Hey guys! So along with a Fourth Quarter Project, 8th Graders also have the responsibility of putting together the end of the year 8th Grade Slideshow which will be shown at the banquet! I'm actually really excited about this project, because us brilliant 8th Grade Media Gals (aka Lilly, Leanna, Halle, Brooke, Marlena, Lindsey, and I) thought up of a brilliant idea to make the Slideshow less boring! I don't want to spoil it for you, but here's a few hints: it may or may not involve dancing, teachers, and ridiculous songs... (emphasis on the may) 😉. So that's that! And as far as the actual Slideshow part goes, we're doing pretty well! We have a bunch of pictures, and we're in the process of editing them all together. Right now I'd say we're about one third done. But all of us 8th Graders are working hard and will continue to work hard so that we can have an awesome Slideshow! After all, it is going to be like the last look all the 8th Graders will have of their middle school years here at CKMS! Well thanks for reading!

During the STN Trip, I made many unforgettable memories. I also learned some unforgettable advice, that I think is very helpful to us future film makers, from successful people in the film world today like Les Rose and actual television reporters! So without further ado, the three best pieces of advice/lessons I've learned at STN are to be open to learning new things, be a human before a reporter, and you can't change the whole world but you can change a piece of it at a time.

In life, you should always be open to learning new things. There is just simply no person who knows it all, who is an expert at everything in the universe. I feel bad for the people who think they are always right and think they have all the answers because really, they're just limiting themselves by being proud. I can't even tell you how many different aspects their are to the Film and Technology world! I mean there's writing, filming, reporting, editing, directing, producing, adding special effects... and those are just a few of the basics! I probably have learned so far about not even 1% of everything you can learn about Film and Technology, but that's okay, because I'm willing to make mistakes, willing to put in extra time and effort, and ultimately winning to learn.

Another lesson I learned at STN is to be a human before a reporter. Even if you could be getting the best shots but there's a person right there in need, you should always help the person. Pretty simple, right? Also, you should be respectful of other people. While it is important to tell the story, and tell the truth, you should always do it in a way that does not create any harm. So while reporting and editing the story together for the news, try and consider what's nesassary and what would best be kept out.

The last lesson that I'm gonna share with you that I learned is that you can't change the whole world, but you can change a part of it at a time. Media is becoming more and more important in the world, and more and more people are being effected by it. I've seen really great inspirational videos that have just made my day and shared a really great message that I can apply to my life. I also know that some of the Steve Hartman videos have brought awareness to the public and inspired a change. For example, he once did a story about a man who made homeless children a gourmet dinner every single night buying the ingredients out of his own income, while his own Pasta Restaurant was not doing good at all. He spent thousands on the children. Not only was the video really inspiring, but it also upped the business a whole lot at the mans Pasta Restaurant! And that's just one small example! Media truly is a powerful tool that can be used to change the world, one small part at a time.

In conclusion, the three most valuable lessons I learned this year during the STN trip are: be open to learning new things, be a human before a reporter, and you can't change the world, but you can change parts of it at a time. Thanks for reading and I hope you were able to learn something from this! :)

Hey guys!! I've got some exciting news to share: my PSA is a finalist! Yes, that's right! My PSA is a finalist in the Olelo Youth Xchange Anti-Meth Category! I'm so happy! Along with me, Brandon, Kekoa, Annie, and some X-Block students are also attending. We are gonna fly up to Oahu for the day to attend the Olelo Luncheon. It's exciting to see that our hard work during third quarter was recognized and might even win an award!! Wish us luck and I'll keep you posted on how we do :)

Fourth quarter is here, and I'm here to tell you about my project! For this last project I'll ever be doing as a student in the CKTV media productions class, I'm going to be doing a music video with Lilly to the song "Brave". Basically, we are going to tell the story of this really quiet, shy girl who gets bullied, and has to learn to be brave and and put her foot down. We're still trying to write the script, and it's my goal to finish it hopefully by Tuesday so we can make revisions and start filming as soon as possible. Oh, and another thing is that in our video idea we would need to use a bunch of special effects, so wish us luck with coming up with ways to do those! Thanks for reading!

Wow! I just realized that this is the first blog that I'm writing since the end of the STN trip! Crazy how time flies! But anyways, speaking of the trip, now that it's done and I've had time to think back and reflect about it, I have some advice I'd like to share with returning and future CKTV students while on their STN trip next year. My advice is to work as a team, not stress out, and use time wisely.

Okay, so my first piece of advice is to work as a team. It's pretty obvious that just one person can do it all, especially in such a time crunch! Before STN, all the people that you are working with in your competition should have a role and practice doing that role, and at STN stick to that role!! This is something that I actually did this year and it helped tremendously! I was the reporter and Marlena was the filmer and editor, and we worked together on the writing part. Since we knew what specifically our roles were, we stuck with them and were able to work as a team, balancing out the work!

The second piece of advice is to not stress out. Yeah, STN will be very very stressful and grueling and at some points it might be very hard to keep your cool but it's just something you gotta do. Otherwise, if you stress out, you'll stress the other people out in your group, and then you guys are more prone to make mistakes, and fight. Oh, and I also know that it can be easy to get irritated at group members during the competition. To be honest, I was kind of irritated at Marlena during our competition. However, I sucked it up, and got along with her anyways. No mean comments, no giving her a hard time, not even a mean glare when she was looking away. You have to realize that STN is a one time thing, so you can't use that time to argue with a team member, you have to save it for after, or just cool down.

Lastly, using time wisely is my last piece of advice. Here's the thing: at STN, there is a really tight deadline. So it's important to find a way to make a quality product, but also make the deadline!! I mean if you don't meet the deadline, you don't even have a chance at placing! So during the competition, be on your A game. Be focused, determined, and know how much time from the deadline there is so that you can work accordingly!

In conclusion, my three pieces of advice for students going to STN next year are to work as a team, don't stress, and use time wisely! I'm sad that I can't go next year, but I have confidence that next years students will do great if they follow this advice! Thanks for reading!

Hey guys! So today was the last day of the trip, and to finish it off, we went to Magic Kingdom. Although it wasn't my favorite amusement park, it was still a really great day, and a great way to end our trip. We started off by going to Space Mountain, and then proceeded to Thunder Mountain. Both rides were fun, but they were very leisure and slow compared to some of the other rides we've gone on. On both, I kept on waiting for the big drop, or the superfast loop or something cool like that, but neither of the rides had either of those. We went on some more rides, but my favorite two were probably the car ride and Splash Mountain. On the car ride, your going along a track, but your in charge of steering and pressing the gas pedal. So Marlena controlled the pedal, and I controlled the wheel, and together we were unstoppable! Hahaha just kidding! But we were out of control and we probably would have seriously injured ourselves if it were not for the track! The whole time we were laughing uncontrollably, so it was super awesome! Splash Mountain was my other favorite ride. If you couldn't tell from the name, Splash Mountain is a water ride, and it has a super big drop at the end. We planned out to have everyone in the cart make a scary face during the drop when it takes the picture, but not everyone did. However, me and Marlena were in full character and we look so awesome, we just had to buy the picture! It's hilarious! So that was our day at Splash Mountain, and for dinner we went to Friendly's. The food there is sooo delicious! I got this chicken wrap for dinner, and for desert, me and Isa shared this really good mint chocolate ice cream sundae. Then we came back and packed everything up, because this is our last night in Florida, and tomorrow at 3am we need to get up to go to the airport. I just have to say though, this has been such a wonderful trip, and I will always remember it! I can't say thank you enough to all the amazing people who made it possible!! STN 2014 was officially awesome!  

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my freaking gosh!! I'm still just trying to comprehend what happened today, because it was completely different than I thought it would go! Let me start at the very beginning. So I woke up today super anxious, hardly getting any sleep last night. All night I was tossing and turning and had butterflies in my stomach thinking about the awards ceremony and possible scenarios. I had listed out all the pros and cons of our Anchoring video, and decided that in the absolute best case Marlena and I would get an honorable mention, but I didn't even think we would place at all due to all the technical difficulties. Well, finally, it was time for the convention, and Marlena and I sat right next to each other. All the Hawaii schools are sitting in a section together as well, and every single Hawaii student, teacher, and chaperone is wearing the Hawaii STN shirt. It was so neat! We are cheering a lot because every time any Hawaii school wins an award everyone in the Hawaii section would cheer, and the Hawaii schools were winning a lot. It was crazy! Before I know it, CKMS is winning first place in Spot Feature, and we are all going cheering like crazy! I was so happy for that team. More and more awards get called out, more Hawaii schools win, more teams from CKMS win, but Anchoring still wasn't called out yet. It seems like forever until the Anchoring category gets called out. But then finally that moment comes, and the lady is calling out the winners. First honorable mention: not us. My heart sinks a little. Second honorable mention: not us. My heart sinks even more. "Yeah, we're definitely not winning any award" I think to myself. Third Place winner: not us. Second place winner: not u- wait a second, did she just say what I think she said?? And sure enough, I look up at the big screen, and next to second place it says Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School. And then me and Marlena, at the same moment, realize that it IS us. That our glitchy, seven second over the max time Anchoring segment has jut won second place at a national convention. And honestly, I don't remember if all the Hawaii schools start cheering or not, but I do remember jumping up with Marlena, screaming, and then running to get our second place award! It was pretty awesome! So, I'm proud to say, that in all this year, we won 5 awards at STN. First place in Spot Feature, second place in Music Video, second place in Sweet 16 Broadcast (which is what we worked on the first day of STN), second place in Anchoring, and an honorable mention in the PSA category. I'm so happy!! After the convention, we had a great burger lunch at 5 Guys, and then went to Gatorland. Then we went to the Outlet Mall and now we're back at the hotel room. So I have to say, I think today was the best day of the trip so far. Just the satisfaction of knowing something you worked really hard on, that you didn't even think would make it, made second place in a national competition, it's a really good feeling! I can't wait for our last day of the trip, but then I'm actually about ready to go home. I miss my family, and friends, and sleeping in my own room. I feel that this trip has been an amazing experience, and I'm glad that you got to read about it :)

Whats up guys? Today was the third and final day of STN competing, and it was another great day. Since Marlena and I had already competed yesterday, today was our day to attend breakout sessions to learn more about media from experts. The first session we attended to was basically all about using discretion when putting together a story for TV, and to be a human being before being a news reporter. In the session, this reporter talked about how one of the stories he covered was a burning building, and he showed us the raw footage the shot of people getting burned, and without their feet, and crying and pulling their hair, and a dead person getting carried away, and a bunch of other just really sad, sad shots. He explained to us that he purposely chose not to put those shots in the story because while he believes in telling the truth, he believes in doing it in a way that doesn't create harm, and since the people didn't really need to see those shots, they weren't put in. After that session, we went to a Les Rose Session where we basically just watched a bunch of really awesome news stories. And what sets these news stories apart from so many others is that they were interesting! Like really interesting and intriguing and inspiring and cleverly written. I really enjoyed that, and I will definitely be looking up more Steve Hartman videos! You should too! Since Les Rose is my favorite mentor at the convention, I stayed in the room for another one of his sessions, and this one was about camera tricks and tips. He reviewed cut in and cut aways and all that good stuff, and he also showed us how to walk with the camera on your shoulder. After those three sessions, I had lunch and went up to the room for a nap because I was still super tired. When it was time for more breakup sessions, I actually stayed in the room to finish more homework until it was time for dinner. We had a really special dinner tonight because we got to have dinner with our Castaic pen pals and exchange gifts! It was really cool to get to get to know our pen pals in person, and my pen pal Aiyannah is really nice! I also enjoyed talking with Janelle, Dylan, and Mia, along with all the other people! After dinner was the STN Showcase, which I wasn't too impressed with, but it was still fun. Now I'm just about ready to go to sleep, if I can sleep, that is. I'm so nervous because tomorrow is the STN Award Ceremony, and I'm just dying to find out the results! I have to keep on reminding myself that even if we don't win, we can still be proud of the work we did, but I'm just really anxious right now. Well anyways, be sure to check back tomorrow where I'll write about the final results. Thanks for reading!

Hey guys! Today was another really busy, action packed day for me, and I hope you enjoy reading about it! Today was the second day of STN, and it started off with the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony was pretty cool- there was really loud music playing and flashing lights and people screaming and dancing, but then it calmed down when the speakers came up. My favorite two speakers were Cameron Quon and Andrew Jenks. Cameron Quon is the 2014 STN Student of the Year, and he just had some really neat advice to share. He said during the convention the three things he dares us to do are: be humble and willing to learn, work as a team, and perseverance.

I think that advice is really relevant and will really help during the convention, so I tried and will continue trying to use it all throughout the convention and even in life in general. Andrew Jenks was also a good speaker today. He is actually a young producer who at age 20 had his show purchased by HBO. Anyways, he came to speak to us and he basically just shared his amazing journey with us, and his humor and quirky personality made the story quite entertaining. After the opening ceremony, me and Marlena headed upstairs to get ready because our anchoring competition was in an hour. I dressed in a blue blouse and black professional skirt and Marlena helped me with my makeup and straighten my hair. I was really nervous, but I managed to have a little bit of a chocolate muffin before we went down to the briefing session. At the briefing session, we sat by Mia and Janelle from Castaic Middle School and listened to all the rules of the competition. I was a little intimidated and nervous by the other schools because they were talking about using multiple shots and switching angles and all this fancy stuff, and I'm thinking in my head "Ughh, the judges will probably think Marlena and I are so uncreative and boring just using one long shot of me." But I felt a little more reassured when the guy talking to us about the rules of anchoring said not to focus so much on the technical side, but rather the writing and how the anchor connects with the audience, because that's what the judges really will be looking at. Speaking of writing and connecting and all that good stuff, can you guess what out topic was? If your thinking breaking news like Justin Beiber's arrest or the latest on Miley Cyrus, you're wrong. Our topic was simply just about STN, and we had just one bulleted list of facts about STN to use (besides the information we already knew.) Since the briefing got out early, we had a 30 minute head start to work on our video, which was awesome. Marlena and I quickly wrote up the script, and I felt pretty good about it. We probably started filming around 2:20ish or so, but it took us a really long time to film. The thing was, we use the iPad for me to read off of, but at the angle Marlena had me, there was a really, really bad glare, and when I finally almost did read it perfectly, Marlena would forget to scroll down the iPad, or a bunch of people would walk by, or something like that. We filmed until 3:40ish, and even then, I still wasn't totally confident about how I had done, but we had to go in to edit and import. We imported our footage, and Marlena found a clip that wasn't spot on, but it was the best one we had. We quickly made the lower third for it and exported our project, but when we did, there was a glitch in it. We tried to fix it, but after trying and not being able to figure it out, we had to turn it in the way it was because there was only two minutes left before the deadline. To be honest, I'm not very confident about our video and don't think it will place. I mean, we turned in a segment in seven seconds longer than what it's supposed to be (which gives us a penalty), with a glitch, not the best audio, and I don't think I did the greatest job connecting with the audience. So, I'm a little let down, but at least we turned it in right? Uggghhh.... I do have to say that I had a good evening though. We went to this middle school mixer event where I got to hang out with students from Castaic and meet my Florida pen pal, and I won a $5 Starbucks gift card! Score! Then we watched some of the videos that were made during the year and Micah, Ben, and Brandon's Friendship House Story aired so that was pretty cool. Anyways, I'm gonna get some rest now because I'm seriously exhausted. Thanks for reading!

Hey guys! So today marked the first day of STN- the Sweet 16! We woke up bright and early (well actually dark and early, at 6:15) and headed downstairs for breakfast. I was super anxious to find out what our topic was! As it turns out, I quickly learned that our topic was the International Drive, a 11.5 mile highway in Orlando that has many different shops and attractions to visit along the strip. As well as being an anchor for the Sweet 16, I also has to get out and create a news story about the topic with Marlena and Javalynn in maybe like 6 hours or so. We decided that we would drive along the International Drive and stop if we saw any small foreign business that looked successful and once found ask what it's drive to succeed is, so that we could tie it in with the topic International Drive. Our first stop was at this small cafe called World Cafe. We talked to the owner and soon were interviewing him and getting b-roll of his restaurant, and we were finished with the filming part at about 11ish I believe. However, we still wanted to get another story because even though we had one that was okay, we wanted to see if we could get something better. Next, we stopped at this Brazilian Steakhouse, but just as we were getting out of the car with our equipment we saw that another school was already interviewing them. That was actually the case a few more times, or the owners were just too busy or didn't want to be interviewed. Finally though, we came upon this store along International Drive called the Brazil Center, and the owner was super nice and let us interview him right there and get b-roll of his store. Since he had a better story than the first guy we interviewed, we decided to go with his and head back to the hotel where we could start editing. When we got back, Javalynn and Marlena recorded all the voice overs I had written out for them, while I started laying out all the sound bytes in the story. When they got back, they put in the broll so that I could start writing the anchoring script with Leanna. We had to make lots of little revision, but finally around 6ish we went out to film all of our anchoring lines. Then, after that, I helped to make the final touches to our Brazil Center Story. We were all working super hard, but the final thing didn't end up getting turned in until 10:45, which was fifteen minutes before the deadlines. We cut it pretty close, but I knew we could do it. Hopefully, the judges will see our hard work when they watch the video and we can maybe place!