Reflection

This week we accomplished much with our film. We finished our movie poster and our almost entirely done with editing. We found our music, we added transitions, we made the credits. Next week we have to check sound levels and make sure our film runs smoothly. After that, we can export and relax until CAP Hollywood.

CAP Hollywood Reflection

This past week has been really hectic in CAP. We have AP tests, English tests, journalism assignments and lots more. We also have to finish our films so that they are done by the time CAP Hollywood roles around. Tomorrow our rough cuts of our film are due. We have a fair amount of clips in our timeline and I think we can finish it by tomorrow. Also, I completed the Photoshop slide which has our credits on it.

After the rough cut we really need to start cracking down on editing our film. Our main editor, Ben, is very good at editing but gets off task quite a bit. This week, my job will be to finish our movie poster and find music for our film. If possible with my schedule, I will see if I can come in after school.

So far I think my group is making good time with this project. However, as the deadline approaches we have to make sure we get everything done and presentable. I think this will be a challenge, but I don't think it will be impossible and I am fairly confident that our movie will be played at CAP Hollywood.

CAP Hollywood Reflection

In our TV production class we are turning short stories into films for CAP Hollywood. The film I am working on is called Every Last Drop and was written by my friend Emily. The story surrounds a psychopathic women who has an abusive alcoholic husband. She gets pregnant and realizes her child cannot grow up in a house with this man so she poisons his soup.Then years later she sees her son growing up to have characteristics the father did, and she doesn't want that to happen. So, eventually she serves her son the same type of soup she used to kill her husband.

At this point in the production of our film, my group has gotten all the footage we need and has imported most of it into final cut pro. We also have a lot of voice overs in our film and we have done all of those. What we need to start doing is creating a rough cut of our footage and then edit it down. This coming we I will be creating our movie poster in Photoshop. If I finish that before the week is over, I will then look for music to be played throughout our film. What I'm most concerned with at the moment is sorting through our footage because we have quite a lot of it. I want to make sure we have enough to complete the film.

Bellydancing

This weekend, while avoiding doing homework, I decided that I want to take a class in bellydancing. To begin, I looked up belly-dancing tutorials on YouTube and found a great one that was a one hour long class.

 

 

Belly-dancing, a traditionally Middle Eastern dance is all about stomach muscles. It requires isolation of two parts of your stomach which is a lot harder than it seems. I am really excited to start taking a belly-dancing class at my local YMCA because living in a Middle Eastern country for awhile, made me want to know the culture, and now I have an opportunity to do so.

Grease

Last night I went to the closing show of the performance of the Broadway play Grease, at Einstein High School. Grease is one of my favorite movies, and plays of all time, so I was super excited to see it. The singing, acting, and dancing were all fantastic and they did an amazing job.

Olivia Newton John (Sandy) and John Travolta (Danny) from the movie of Grease

Rebecca Bradley played the top Pink Lady, Rizzo. Her rendition of "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee", one of my favorite songs in the musical, was fantastic and funny. David Toro, a blind student, played Johnny Casino and did an amazing job singing "Born to Hand Jive". Not to mention, all the actors and actresses who participated in the dance, did a great job. Kristina Rexford played the part of Patty Simcox, the obnoxious cheerleader in love with Danny. She was funny and perfect for the part. Sandy, played by Abigail Kullberg, had an amazing voice, and the part was appropriately played. The other three Pink Ladies, Marty, Jan, and Frenchie, played by Anna Toretsky, Quiana Jewell, and Lydia Tefera respecitivly, were hilarious and brought out lots of laughs from the crowd.

The play involved 60 students for the entire production. They acted, they sang, they danced, they designed costumes, the did makeup, they did lighting, and they did sound. This group of very talented students should be extremely proud of themselves and Einsteins S.T.A.G.E did an terrific job. If it hadn't been the last show, I'd recommend everyone should go.

A scene from the performance at Einstein.

The Island of Hashima

Hashima is an island that many people may not have heard of. It is one of the Japanese Islands, and the Japanese government does not want to draw attention to it. Hashima used to be one of the most densely populated places in the world, with over 13,000 people living on one square kilometer. Today, however, Hashima looks like a giant, decrepit, battleship.

Hashima Island

The major industry on Hashima used to be coal mining with a facility from Mitsubishi Motors. However, the coal business went down and the factory closed permanently. Without work and with nothing keeping them there, everyone left back to the mainland.


Having been left to rot since 1974, Hashima is now beyond restoration and extremely unsafe. The government does not want to bring attention to this awful island so they made it illegal to visit. If you are caught visiting it, you will get 30 days in prison and immediate deportation.

Everything in Hashima has eroded away and some buildings fronts have fallen completely off. TVs stand broken and shattered, personal artifacts lay everywhere, and everything is damaged beyond repair.

The 2013 Oscars

Truth be told, I hadn't thought much about what I was going to write my blog post on today, I even forgot it was due until just now. I was trying to figure out what to write it on when it hit me. I am currently sitting on my couch watching the Oscars, one of my favorite things to watch, so why not write about them.

The Oscars shine a brilliant light on all the fantastic films of the past year and gives recognition to everyone who helped make them. Seth Macfarlene, creator of Family Guy and director of Ted, is hosting this year's Oscars. He started out with lots of jokes and some slightly offensive songs. After that star after star came out to introduce nominee's and winners.

So far, they have given out only a couple awards. Christoph Waltz won best supporting actor. Brave won best feature length animated movie. Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi, won best cinematography. Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina, won best costume designer. Amour won best foreign language film. Paperman, by John Kahrs, won best short animated film and Inocente won best short documentary. The winner of best full length documentary went Searching for Sugarman.

In between a couple of nominations, there have been short skits and performances. To show great music from the past decade, Jennifer Hudson performed a song from Dream Girls, the Les Mis cast came out and sang snippets from their film, and All That Jazz was performed.

With much more excitement to come, the Oscars are just heating up and everyone should tune in!

30 Hour Famine

 Around one million people go hungry everyday. Around one billion children die every year due to hunger. Hunger is a huge issue and anyone can do little things to help.

Last weekend, I participated in a 30 hour famine with my church's youth group for the organization World Vision. From Friday, Feb. 1st 6pm to Sunday Feb. 3rd 12am, we didn't eat anything. We did this in order to raise awareness and sympathy for the millions of people, many being children, who go without food on a daily basis.

It was extremely hard to not eat for that long. It made us cranky, tired, confused, and our stomachs hurt. We live in a society where, unless we are below the poverty line, we can almost always get food. Even during the famine, we knew we could simply break our fast by walking into the kitchen and grabbing something to eat. We also knew, that after 30 hours, we could eat again. Many people and children, don't know when the next time they are going to eat will be.

We met up at our church at 5pm that Friday, and had our last feast together, we then stopped eating at 6pm and went home. The next day, we arrived back at our church at 3pm and stayed the night there. We had guest speakers who work to rid the world of hunger come and talk to us about their jobs. We played simulation games to see how hard it is for people to live, and most of all, we talked about what we felt.

Finally, at 12am Sunday morning, we broke our fast.

We raised money by going around our neighborhoods, and asking our relatives to donate $30 to World Vision. In total, I raised around $380 and my church raised over $1200. All this money will be dedicated to feeding hungry children.

People go without food for many different reasons, but it doesn't matter, because they are still hungry. By doing this famine I was able to truly understand what it was like to be hungry, but not to the extenet that many people feel everyday. Yet, there are lots of things we can do to help. Visit World Vision's website and donate $30, that can feed a starving child for a week. Little things can become big things, which can change the world.

Plan of Action

For our documentary projects everyone has a job. In my documentary, I am working with Stephanie Juliette, and Aidan. Our documentary is about the over-commercialization of holidays. For my role in the documentary process, I am writing the official script and getting some more B-roll footage.

I plan to have the script finished, with the help of my group mates, by the end of this week, Sunday at the very latest. I will also bring in the B-roll footage that I got of Valentines Day things while shopping with my mom. For the most part, the script should be fairly easy to finish because all we need to do is figure out where we want things ordered in our film, and the general things we want to be said. The B-roll will also be simple since I plan to film it on my phone and then later transfer it to the computers in the the TV studio where Stephanie can edit it into our film.

I am not exactly sure of what the dates for when things should be done are, but I plan to get the script and B-roll finished by Sunday at the latest. I also plan to look for music that we could possibly incorporate into our documentary in my spare time. Of course it will all be from creative commons or some other non-copyrighted website.

I must say, I had my doubts about this project but I am very excited to see these projects pulled together and I'm sure they will be great!

My Film About Silver Spring

My film is posted on Conor James blog. I worked with him and Isaiah and I was the cinematographer of the film. Conor has a really nice camera that films movement well which is how we were able to get the shots of the skateboard and the trampoline so nicely. He also has a really nice tripod so all of our footage came out great. He and Isaiah were the ones who edited it and did a great job so please go check it out http://conor2015.blogspot.com/ !!!!!

More Ice Dance

Meryl Davis and Charlie White

Michael and Rachel with Davis and White

As I wrote in my previous blog post, the Ice Dance National Championships were this week. Last night, the seniors were on TV so I watched some of them. It was especially neat because I was able to see many people I knew. I saw Michael Bramante and his new partner Isabella Cannuscio do a fantastic free dance. I was also able to see my friends, Danielle and Alex Gamellin, perform and take 9th place overall! Both these couples perform at the senior level and did extremely well considering Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Silver medalists from the 2010 Olympics, still compete. To nobodies surprise, Davis and White took first, followed by Maia and Alex Shibutani.

Lorraine Mcnamara and Quinn Carpenter

Competing on the Junior level were my friends Lorraine Mcnamara and Quinn Carpenter, Elliana Pogrebinsky and Ross Gudis, Whitney Miller and Kyle MacMillan, and Rachel and Michael Parsons. Lorraine and Quinn got third place overall and a small mention in The Washington Post. I don't know how the others did but I'm sure they were great with the fantastic training they get from WISA.

WISA, the Wheaton Ice Skating Academy, is coached by Elena Novak, Alexei Kiliakov, Dmitri Ilin, and Ramil Sarkulov. It is a very unique, yet elite program that isn't like any other in the nation. It starts out training kids from a very young age, around 5. Elena, Alexei, Dmitri, and Ramil are all fantastic coaches and choreographers. They have done extremely well and continue to make great skaters.

Ice Dance National Championships

One of my favorite things to do in the entire world, if not my very favorite, is ice dancing. As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I have been ice dancing since I was 5 years old. The first time I skated, I actually hated it. I couldn't stay up and it was terrible. But, I eventually learned to love it and I started doing it around 6 times a week. Coming up are the Ice Dance National Championships and many of my friends are competing in them. This year the Championships are taking place in Omaha, Nebraska.

Many of my friends have competed over the years in Junior Grand Prix's, National Championships, and even the Junior Olympics. Many are even National Champions and have International medals. The Wheaton Ice Skating Academy that my friends and I skate for, is a Nationally recognized program and has some of the best, if not the best, coaches in the nation. We've been trained since we were young children in a very prestigious program and regime.

I enjoy skating more than anything else, however I've been off on back injury. I hope one day that I will be able to skate again after doing a lot of physical therapy. My back is on the mend and hopefully will get better soon.

Pumpkin Cookies

For New Years Eve, I made these delicious pumpkin cookies and decided to share the recipe with everyone. They have a really nice texture and are even better with nice cream cheese frosting on top.  So, please feel free to make these and enjoy them with your family!

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsps ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick)
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 can pumpkin 
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 8oz boxes of cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (softened) 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, preferably medium, cream the butter and sugar. Then add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Continue you to beat until nice and creamy.
3. Mix the dry ingredients in to the butter mixture gradually. Then drop onto a greased cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
5. To make the Icing, cream butter and cream cheese together. then add vanilla and powdered sugar. (You can add more powdered sugar or less based on desired consistency).
6. Once the cookies are cool, put on the icing and enjoy!

When I made this recipe for our new years party, everybody who came said they were fantastic. So, I highly recommend you try baking these cookies. They are delicious!

Documentary Review

The documentary I watched for this assignment called "Pray the Devil Back to Hell". My dad brought the DVD to me from his work at the United States Institute of Peace. It was about Liberian women and their fight for freedom. During the Liberian revolution, it was President Charles Taylor against the warlords and the LURD. They were tired of being raped, seeing their children get raped, seeing their children starve, seeing their children fight, and seeing them die. So they decided to take matters into their own hands. Leymah Gbowee, noble peace prize winner, organized the women at her church to sit out at a protest and get President Taylor to go to peace talks with the warlords. They sat outside in the sun and rain, singing and dancing, for weeks. They made and even bigger impact by joining up with the Muslim women of Liberia as well.

Together, the Muslim and Christian women of Liberia were able to get President Taylor and the Warlords to go to Nigeria for peace talks. It took forever for them to finally agree on something. Taylor was exiled to Nigeria and the UN took over a transitional government with many warlords in high positions of the new government. The women continued to help with the disarmament of the country. Also, once the first democratic elections rolled around, a women was elected to be president. It was the Liberian women who ended the bloody civil war and brought peace to their country. The documentary was their story.




The documentary, though short at only 72 minutes, was perfectly paced. It outlined the bloody war and all the women's struggles. The way it was filmed made the struggle seem very real and upsetting. I would recommend this documentary to everyone, because I really enjoyed watching it.

To touch upon the three aspects of film, I think is kind of difficult with a documentary. The cinematic aspects were very good. The clips were mixed with the women talking now, and older clips of the actual protests and peace talks. The plot was very simple, they just showed the conflict and how it was solved. All the characters were very empowering and made you want to do more good in the world.

Overall, the Documentary was fantastic in my opinion and everyone should watch it. It was very powerful and moving. So go watch "Pray the Devil Back to Hell".

Peppermint Bark

This week for my weekly blog post I decided to share another one of my favorite holiday treats, peppermint bark. My mom used to make us peppermint bark every year to eat on Christmas eve with hot cocoa. However, she stopped the tradition a few years ago and I decided to start it again this year. Peppermint bark is really easy to make and really delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 package white chocolate chips
• 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 tsps peppermint extract
• 4 large candy canes

Procedure:

1. Put the 4 candy canes in a zip-lock bag and wrap a dish towel around it. Use a rolling pin or heavy pan to smash the candy canes to little pieces on a sturdy surface. Then set them aside.
2. Put the semi-sweet chips into a large microwaveable bowl and put in microwave for 1 minute. Stir the chips and put them in for another minute. Stir until smooth and completely melted. (You can also melt chocolate using a double-boiler, but the microwave is easier). Add 1 tsp of peppermint extract and spread them onto cookie sheet lined with wax paper for a 13x17 rectangle. Place in freezer.
3. Melt white chocolate in microwave for 30 seconds, then take out and stir, and put back in for another 30 seconds. Stir until completely melted and cooled. Then add 1 tsp of peppermint extract.
4. Spread the white chocolate over the semi-sweet chocolate and put the candy cane pieces on top. (you may have to press them in to get them to stick). Place it back in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes or until it sets, and enjoy when its done!

So, as you can see, peppermint bark is very easy to make, and its very delicious. Have fun making it and try to get the whole family involved. Younger kids love smashing the candy canes, at least me and my brothers do. Please enjoy!

Lump of Coal Cookies

This year, my mom and I decided to pull a little prank on my brothers. Instead of putting presents in their stockings, we are going to put these delicious lump of coal cookies in there. They are pretty easy to make and very yummy so I decided to share the recipe on my blog.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of plain (all purpose) flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp of salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease baking sheets.
2. Cream sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Then add egg and vanilla extract.
3. Sift the flour and mix it with the butter and sugar mix until a dough forms. Use a gel paste or food coloring to dye the dough until it turns a dark coal-like color.
4. Divide the dough into 2 pieces and put one half in the fridge.
5. Break off chunks of dough until you get your desired coal size. Then roll the dough up and put it on a baking tray. Place in freezer while working on second half of dough.
6. After taking out of the oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack.

Have fun making these cookies and pranking your friends and family with them!

Decorating for Christmas!

For me, Christmas starts December 1st and lasts through the New Year. So, naturally, my family started decorating last night. Now, my family takes Christmas decorating to the extreme.We have 36 nutcrackers of all different sizes and shapes, and around the same number of small, decorative, glass (and other materials), Christmas trees. To top that off, we also have way too many ornaments to fit on a Christmas tree, even a really big one. We have garlands, tinsel, wreaths, and a little Christmas village. Christmas time is just the most wonderful time of the year!

Holiday Greetings

Seeing as Christmas and the holidays are coming up, I thought I'd write a little something about winter. The best things about winter and the holiday seasons are spending time with your family, singing Christmas carols, and decorating your house. I love sitting by the fire and sipping hot cocoa with my brothers while watching Christmas movies. Another one of the great things about winter is the snow. White Christmas's are the best, and snow angels and snowmen are super fun to make. Also all the winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, and ice skating are extremely fun, ice skating being my favorite. Winter is a time to get dressed in warm, comfy clothes and walk outside in the cold, all wrapped up, with people you love. It's a time to be with family, and it's my favorite time of the year. I love baking sugar cookies, making gingerbread houses, and decorating the Christmas tree. My family has so many ornaments that we can't fit them all on out tree. Anyways, I just thought with my favorite season coming up I should write a little something about it. So Happy Holidays everyone!

Drivers Ed

Today I finished my 5 week long Drivers Ed course. Starting October 13th, I took a 3 hour long Drivers Ed course from 10-1 every Saturday and Sunday. I am very excited to start driving, though I can't do so yet because I have to wait until December to get my permit. Most people wait until right before they get their provisional license to take Drivers Ed, so it was weird for me to take it before even getting my permit. However, one of my good friends Kristina found a class out in Burtonsville that only cost $200. This was a good price because most Drivers ed courses, like the I Drive Smart course at Blair, are around $600-$700. So, Kristina and I went to the class in Burtonsville.

In Drivers Ed we earned everything you need to know out on the road, and to get your license/permit. To get your permit you need your birth certificate, your social security card, at least 2 things to prove you live where you do, and a document form your school. You can get your permit once its 9 months past you 15th birthday. Once you get to the MVA to get your permit, you will take a 25 multiple choice question test about general driving knowledge. If you pass they will give you your permit and your rookie-book.

To get your provisional license you must have held your permit for 9 months and completed 60 hours of drive time with someone over 21 who has had their license for at least 3 years. 10 of your 60 hours must be at nighttime and you record your hours in the rookie-book. After taking Drivers Ed, holding your permit for 9 months, and completing 60 hours of driving, you can go to the MVA to take the test for your license. The test includes a parking lot part and a part on the road. The parking lot section consists of parallel parking and a two-point turn. If you pass this section adequately then you will move onto the out on the road section. The MVA tester will have you drive out on the road for about 15 minutes and grade your driving, as well as asking you about what different signs mean. If you pass both of those sections then you can get your provisional license.

With your provisional you may not drive anyone who is not related to you until 151 days after getting it. You must also hold your provisional license for 18 months before getting your full license. If for some reason you get pulled over, they can restart your 18 month of waiting before you can get your full license. Once you get your full license you are free to drive whomever you want whenever you want as long as you're being a safe driver.

Hedgehogs

Recently I have been trying to convince my parents to buy me a pet hedgehog. However, they are very expensive. I went online and researched everything you need to know about taking care of a pet hedgehog and breeders in our area.

Why to get a hedgehog:

• They are SUPER cute and make really good pets.
• They are fun to play with.
• They don't shed dander like cats and dogs do.
• They are very quiet and easy to care for.
• They don't need too large of a space to live in.

Hedgehogs that are kept as pets are African Pygmy Hedgehogs from central Africa. There are a couple breeders here in Silver Spring who work hard to make sure they are healthy. We emailed one of the breeders to see if we could visit her sometime and learn more about what having a hedgehog entails.

Hedgehogs are very playful too. They can be let roam free around the house, or kept in multilevel hamster cages. You can give them little toilet paper tubes to play in or make a larger maze out of PVC pipe. You can also buy them a bucket wheel to run on. As long as they have space to run around and play, they aren't a hassle and are very fun.

As far as food goes, hedgehogs eat stuff that is high in protein and low-fat. They can eat low-fat cat food or special hedgehog food. They are lactose intolerant so milk and cheese should be kept away from them. If you want to give them a treat, meal worms, crickets, and some other fruits are good.

I think I might almost have my mom convinced to get me a hedgehog. I mean who can resist a cute little hedgehog baby?