March Extra Blog

My mentor and I have had conflicting schedules lately and have not been meeting very often. To prevent a problem occuring from this, I'm putting aside some time during spring break in order to catch up with him and conduct interview 4. During spring break, my mentor is working at this annual music festival and I may or may not assist him there (it has not been confirmed yet.) To be honest, I haven't really done much with my senior project this month. I've been focused more on college tasks. I confirmed my acceptance to San Francisco State and I payed a housing deposit. I'm really excited for college, but I mustn't get ahead of my self. I feel I've been slacking lately and have to get back on track. Senior project is my top priority and I should treat it accordingly. If I don't, I could possible jeopardize my admission decision. For the month of April, and the other months that follow, I'm going to make certain that I get on track and not do anything that may possible jeopordize my admission decision. Oh yeah, here's something that happened in March. I transferred here junior year and did not take a science class my freshmen year because, unlike at this school, it was not required. In order to meet the graduation requirement, I must complete an extra curricular science class to make up for it. Two Semesters. I finished the first semester and took the test. It was a very difficult, but I managed to get an 88% in the class. I now need to complete the second semester, and I must do so quickly!!!

Blog 15: Indepemdemt Component 2 Approval

1. For the second independent component, I plan on meeting the 30 hours of work by recording and scoring songs for a short film and making a soundtrack for an accompanying CD.

2. The final short film(s) will be evidence of all the work put together

3. This component is very similar to my first, but for this one I plan on doing multiple songs. The first one was just one song. This will allow me to go more in depth because I have different scenes and visuals to represent. I'll more variety to get specific.

Blog 14: INdependent Component !

• LITERAL
  (a) Write: “I, _Diego Moreno_________________________, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents _35___ hours of work.”
  (b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component. Berstein, Paula. "Here's How to Make Stop-motion Videos in the Digital Age." Indiewire     15 December 2014. Web. 22 January 2015.
• (c) Update your hours in your Senior Project Hours link. Make sure it is clearly labeled with hours for individual sessions as well as total hours.
• (d) Explain what you completed.    I animated, scored, directed, produced, wrote, engineered, recorded, and photographed a bunch of "things" to create this stop-motion short film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQirDRkXvek
• INTERPRETIVE 
  Defend your work and explain its significance to your project and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  The animation that I did required almost 1,000 still frames to put together, meaning I had to arrange my models consistently for each of 1,000 pictures that I took. I also wrote, recorded, mixed, mastered, engineered, and performed the accompanying song. I wrote and played every single instrument. In addition to this, making  each letter and image out of construction paper took about almost a whole day. The worst part, however, was editing each of the 1,000 images individually. To put the final piece together took 16 hours!
  
• APPLIED
  How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this. This project showed me that animating and making music independently can be much less of a hassle than collaborating with others. Since I was able to use all my own ideas and be my own authority, what i said, went. Because I want to be a composer and an animator, I feel this component also gave me a chance to see what those two professions are like when combined in an actual situation.

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

I am most proud of my hook activity because the class seemed to really enjoy it. I showed the class animations with scores that I had I composed, and I had them compare the mood they released with and without sound.

2 a) What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       P -

  b) Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

Because I was the very last student to present and my presentation was postponed due to technical difficulties from other students, I felt very rushed. Students had been released from school while I was doing my activity, and I noticed that students were staring at the clock and out the windows, as well as leaving, during my presentation. As a result, I became distracted and started to conclude abruptly, making me seconds short of meeting the time requirement. I understand that the presentation was ultimately in my control, but if I had presented at an earlier time, I feel my presentation would have gone as anticipated and I would not have lost my audience. Seeing how I met all the other "P" requirements, I feel a "P-" is a fair grade.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

I noticed my second activity, which was having the audience draw what they feel when they listen to their favorite song, went well because several students wanted to share out loud.

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

Like previously mentioned, my presentation time was too late. I didnt realize that the presentation time would factor in the overall presentation. If I had a time machine, I would request to present at an earlier time.

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

Just brainstorming, I think "Constantly recording and releasing original music" would be a solid second answer because factors such as money and economics play a large role in it. Many other students with completely unrelated topics could relate to this answer because money and economics tie into several of their topics.

Blog 12: Mentorship 10 hours check

1. Where are you doing your mentorship?
I'm not doing mentorship at a place per se. When I do mentorship, my mentor and I meet somewhere and he gives me assignments and lectures me. We also meet at music venues and I help set up his equipment before he performs.

2. Who is your contact?
Runson Willis
13232704390

3. How many hours have you done during the school year?
Twenty.

4. Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.
Before my mentor performs, I will make sure that his guitar is in tune, his effects pedals are set up correctly, his amplifier is not faulty, and that there's nothing odd about the set up. When he gives me assignments, we go to record stores and he tells me to listen to certain albums to study the texture , lyrics and composition of the song and how they compare or contrast with another album. For instance, he tells me to study the "call and respond" technique, that is used heavily with blues artists, and tells me to write a paragraph on what I think of it.

Blog 11: Holiday Project Update

1. It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school. What did you do over break with your senior project?

Over the break I worked on my component one project, which is to create this reel of my work. The reel is going to be audio tracks playing in the background of visual clips to enhance the mood. I finished all the audio tracks and now just need to create the visuals.

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why? What was the source from what you learned?

I learned that when you create a reel as a resume, employers will often only watch the first thirty seconds to see if they are interested, so video reels are ideally very short and detailed. I was planing to make mine around 6 minutes ,though, since I am not using it as a resume, but I will create a thirty second version as a demonstration. I learned this at mediacollege.com here's the link http://www.mediacollege.com/employment/demo-reel.html

3. If you were going to do a 10 question interview on questions related to answers for your EQ, who would you talk to, and why?

I would talk to my dad's musician friend, Runson, because he plays his music for a living and seems to be getting by. I don't know if he has any experience with reels, but I know he has much experience performing live and releasing new recorded music.

November Extra Blog

Last time I saw my new mentor, he gave me an assignment to learn how to play the harmonica. During the month of November, I practiced playing very much. I would create tracks on my computer with me playing guitar, and I would add harmonica recordings and layer it over the guitar. I did this very many times. I created a little video of my own animation and accompanied it with harmonica playing in the background. I thought this would be a neat little project to try because I figured it is very similar to composing scores for movies, which is something I would very much like to do for a living. I created several videos of my animations/music, but only one video had harmonica in it. There are five videos like this total.

 Since my independent component idea is to create my own little reel of my work, I gave myself a deadline for compositions, which is December 18. I have five compositions at the moment so I'm pacing myself pretty well. I had one of my mentors critique two of the songs and he gave me some pointers on making them more "hooky." Next time I see him, which is probably sometime next week, I'll have him critique the other songs and show him the videos.


here are the videos
http://instagram.com/p/vwcVgODJWD/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/vVJggQjJY2/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/vkXr-vDJZi/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/vM4N3HDJVq/?modal=true