I Feel Better When I’m Happy

For my This I Believe project, I spoke about optimism. Here is the video:

The technique that I used in this video was similar to the “Draw My Life” videos I saw on Youtube. It involves drawing out important scenes and people to further show and explain what was being said. I’ve never used this technique before, and I thought that this would be a good way to show myself evolving. It was also great to be able to transition with the paper, and use different colors to represent different things.

One thing you’d notice from my video is the usage of color. I used a lot of marker colors in the drawings, but the main colors were black, blue, orange, and green. The black was a neutral color, meaning what I was drawing in black wasn’t exactly important, or was neither positive or negative. Blue however, was meant to symbolize when I was thinking more negative thoughts. Orange and green were the colors I used for happiness, since they simply reminded me of the sun and the grass.
Another thing I did was change the lighting. When I was talking about a more sad memory, where I was drawing mostly in blue, I lowered the brightness so that the video would have a darker and more gloomy feel to it.
The last effect I added was one of the transitions, where I placed a new piece of paper full of happy thoughts over the previous one, which had sadder thoughts. That was representing me covering the sad things and replacing them with the positive.

Looking at the result, I personally think that my techniques and effects had given the intended effect. I made it obvious at the beginning what the blue and green colors meant, so I’m hoping the audience will catch the meaning.

How to Stop Procrastinating

Here is a short video that Santino and I made that teaches some ways to stop procrastinating.

Stopping yourself from procrastinating can be challenging. But if you’re up to it, it’s easier. One way is to get rid of distractions and be organized. You could be about to get started on your homework, but then you can’t find your paper, so you just give up and start playing games instead. And how can you concentrate if your phone or computer keeps making a notification sound every ten seconds? I personally think just forcing yourself to just get started is the best way to stop procrastinating. You just have to pull yourself together and say, “Okay, I’ll do it now.” When I start math homework, I always keep doing it until it’s done. It’s the same as waking up. Once you’re awake for a few minutes, you don’t really need to go back to sleep anymore.

Figurative Language Video

Here is our Figurative Language Video. 🙂

I’ve learned about how poetic devices such as similes and metaphors make the song much more fun and cool to listen or sing to. It also makes it sound better. It shows instead of tells, which makes it much more enjoyable and less boring. Music isn’t all about the melody, the lyrics are supposed to say something too, and poetic devices helps make music have a secret meaning.