Our project is making covers, then posting them on Youtube and Facebook to get feedback. In our TED Talk, we explain our goals, process, mistakes, and more.
Tag Archives: VV
Nearly Done!
On February 6, I memorized the song Somebody To You. Even though it repeats a lot, it’s hard to remember how the song goes. I think I should memorize this because I think it’s a bit unprofessional to have to keep glancing at the screen all the time to know the lyrics and who sings what. Real singers don’t keep a piece of paper with the lyrics on them to their concerts. I also think it will be easier with this song because Teresa and I aren’t alternating parts as much as the others.
On February 8, I went to Teresa’s house to practice singing Somebody To You by The Vamps. We used this karaoke => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vjO6_uc__A. Teresa already got the parts split on February 6, so we didn’t need to use any time at her house to split the parts. We had two hours to practice and we used that time well.
We plan for Teresa to come to my house on Sunday, February 15, so that we can do the Somebody To You cover.
We never got the time to go to each other’s house. Again, since we had to finish our homework. We knew it was likely that would happen, so we agreed to stay until 4:30 on Friday today, so we could practice and maybe film.
The conference room was being used, and everywhere else was way too noisy. We weren’t able to film the cover at school, so we just practiced on the bleachers near the construction site.
We plan to get at least two songs done before school starts again. We think that it shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish, since we now have a lot of time to go to each other’s house. I want to get our Somebody To You cover done as soon as possible, so maybe Teresa can come to my house on Wednesday.
La Da Dee
Teresa and I are planning to go to film our new cover, La Da Dee by Cody Simpson sometime this Sunday (1/25) or the Sunday after that (2/1). We are going to use this karaoke that I made.
Unfortunately, because of the Individuals and Societies Summative Assessment, it is unlikely that we’d be able to do anything together over the weekend, since I’m sure we both would need the time to finish the Summative and prepare for the presentation.
We have both learned that we should probably use the time we have in school to do our Valient Ventures. For example, we could have used lunch time or the time when we finish our work in Spanish class to select our next song, so that we don’t use up 30 minutes every time choosing a song at each other’s houses.
We really didn’t get to meet up this weekend (1/25). We were both busy working on our Summative Assessment. We had finished splitting the parts though. The document is here.
On Sunday (2/1), I went to Teresa’s house. She was meant to come to my house, but my mom had to clean the house, so I went to hers instead. This is the cover we made–> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2SR3jQSf-k.
On our song ideas document we deleted a few songs that we were unlikely to do, which made the list much shorter. That made it easier to decide what our next song would be.
Finished With Another Video!
Over Winter Vacation, we never got to meet together due to me being in Japan and Taipei, and Teresa being in many other places. That was probably our own fault that we didn’t meet, because I could have simply called her mom, and I could have asked my mom for the times as well as the date. Maybe we could have found a time when we weren’t in different places.
Over the vacation, I did find a good camera we can use, so the video quality would be better. I also cleaned up the place around our Christmas tree for our filming.
From now on, I’m thinking that we should meet every weekend, one day practicing, and another day filming. We should also practice sometime together over the two weeks, at school. We would get things done faster if we actually have a better plan. On Sunday I want Teresa to come to my house to film the Mistletoe cover, and also practice out next song while we’re at it. Sometime today (Jan 9), I want to choose another song with Teresa, or make sure we can sing the song we’re thinking of, which is Everytime, by Britney Spears. I want to finish at least three more videos before March.
I’ve learned that you really need to be responsible to get this project going to way you want it to.
On January 11, Teresa went to my house and we filmed our Mistletoe video! I used a camera instead of our computer this time, so the video was more clear. We took a while to set up: putting the camera at the right angle, making the camera work, and arranging the chairs. After two tries, we finished right before Teresa had to leave. Teresa also posted it on our Facebook page.
On Sunday, December 18, Teresa and I chose our song at her house. We tried doing Everytime and La Da Dee together. We couldn’t find a karaoke version for La Da Dee, so I made one by combining an intrumental without the lyrics with one with lyrics and took away the sound. It’s here. We have also split the parts for Everytime and La Da Dee.
Change In Plans
Today on November 21, for the time given to me in Valient Ventures I typed this blog post, writing about all of our plans.
I plan to go to her house on Saturday, November 22, to practice, or maybe even go to my house to film the actual video. We’re going to have to hurry if we’re going to have enough time to do Mistletoe. Maybe we don’t have to be in that much of a hurry because there’s a holiday and there’s no school so we’ll have more time to go to each other’s houses.
Also today we might have some time afterschool to do some practicing. Nanako and I are staying to 4:30 to do a video about the story of Amatersaru and Susano for the mythology project. If we finish by 4:00 or something, Teresa and I might have some time to practice. She can also help hold the camera or something, that’ll help us be faster.
We did end up practicing at KAS. We had 20 minutes of time to practice at the blue stage.
On November 22, I went to her house to practice with her. We first practiced with the lyrics video, and we found out that our voices were too low when we were practicing at KAS. So we tried out a couple of songs, but we thought that right now was too late to do another song, so we skipped straight to Mistletoe by Justin Bieber. We split the parts for this song together. Here is the link to the document–>https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1FtvAvQIJtlqIS6izhHjtxx3DKUN7bwsrm_B3iUhlhP0/edit I had to leave right after, so we didn’t have much time to practice Mistletoe.
For the Mistletoe video, we plan to do it at my house at my Christmas Tree, and that will look very Christmasy. 😀
HERE’S THE FACEBOOK PAGE
New Song in the Working
It is official, we have chosen a new song! Who Says, by Selena Gomez. Here is the document where we had split the parts–> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ThWopV_UdzdLh0la_cH9rkRkzEXv6wkWtsqmEORX6mI/edit
We have highlighted this song in yellow in this document, meaning that it’s our current song.
This is the music video for that song–>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzE1mX4Px0I
This is the lyrics video that we’re going to use to practice with to get the pitch right–> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C6jG2ZLSq4
Here is the karaoke that we will use for the video for this song–>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWHanw_ZEUw
On November 7, Teresa and I split the parts in the document. Teresa also did the credits at the bottom.
Teresa and I had originally planned to practice at Teresa’s house on Sunday, November 9, but since I had a fever and was sick on the weekends we couldn’t do that. Instead we just practiced at home by ourselves. We plan to practice some times in the weekends. We need to finish this song before December starts, or we will not have enough time to do a Christmas song.
For the Christmas songs, we have made a list of all the christmas song ideas. I think the song we’re most likely to do is Mistletoe by Justin Bieber.
For the time given to us in English class to work on our Valient Ventures, on November 14, I typed this blog post to show you what we have accomplished.
New Song Is Out!!!
On October 15, afterschool to about 4:20 or 4:30, me and Teresa went to the blue stage so I could help Teresa decorate her mask for the Masquerade. While we were there I put on the karaoke for I See the Light by Mandy Moore, and we practiced while Teresa sprayed glue and sprinkled glitter on her mask. We did some other songs too, not only I See the Light.
On October 17, for the one hour we are provided to work on our Valient Ventures project, I wrote about what we have accomplished, which is the blog that you are reading right now.
On October 26, I went to Teresa’s house from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. We practiced for about an hour, then started doing other random things. Then we began filming the final video. We had planned to do it at my house, but thought that we were already taking too long so much filmed it on that day at her house. So I uploaded the video, and here is it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9nvU2F_MDk
I also put it on our Facebook page–> facebook.com/TheAwesomeWhiteShadows
For the time given to us on Friday, October 31st, I searched for songs that we should do. I was thinking of doing One Thing or Story of My Life, but I remembered Teresa saying that she doesn’t want to do One Direction songs, so I decided against it. I wanted to do a Selena Gomez song, because most of her songs are more low. I’m thinking of Hit the Lights, Love You Like a Love Song, or Who Says, which are my three favourite Selena Gomez songs. This time I want to split the parts so that one person doesn’t have to wait a whole thirty seconds or so for their turn. It’s just very awkward just sitting there in the video when that hapoens.
Here is the singing ideas document–>https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ly7LLb-rhu0tvAEIDsSjyuVZG4if7O2x-6svuu1-_9s/edit
We plan to try and finish a song before December or so, so that we can do Mistletoe by Justin Bieber for Christmas.
STARTING NEW SONG!!
We are now starting another song! We are going to do I See the Light by Mandy Moore. It was in the movie Tangled, which is my favourite movie, I like it way better than Frozen!
Here is our document for our song ideas–> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ly7LLb-rhu0tvAEIDsSjyuVZG4if7O2x-6svuu1-_9s/edit
The song we’re doing is highlighted in yellow. When we’re done with this song, we might do Let It Go, the Idina Menzel version. I can’t sing some parts of the chorus, but the rest I’m fine with.
We’re using this karaoke for I See the Light–> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWhgIbxByew
Here is the document where we put the the lyrics and the parts for I See the Light by Mandy Moore–> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1kdmCuFerMuIhydgmh0NhOUHTqy7E85m_rgY3z4Vr7zs/edit
On October 8th, we stayed afterschool to 4:00 PM to practice together in the library. My computer was low battery and had shut down, and Teresa’s was too so we had to be near an outlet. We split the parts. Teresa is going to sing Mandy Moore’s parts because they’re higher, and I’m going to sing Zachary Levi’s parts because they don’t have to be that high. I can sing pretty high, but I don’t think I should risk it, because sometimes my voice will start cracking or no sound will come out, even though it may sound great at other times.
Today, on October 9, Thursday, I am typing the blog that you are reading right now. I plan to go to Teresa’s house to practice, then to my house when we think we’re ready to film the song. We’re choosing my house because there’s more room to film our video so that we’re not right in front of the camera which looks a bit weird.
We still never got to practice over the weekend, because of having class, or having to go somewhere. So we practiced by ourselves at home. I have been singing this song a lot, especially in the car.
Almost Finished With Our First Video!
On September 19, I searched for good songs that me and Teresa are going to cover next.
This is the link to the document with the song ideas —> https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1ly7LLb-rhu0tvAEIDsSjyuVZG4if7O2x-6svuu1-_9s/view. I tried using songs that were more in my range, like Bad Day by Daniel Powter or Mean by Taylor Swift. We are going to vote on the songs sometime next week at school.
On September 21, I went to Teresa’s house again. I stayed there from 3:00 to 5:15. We practiced songs for about an hour, then we started filming the final one. But we always sung super quietly, you could barely hear us singing, just the music. I suggested that we turn the music down more, but Teresa said that the music has nothing to do with it. So then I suggested that we should just sing without music and add the music later so that we could control the volume without changing the whole video’s volume, but Teresa said she needed the music to sing. So we ended up filming over 20 videos, and I’m not even exaggerating. Sometimes we sung the full song, sometimes we sung some of it to see how loud we were. The last one we filmed was pretty good, but my voice sounded so different. I don’t think there’s really anything I can do about it though. It doesn’t sound that bad actually, so we decided to use that clip. Here is the video link for our COVER!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbGVMBfs4w
On September 26, I worked on this blog post. I think the next time we film the video it should be at my house not Teresa’s, because even though Teresa’s house is way bigger than mine, there still isn’t a lot of places to film it.
This is the link to our Facebook page—> https://www.facebook.com/TheAwesomeWhiteShadows. The name of our band it called White Shadows, I had originally wanted it to be Black Sunrise, but Teresa thought White Shadows was better.
Starting Our Project
I am doing my Valient Ventures project with Teresa Yu. We are going to be singing songs, and putting them on Youtube and Facebook. On the first week, I went to the Conference room to practice singing Love Story, which is the first song we are going to sing. At first it felt weird, even though I was alone, probably because it was so silent and empty there. But after a while, I started singing really well, without any nervousness in it.
https://docs.google.com/a/kas.kh.edu.tw/document/d/1OpTySZCtlEUUqu9QZ47xt0XZsAOhrTFufoP-O81Y9Lc/edit
^Above is the link to the lyrics for Love Story, and the parts we have.
On Monday, there wasn’t any school because of the Moon Festival, so I went to Teresa’s house to practice with her. We practiced for about an hour. When I was about to go, we did a quick video of us singing (not the one we’re going to post on Youtube), but the music was way too loud, and you could barely hear us. When we heard each other singing in real life, not the video, it sounded way louder than the music. I think it was because the microphone in the computer was right next to the speaker or something.
On the second week of doing my Valient Ventures, I practiced singing by myself downstairs on a bench between the courtyards, because the Conference Room was locked. It wasn’t that bad outside, there wasn’t any sun where I was sitting, and there was a nice breeze blowing around. But it was still kind of weird, especially with people walking by every 5 minutes. I feel like they think I’m skipping class or something.