazing. So, although it took up two more days of my weekend, I filmed it, not once, but twice again. I'm just so lucky that I have such awesome friends that took time out of their own weekend to help me film my PSA three times!

So, those are just two examples of how I went back and tried my best in the Media Class this year.  And I'm so thankful I did, because it really paid off. I mean, our Bethany Hamilton news story aired on Hiki No (twice!), and my PSA was a finalist in the 2013 Olelo Youth XChange! When I look back, I think it's so crazy that if I chose to be lazy and just not ask Bethany for a second interview, or refilm my PSA, things like being on Hiki No, and a finalist at Olelo would have never happened! So, doing your best and going above and beyond to make your work great is a really huge lesson I learned this year. Put simply, and how Mr. M likes to say it, is changing things from "good to great".

As I mentioned earlier, all the lessons I've learned this year can be used not just in media, but in all areas of life. The important lesson of always doing your best and being willing to change things from good to great is especially an important one, because well, anyone can do a good, average job, but it's the people that are willing to go above and beyond and make things great that stand out. I am going to use this skill in family life, friend life, work life, and school life :)

Overall, you can see how doing your best and changing things from good to great has been an important lesson for me this year. It's a lesson that I'm excited to use in all areas of my life, and also continue to use in media.

For the past few months, some of my friends or people I  know have told me that they applied to the Advanced Media Productions Class, and have asked me how hard it is. And my answer to them was that it all depends. If you're motivated love what you're doing, I think it makes the class a whole lot easier (and fun, for that matter!), but if you're not motivated and hate the project you're working on, well, let's just say that would not make the class any easier.

However, I wish I had also told them that there are skills that are important to have in the class. One of them is perseverance. Believe me, it's harder than it looks to make a video (or at least a quality video), and sometimes it will not be easy and you might feel like giving up. That's why if you have perseverance, and don't let hardships get you, you will be able to succeed. Another important skill to have is good communication. A lot that you have to do in media deals with communication, whether it's talking to someone to schedule an interview, or recording radios, or even writing the scripts for a news story in a way that can be clearly understood, so communication is a very good skill to have. Lastly, I think an important thing to have in Media is flexibility. This means that you are able to stay in and take some time to work, whether it's after school for projects, after school for snack shop, or on weekends for STN Practice.

In conclusion, you can see some of the important skills to have in Media. I'm really excited to meet the new students of CKTV next school year, and see how they apply these skills in media, and also learn more about these skills along the way. I know that Media Class can sometimes be a challenge, but in the end, it's all worth it!

Hi guys! I'm so glad this week's constructed response topic is a project update, because let me just tell you, since my last blog about my Fourth Quarter Project, a lot has changed! I'm still working with Marlena, but we have a completely different idea than before. If you read my first blog about my Fourth Quarter Project, you will have seen that I was deciding between two different ideas- a music video to the song "How to Save a Life" by the Fray, or a movie trailer. We decided not to do either of those ideas. Instead, and kind of at the last minute, we decided to do a music video, to the song Unwritten.

Okay, so let me just say, I love the song "Unwritten". At one time it was my favorite song. I guess the reason why I loved ( and still love) it so much was because of it's positive message. It's wonderful, inspiring message that says "You don't have to let others tell you who you are. You're unique, you're amazing, you're capable of doing anything. You might make mistakes along the way, but hey, that's okay. And through it all, when you're feeling like there's no way you're life can ever get better, just remember, you're future is unwritten." It motivates me every time I listen to it. I like it better than "How to Save a Life" because although I REALLY, REALLY love that song too, it's just so depressing and sad, and although it has a good message as well, I think Marlena and I both wanted to do something a little more bright, and hopeful, and cheery.

So, our idea for this song was to show a girl who is feeling hopeless and like her life can never get better, and she has to be and is what other people tell her she is (like stupid, ugly, ect.) but then she realizes that her future is in her hands and she can be anything she wants to be. She will then start trying new things and fail miserably at them, but she will not give up because she knows mistakes are how you learn. After that, you will see her making progress and even helping others. Through the whole song she will be writing in her journal, which is a way for you to see wht she is thinking and feeling through the song. At the end of the song, she will flip through her journal, and every page will be written in, except the last page. You'll be able to see how different she was from when she wrote the first entry. Anyways, on the last page she write whatever, but then on the bottom, she will write something like "...and the rest is still unwrtitten", and then she'll get up and meet her friends or something like that while the focus of the shot will be on the last words in the journal she wrote.

I think our music video definitely has the potential to turn out great. I have this vision in my head of what our video would be like if we did it perfectly, and I'm just hoping it turns out kind of like the video in my mind. What I don't what to happen is for our video to turn out cheesy, or confusing, or just plain bad. I really want to make a quality music video that does the song justice, especially since it's Fourth Quarter and I want to end the year off with an amazing video. The thing that I'm kind of stressing the most right now is that our script isn't finished yet, and I really want to get it done as soon as possible so that we have more time for Mr. M to approve it or give us feedback, and then we can film and edit without being in a time crunch. My plan is to have the script done by Monday, so that Mr. M can give us feedback then, and we can fix any mistakes we have on Tuesday (which we hopefully won't have), so we will be ready to film on Wednesday. I'm crossing my fingers that everything works out!

So, there you have it. That's basically how my Fourth Quarter Project is going. I think we have a great song, and I'm hoping that we can make a great video to go along with it! I'll keep you updated about how it's going, but for now, that's all. Bye!

Hey guys! So this past Thursday to Friday, I went to Oahu for, guess what! The 10th Olelo Youth XChange! It was such an honor, and I had a great time from the very beginning to the very end! Let me tell you more about it!

So, on Thursday night, when we (we meaning Lia, Annie, Brandon, Mr. M and I) got to Oahu, we headed right on over to Dave and Buster's in our rental car. It was the first time I had ever gone, and let me just say, it was a blast! The food was really good, and the games were great. It was really special of Mr. M to treat all of us to play all those games and eat dinner, let alone take us on the trip. After Dave and Busters, we checked into our hotel, and went right to sleep, filled with excitement about the next day!

The next day, we got ready, and then we were off on our way to the Youth XChange! When we got there, we got these really cool medallions because it was the 10th anniversary. The hotel was super nice! We then went inside and sat down at our table, and then we got food. The food was delicious! There was teriyaki chicken, rice, fancy noodles, salad, bread and butter balls, and more.  Olelo really goes all out!! The dessert was super yummy too! There was cheesecake, chocolate cake, and this amazing bread pudding with Mac nut caramel sauce on top. Just thinking about it makes me hungry! Anyways, after we ate, the program began. Before I knew it, Lia was being called up as the middle school animation winner. She definitely deserved it, if I have anything to say about it! I mean, her PSA was just... AWESOME! The rest of the time until they called up the PSA winners, I had a bunch of butterflies in my stomach. I could hardly sit still! I was kind of disappointed though, because neither Brandwonder I won! A two out of three chance and we didn't win! Ughh! It was so frustrating! But what made up for our loss was at the end, when the people at Olelo announced they would be giving away the grand prize! And can you guess who won it? Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School, that's who! Oh yeah!

So, overall you can see it was a good trip. We went shopping afterwards, which was fun too. Then, before I knew it, it was time to head home. But it was a really special experience, even if I didn't win. I mean, I was in the top three out of more than 100 entries, so that's something, right? Next year though, I'm planning to go back to Olelo and win! I'm already thinking up of PSA ideas right now! Well, I guess that's all! Thanks for reading!

In my life I have had many good and easy days, as well as many hard and tough days. Life has been full of fun times, and of hard and challenging times. However, the toughest day of life would have to be the day where I wasn't sure if my mom and sister were gonna live or die.

Okay, I know that seems very dramatic, and right now I just want to make it clear that it's probably not what you're thinking. You're probably thinking something like "I bet they got in a car accident or something like that", but in fact, a car accident is not even close to what caused my mom and sister's near death. What caused it was actually my mom's high risk pregnancy. The unborn baby and my mom were both very, very sick, and we didn't know if they were gonna make it or not. You see, the whole time my mom had been pregnant, she had be on bed-rest (which means she had to stay in bed the whole time, if you were unsure of what bed rest meant) and we had to spend the summer on Oahu because of her high risk pregnancy (in between my dad going back and forth between Oahu and Kauai because of work) but then near the end she started getting better, and the baby too. I was so happy, and I remember thinking "Okay, now everything's gonna be fine. I have nothing to worry about now".  I think everyone else in my family thought the same thing too. I guess that's why that night when it both her and the baby started getting worse all of a sudden, it really shocked us all.

I still remember the night clearly. My Grandma, my sister, and I went to visit my mom and my dad, and I remember thinking "Yay!! My mom's better, the baby's looking healthy, and tomorrow if everything goes well, I'll have another little sister!". As it turned out, everything DIDN'T go well. At all. My grandma, my sister, and I had to wait a really long time to see my mom, and while we were waiting, my dad came out to talk with my grandma, but he didn't let me and my sister hear. It looked like he had been crying (which is really rare, trust me) and after he talked to my grandma, she looked really worried. Yeah, those we're not good signs. We waited a little longer, and then a doctor came out, and told us we could visit my mom.When I walked in the room, I could see my mom had being crying too. She looked so weak, and just thinking about it makes me wanna cry. She had gotten gifts for both me and my sister, just in case she didn't make it, and right when she was giving me the locket that she had gotten for me, the doctor abruptly said after looking at the monitor "The baby is not doing good. We need to operate immediately! Let's go!" and all of a sudden, my mom was gone, wheeled away in her stretcher, with all the doctors with her. It suddenly felt so empty. We had to go immediately, and I remember the last thing my dad said to me was "It'll be okay". But as we left the hospital that night, I couldn't help but think  "Would it be okay?". I stayed up that night wondering if my mom and sister would be all right.

Well, turns out, my mom and sister were fine. Miraculously, my sister was born with no disorders or anything like that, and she was pretty healthy, besides the fact that she was less than five pounds at birth. Everyone was so relieved, especially my dad. I remember looking at my baby sister and thinking how perfect she was. It hard been hard eight months, but the result was so was so worth it. And through the whole experience, it had taught me some pretty big lessons. First, it taught me how caring and loving some people were. During the whole summer, so many people had reached out to our family, and I'll never forget how much all the letters of encouragement, phone calls, texts, and visits meant to my family. It really inspired me to be more like that, and when I hear of someone in need or going through a hard time, really taking some of my time to go out of my way for them. The biggest lesson it taught me though, was how important family is. It's  kind of funny how, when everything is good, you tend to take things (or people) for granted, but then when something goes wrong, you really see how amazing they are. That's what happened that summer: I really saw how amazing family is. And now, one and a half years later, it doesn't change the fact that I still get mad at my family sometimes, or we get in arguments sometimes, but it does remind me to,when I'm mad, really take a moment to think back on how amazing they are and all they do for me. And when I do that, well, it changes my whole perspective.

In conclusion, the night where I wasn't sure if my mom and sister were gonna live was the toughest day of my life. However, through it all, I learned some pretty big lessons,like how caring some people are and how important family is. But the most important thing was that in the end, it all turned out okay.

P.S.  Sorry if this blog was a little hard to understand and was kind of confusing :). Okay, bye!

Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I can't believe that I forgot to do my blogs last week! I feel so horrible!!!! I'm so sorry! I will NEVER do this again, or at least try my hardest to prevent it. Maybe I need to write a note in my planner so I remember? Anyways, I'm just really sorry and my constructed response from last week is on the way. I'm hoping it will be up later today. Well, I guess that's all. Bye!

Hi guys! Guess what? On April 12th, I'm gonna be on Oahu for the Olelo Youth Exchange Awards Luncheon! I'm so excited! I really can't believe that I'm a finalist in the PSA Category! It's such an honor!! I'm not the only one who's a finalist though. Brandon, Annie, and Lia are also finalists, with Lia in Animation and News, Annie in News, and Brandon competing against me as a PSA finalist! It will be such a blast to see who wins, but no matter what, I already feel like a winner :) I'm just so excited! I'll definitely keep you posted about what happens though!

Wow! I can't believe it's Fourth Quarter already! Third Quarter flew by, and I have a feeling Fourth Quarter is too! And during this last quarter of the school year, I have about seven weeks to make my Fourth Quarter project for Media. Read on to find out what my Fourth Quarter Project is going to be!

Okay, so to be honest I'm not completely sure what I want to do for Fourth Quarter. See, the problem is, our Fourth Quarter Project can be basically any type of video. It can be a music video, a PSA, a News Story, a commercial, movie trailer, or a bunch of others (I'm not gonna list them all because I think you get the idea) and the thing about this is that will all these choices, it's kind of hard for me to choose what I want to do. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a News Story, a PSA, a music video, or movie trailer, but thankfully I've managed to pick the top two ones that I would like to do, with Marlena as my partner. I'll  tell you about them in the next two paragraphs :)

So, the first of the two ideas that I'm really leaning towards for my Fourth Quarter Project is a music video. The song would be "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. I like this song because it has strong message, but yet it tells a story as well. It is a pretty sad song though. However, this is kind of good because I think sadness is an easy emotion to show, and sad stories always tend to be touching. My perfect vision of what our (I say our because Marlena and I  are working together)  music video would be like would be a music video that clearly shows the songs story and message, while being very touching and inspiring (and of course it would have all great shots that would flow together perfectly). I'm just  a little scared that our music video might turn out cheesy, with bad shots, and the viewer would not be able to understand the story or message. Hopefully if we do decide to go with the music vide idea, it will turn out like my perfect vision!

My other Fourth Quarter Project idea that we are thinking about doing is a movie trailer. Basically, it would be about a girl who has been a foster child her whole life, and then one day a man calls her and claims he is her father. When the girl tells her foster mother about this, it turns out she knows him and she knows that he is her father, but didn't want her foster child to find out. When the girl  finds that out, she questions why and how her foster mother knows him, and why she didnt want her to find oth about him. She also won't know who she can trust. If we did this, I'd want to make it very suspenseful, especially at the end, where I would want it to leave off at a place that would make people want to come back and see the movie :)

So, overall those are my Fourth Qaurter Project ideas. I'm still deciding which we should do, or if we should try to do both. All I know for sure right now is, whatever our Fourth Quarter Project turns out being, it has the potential to turn out great  and to end this year of media off awesomely!