ONW Procedures

In this project, my team and I portrayed eating procedures during Power 50. More specifically, not eating on the carpet. We started by brain storming ways to show this, and came up with me stepping over the line and being hit with an invisible wall. Story-boarding was tough but we got plenty of ideas in the end and stuck to our plan! We hit some road blocks filming, and actually had to re-shoot everything a day after because we didn't have enough run time and needed continuity. We were going to use more actors,  but were rushed on time so we only wanted three. Editing it was fun! And I think mine flows well. I edited it in one class period. I was the actor in this project, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time with the camera. I did edit my whole project however. I learned how to use an SD card with the new cameras. It's fun! Next time for this piece I would've used two cameras to get a better view of everything, and I also would've used some old footage that fits for more of a variety. (I would also not film on pj day ☺). I liked the mix of shot-types that we pulled off so I would do that again. I tried to add some color correction to this in post-production, but probably should've changed it in the camera at the beginning. 

Panorama Narrative

Click to view in full

         This panorama is representative of my trip to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. I went over the summer in 2018. It was absolutely beautiful. We drove for about 8 hours from our lovely Olathe Ks, through Nashville and Knoxville and into a really cool cabin. The drive took a very long time but spending time just talking to my family was actually really fun! I even drove part of the way! Some roads were super cool to drive through, as they were cut right through rock. It was like driving through mountains but they were forests instead! After driving through countless small towns and even a few large ones, we finally made it to Pigeon Forge. It was a quaint little town, with a lot of shops, but where we were going was very reserved and away from everything else. We were going into the mountains!
        The drive to our cabin was super scary. The roads were thin and there were steep drops with no guard rails, but boy was it worth it! The two pictures merged on the right were both taken at our cabin, one looking west and one facing east, with the cabin in the shot. It was a really nice place with many rooms, a pool table, a few tv's, and a hot tub! Plus we got to see a bear while driving up so that was really cool/super freaky. I spent a lot of time just chilling in the warm, pleasurable hot tub overlooking the mountains. And when my family wasn't out being activity, we would sit near the fireplace and watch some spooky movies!!
      My favorite part of the trip had to be the hiking. my family loves hiking, and that's where all of the pictures on the left 2/3's of the panorama came from. My favorite hike was when we walked on the Appalachian Trial (AT) for a tiny amount. The waterfall hike was fun but nothing beat the killer views from a trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine. I got a lot of cool pictures from that hike in particular.

I did my best to merge all 9 pictures together, but there are some spots that are obviously pretty rough. I used the eraser tool with opacity and hardness down to blend them as best I could. For the picture of me walking, I just cut myself out and feathered the layer mask. My goal was to make this all look like one distinct picture, but it ended up looking like three. I'm still fairly happy with it!

Pop Art Project

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 For this pop art design, I started by giving myself a good canvas to work with. I found an image of a nice pink and blue background online, but to make it my own I added the hexagonal photoshop filter to the colors and I used the brush tool to give it a unique paint splatter design that I find nice to look at. The background may be a little busy but I think it fits the theme of the picture, and sort of resembles the colorful works of James Rosenquest. I didn't have a set color scheme necessarily, but I used many of them and made the product very colorful. The four squares were my attempt at a repeating theme. I used a multitude of different photoshop tools during this project, including adjustment layers and layer masks. The adjustment layers were helpful because it made sure that the many colors didn't clash too awkwardly together, and helped blend the buildings into the background. I added the bright layer around the subject to really make him "pop" out. (Haha. Get it? Because it's "pop" art. Classic) The biggest weakness in this project in my opinion is his face. I couldn't figure out a way to make it fit! Putting the filter on it lost all sense of it being a human, but leaving it as the original looked super awkward against the rest of the piece. I tried to settle for something in the middle but I still don't think it looks perfect. All in all I don't think this one is too bad!

Challenge #1

        When I first saw this man, I knew I wanted the basis of the product to have something to do with mountains. I didn't know exactly what that would look like, but I just googled a few different mountain backgrounds to see what would look best. I've always loved mountains and my dream is to live out in Colorado some day.
        I started this project by adding the Matterhorn to his undershirt. It's a mountain with a thin peak so I knew it would fit in the small space. I used a layer mask to fit it inside the shirt, and then cut out the rest of the sky in the pic to leave just the peak. I messed around with a few adjustment layers and blending modes, but ended up pretty much leaving the picture the same as the original. The background was easy to put in, I just used the magic wand and created a mask for it. The glow around Jarod was tough for me to figure out, but in the end it wasn't too complicated. I made a layer with a mask behind the man and drew in the white with the brush tool. I then used layer adjustments and feathered it out a little. The hardest aspect of this pic was the shirt. I knew I wanted to use this picture of trees with snow on them, but I couldn't blend it correctly. I had to lower the opacity and I think it looks okay now, but it probably could be better.
     The result turned out looking a lot better than I had anticipated!! It's very different from my original idea I had, but I really like it!

Basic Photo Editing in Photoshop Projects

         To start our graphic design class for this year, we had to photoshop 9 different pictures learning different techniques and styles along the way. Given to us was a multitude of different videos explaining how to make a change in each of the pics. It all wrapped up with a long, 6 video collage project where we completely transformed a model's photoshoot. I think mine turned out looking really good! 

original pic

edited pic

    Most of the other projects we did were about removing blemishes or fixing unwanted parts of the pictures. For this we used many different tools including content aware fill, patching, clone stamping, the healing brush, and the spot healing brush. One of the best examples I have of a drastic change comes from the 5th picture I edited:                                     :)                                                                                              T This project taught me the basics of photoshop, although I still feel like there's way way way more to learn. I enjoyed watching my progress and felt great when my results looked like the tutorial! There were a few set backs and obstacles along the way but there were also always ways to get around them. I'm very excited to work with photoshop more this year!

Self-Portrait Artist Statement

       

            For my self-portrait, I played The Office theme song on the piano for a couple different reasons. First, it shows that I enjoy playing piano. I've been playing for about a decade now and it is still one of my favorite things to do in my free time. I chose this song because I am a big fan of The Office and the song is actually really good! I enjoyed doing this but I also enjoyed the portraits that other people did where it was more interactive. I think mine felt like more of a show than a real portrait of myself.

            In all honesty, I forgot to work with my camera. First of all, I parked myself right in front of a window which back lit my whole shot and drowned out all of the color and contrast of my shot. The frame is decent as it gets all of my hands playing in the shot and really focuses on the piano. One thing I really focused on for this project was my sound. That was important and had to be of good quality because that's what the whole of the video revolved around. Next time I will put more thought  into both the sound and the video.

             From this project I learned that not every idea works on the first try! Or the second. Or third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth... you get the idea. I did a lot of takes and retakes to really get it right and I can still hear mistakes when I listen to it! That was my main challenge, as the rest of this was fairly easy, especially because there was no editing involved. I hope that when people watch this they feel happy and somewhat connected to the show. Hopefully most people recognize it, but even if they don't I want them to like the song!

Alex Pauli 4th Quarter Reflection -Final Exam-

Project

At the beginning of 4th quarter, we were put into different groups of 4 and 5, and were told to come up with a product to sell to the teachers at the end of the quarter. A little similar to Shark Tank, the tv show. This took us basically the whole quarter, about 9 weeks. One of the hardest parts for our group was coming up with our product, but we eventually decided on Polychrome Clothing. The clothing connects to an app on your phone and changes color and pattern with just the push of a button. Watch our commercial (above) to see it in action! You can also see our website that we presented above the commercial. We were originally going to create Polychrome Clothes for many different articles of clothing, but we settled on t-shirts and sweatshirts to not be too broad. I think that overall, our project turned out pretty good. There are some things we could've changed if we had more time, (i.e. making a more professional looking website, a better shot commercial, etc.), but I don't think it looks too bad. Some feedback we got after the presentation were questions on how the product works... but you'll have to ask our scientists for that! ☺

My Contributions

I was responsible for most of the website and our gif ad, as well as acting in the commercial. The website was definitely the most difficult part that I worked on, as there was so much to do and not a lot of time. Our team worked well to get everything done and in the website on time. There were times when we didn't all agree on a certain idea, but it was always solved pretty easily and we didn't get into any big fights. My favorite part of this project that I finished was the ad animation. I think it really turned out well and looks pretty cool.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I feel like after 4 quarters I am pretty well introduced to all aspects of the e-comm program but I'm excited for next year as I'll be focusing on video production and web design. I think those two areas are my strengths and I'd love to develop that more. My weakness in this program is probably the other two strands, as my creativity is not always the best. As long as I work with a well-balanced team, and keep working hard, the next three years will be great!

Summary

I loved how much freedom we had as a team, and how every team made something completely different and unique. The only thing I would change with this project is the commercial and the layout/design of the website. Neither of them look super professional, and I wish we had more time to clean them up a little bit. One goal I would like to set for next year is to make a really good video. I have one in my chase scene video (look up "Alex Pauli Chase Scene" on YouTube) but I would like more to show for myself. It was a great project, fun to make, fun to present, and overall pretty good.