Hey, it's Jake. In Media Magic today we are editing and finishing up the filming of our trailers. These are trailers for motion pictures. We have been recreating them over the past 2 weeks. In my group, we are recreating the first television spot for the Dark Knight. Jordan, Felipe and Nyree have been working on a trailer for the film 1000 leaves. Jack, Taylor, and Eamon have been working on a Rushmore trailer. All in all, we have been working hard on these and cannot wait to finish.

      Tyler Jake and I encountered an interesting scene wherein we had to produce someone doing pushups whilst someone watched in the background. This is a shot of this scene, while we are trying to figure what to do in the scene.

     This is Jack portraying Max Fischer in a scene from the trailer for Rushmore. It came out well.

      This is Elissa with Domonique in a scene from the Dark Knight, which had a football stadium collapsing and exploding around the players.

     This is Jordan explaining to Mike and Felipe about something to do with the film trailer for 1000 leaves.

     Now Domonique joins me to go over our highs and lows for today. This is Jake. My high for today was certainly my acting in regards to the batman cityscape, viewing the city from the top of a skyscraper. In regards to a low, I have difficulty coming up with one. Now Domonique! For a high: I had a fun time working and watching the football stadium collapse team, and it was also fun to watch the scene with batman on the skyscraper. As for a low, no low today. I think everyone worked really hard and the remakes for the trailers came out really great!

Today was a good day for Media Magic. Everyone did not show up today but we kept pushing and accomplished more things. everyone is working hard and their trailers are coming out great. My group is a little behind and is still working on props and setting up for the football scene for the dark knight rises. I had fun today but at some points i was getting frustrated because i messed up on one of the props and have to do that one over. Overall today was fun for me and i cant wait to finish our project.

The Behind the Scenes Look

Today was a pretty good day. Not a lot of people were here, however, this gave Nyree and I the awesome opportunity to film the behind the scenes of Tyler being Bane from The Dark Knight Rises and Eamon doing a scene from the movie Rushmore. I had fun doing it and I bet that Nyree did as well, and apparently she really likes some weird food called Poppy Corn.

Media Magic week 5 day 2

This week's project is recreating movie trailers. We build our own props, use our own actors, and film our own scenes mirroring those of the big screen films. My group is recreating the trailer for Rushmore.  While we lack a gym, a courtyard, or someone who can do a triple backflip, we do have cardboard! We have copious amounts of cardboard...

March 24 blog: Big moment editing

Today my group and I finished editing our movie moment. We had problems editing and rendering, but we got through it anyway. I was interviewed today and it was quite interesting. I feel like my group and I got a lot done today. This week and last week we were pretty productive. We're doing a new project on movie trailers. We are going to relive the trailers. I feel pretty happy about this next project. I'm sure my group will be a big hit. We haven't decided on what trailer we are going to use but I am sure it is going to be good. My group is really creative.

Tyler posting from Mary Ellen's account!

Warm up: 

Improv Game

We separated into three groups, and did a "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" type improv game. We did three rounds, and had to be quick improv with props.

Tyler and Taylor - We decided to be a princess, I just happened to be carrying a baby. (A Square Baby)

Jordan was blindfolded, playing pinata (using a lamp of course)

Jake and Elissa doing a "fashion" show.

EDITING!

Jack is telling Nyree what to edit

This is taylor working on the workstation computer, editing her piece.

Ryan and his amazing beard teaching Elissa and Jake how to do some editing tricks, while Tyler watches.

Today was a good day, very productive. All of the groups were working hard. Things are going great here at Media Magic! :) 

-Tyler

Hey everyone, Taylor again! Today my group and I finished filming for our make a moment project. My team is making a film about the moment when you open you college acceptance letter. The hardest part about today was actually setting up the camera to film the different scenes. But, the funnest part of my day was being able to be in my movie! I almost never act and it was a great experience. Overall, I had a really great day and I had a lot of fun filming with my team!

Nyree Mont

today my group started and finished a new script after switching it like four times. Our movie moment was that YOHAN realized he was a ghost. We used camera panasonic Y. I think we all enjoyed the day working with each other and coming together on our new script. I would totally love to do this again!


- Jedi Nyree

What's shakin' bacon?!

What's happening?! :D

Hay-o! It's Martha! I know I'm back! It's been a while hasn't it? I get blogging duty today after being sick for a few days and gone from CMP. I really missed being here, regardless of feeling a bit under the weather. 

First of all, I brought candy as a treat for everyone to make up for being away for a few days. It seemed to work, and I'm glad everyone enjoyed it too. 

Today, we practiced our script writing on Celtx. We started out as a group just learning the basic ways to get around the program and ended up making a really hilarious scene where Ryan was in a dress and Mike in a bear costume at a restaurant called Planet Zorg.

After being sent off to work on doings from Wednesday, Eamon, Taylor, Felipe and I worked together to create an electrifying and tense story about the contents of a letter. Gotta admit, the process was not only fun, but I got to know a few people that I hadn't really gotten to work with yet.

Also found out that Eamon is my new Jedi! Originally I'd been working with Jake and now I'm excited that I get to meet everyone in detail. Only thing is, now my Jedi is taller than me. But I think I'll get used to it. I guess. :]

Overall, today was a good day and I really hope I get to work more closely with more students here at CMP. I hope I don't have to miss anymore days here, because I'm really enjoying it and it's really awesome to be back. I missed being here. 

The creativity is everywhere here and I love it.

Toodle-loo, Martha

The one moment in movies.... you remember?

 This is the group lead by mike whose a teacher at CMP currently. they're working on what they're on which im sure will be as great like Ryan's man beard. Then under this is two of our six very talented Jedi's focusing on the ultimately important task at hand.

Today the Jedi nation met on very serious matters today about one of the mot dire steps in filming. THE   MOVIE MOMENT, this a moment in the film that can be found usually near the climax, usually a point where the protagonist becomes aware of the situation in front of them. There was multiple teams storyboarding in teams of 4. The teams were me, jack, nyree, jordan, and sad, which was my group and we went multiple ideas, and the hard part is getting the "movie moment"in the movie. We thought about a mom/dad, literally the kids parent is both, maternal,and paternal parenting in one parent, a DADOMMA.

"Movie Moment"

Dear fellow readers,

 

                          Today I had to use all of my focus for a big "movie moment". My partners Billique, Nyree, Jack, and I had to brainstorm the the brain cells out of us. We had to come up with a big movie moment because most directors or movie makers tend to fail at creating one. Our ideas were kind of complex but I know that it will be a success. There were no wrong or right idea, every idea was great- problem is we had to pick one. I think the biggest problem overall was trying to build up the big movie moment.

Romanic Comedy Film

Hey everyone! Tyler and Taylor here again. We presented our romantic comedy trailer today! It was so much fun. Some people said that our cuts were a bit short. But, otherwise all of our other critiques were positive. I think that some parts of the volume were off and a few clips were a bit out of place when I looked back at it.

We also went and filmed an interview at Prime Print Shop on Main Street. That went well, even though we forgot some equipment. He answered a lot of questions. It was raining, which made it worse. It was still a good day.

         Today we went to the print shop to interview the owner. I think the interview went great and I got a hands on experience working with the camera and asking the questions. I felt that it could have went better because we made some mistakes, like leaving the tripod at CMP and we had to think of questions off the top of our heads because no one wrote any down. Overall it was a really good day and I learned a lot.

Political Mudslinging Editing+Viewing

Hey its Nyree, Martha, and Jake, today was great ! We finished editing our Political Mudslinging ad targeting large record corporations and supporting small businesses. We finished the day (we know, we really only did two things today) by viewing each others videos and offering criticism to other groups. We received advice regarding our video such as: the music overpowering the voice, and clashes between the idea & the music. In addition to this we had jumpy cuts and too short of clips. Our video, was as in the name; a political mudslinging ad. The other videos were an advertisement for a horror film, a romantic comedy, an inspirational commercial, and an advertisement for the store itself. Overall, today was a brilliant day working together. Hopefully next time we can make an even better video. We had fun editing, and adding an interesting music style as backing track (with the help of Ryan).

Editing with Eamon

Finalcut pro came fairly naturally to me, I (with the help of Charles) edited footage from our Darkside Records shoot to make it seem inspirational. I mean I guess it was inspirational, it seemed mostly like a joke to me. "Justin Johnson, one small business, one big dream" coming to theaters Febuary 30, two thousand never.

Voices in my head

Jordan- Today was a great day to wake up on. I finished a project that I didn't know I had the patients for. It came out really good thanks to the epic demon voice in my head. Thanks FELIPE!!! Based off of what my fellow co-workers reactions my video was good. They had positive comments like good transactions, and oh yah... NICE VOICE. I also thought it was good because it helped me improve my video editing for future video productions. :)

Media Magic - March 6th

Hey all! It's Tyler. Media Magic was super fun today. We started off by watching some clips to see the essential parts of a video. We saw some commercials, a music video (without the music, just the raw footage)

Mary Ellen and Ryan were awesome at explaining all the steps, and all the nessecary parts to make or break a clip.

After we did that, we jumped into a power-editing session, using our footage from Darkside Records to create different "commercials" in different genres. Me and Taylor had to make a romantic comedy version. 
Jordan had to make a horror/scary version.

Jake, Nyree and Billque were making a "Political Mudslinging Ad" using the footage. 

Overall, Today (as well as any other day) at Media Magic was SUPER AWESOME! :)

Hey everyone, it's Taylor! So, today we went to Darkside Records for an interview project. It was so exciting! I got to hold the boom microphone. It was difficult to keep it out of the shot though. I wasn't too nervous because we I had done it before. But, at the end of the day I had at the end of the day, I had a ton of fun and I got to learn a lot about Darkside Records. I would have never known that more people buy records rather than CDs. 

Hey everyone, it's Jake! So today I went to Darkside Records and Gallery. The Media Magic team was doing an interview with the owners and operators of the store. They have the largest selection of records and cds in the Hudson Valley. In addition to this interview I was filming around the store to get a feel of the setup. We found out very quickly that it is a busy place, as within the first few minutes of being there, 4 people showed up to purchase records.
Before we could go do this interview, we had to go through the process of coming up with questions to ask the proprietors of the aforementioned establishment about their day-to-day happenings. We came up with questions through a game where we had to ask questions but provide no answer. It may sound odd, but it was the process of throwing a ball at someone, they ask a question, throwing it again; the receiving person answers a question and repeat. The best part was the discussion in the ride to the record store.

All in all it was a successful day with the entire Media Magic crew, and I can't wait for the editing process to begin tomorrow.

Gotta get it into perspective

Today was great! We did acting today and my first time on camera was nerve recking and fun at the same time. There are five steps to this film making process, step 1: brainstorming, step 2: script, step 3: storyboard, step 4: filming, step 5: editing. It was great collaborating with the other Yoda's and Jedi's. We did a film on arguments on how to say the word specific. We did multiple scenes to make sure it was perfect and I really enjoyed it. Hope to do this again. I liked being the actress but, I guess trying the camera won't hurt.

                                                                                                      -Jedi, Nyree

HEY, sup today we had a media collab with the Yoda's and the jedi's, and so far we nailed it with the ultimate power of coolness of jack. I had a huge amount of fun getting to know my Jedi and the other Jedi's and we got a lot.I'm gonna be in the next films so I know I can't wait.

                                                                         -Yoda, Billique, complete,this is

Now strikes the second day of Media Magic! For today, we divided into groups and brainstormed ideas for a short skit. Our group made a movie about how words can be mispronounced and what can happen. The Jedi's did an amazing job filming and acting! They're definitely on their way to Grade-A stardom!

Eamon and jack Day 2

Day two of Media Magic we went into groups and made aspect films. We started with brainstorming, we wrote out a story board, and eventually started filming. I learned basic camera skills (whiteballence, focus, etc), and shot a perspective clip about mispronunciation. I really enjoyed working the camera, I'd also really like to learn more production/editing. -Eamon

As i joined my group today they had been planing to get ready to shot a short film on the word specific. when all the planning was done we jumped to filming with everyone involved in the project. The filming went smoothly and overall was a productive day with everyone learning and making a video.   Jack.

 Hey! It's Jake and Martha! Today was our second day at Media Magic. We learned about the movie-making process; from the brainstorming portion, to the script, and all the way to editing. The entire Media Magic team split into two groups and went through this process with their respective groups. Our group decided to go for creating a comedic type video. The first portion of creating the script was rough to get through. The video entailed an aspiring artist and a critiquing of one of his works by a CMP enthusiast and one of his friends, whom he was explaining CMP to.
We learned all of the minute processes in the camera handling field. I (Jake) wholeheartedly enjoyed learning how to use all of the functions of the camera. We were shown how to zoom in, change the white scale, use the shutter function to change the brightness. In the end we were shown how to move the video from the camera to iMovie, and why not to use 1080p for filming.
So, to conlude; we learned how to use the camera and the movie building process. Anyways, until tomorrow, bye!

Day two of media magic, we went through the five steps to making a movie. We began by separating into groups and worked on our movie. My groups movie was about to friends arguing about the word specific and how it is often mispronounced. My favorite part about making the movie was the acting. It was fun and sort of different from things that I normally do. My least favorite part was brainstorming because I really could not think of a lot to say but overall it was a fun experience. I would like to be able to act and film more throughout the program.

EPIC WIN

Felipe: Today was a good day, me Jordan, Martha, Jake, Taylor and Tyler filmed a funny short video that involved a very weird yet awesome picture I drew.

Jordan: Today was a pretty productive day. Me, Tyler, Taylor an Felipe did a short POV film. Though we first had trouble brainstorming in the end the film was an EPIC WIN!! And my fellow co-workers are great actors because I know they loved my art. I would say my favorite part of the day is when we were acting. I felt like I just lost all my memory and the script became my mind.

Second day - Filming and camera issues!

Hey there! Tyler and Taylor here. Today, we spent our day scripting, story boarding, and filming a video about a art project gone wrong.

We were supposed to begin editing today, but due to a technical difficulty (The computers don't like 1080p video) we couldn't edit today.

Taylor says: I had so much fun today. It was different being an actor for once, I'm usually the one behind the camera. But, overall it was great. I can't wait to edit! I prefer to act, it makes you feel so involved!

Tyler says: It was awesome teaching people how to use the camera and all the principles of cinematography. Jake was really interested in how it all worked. I was going to go through how to edit, but iMovie didn't like the footage. Don't worry though! Mike is going to fix it! :) I prefer the editing aspect of film making, it's so much fun!

Overall today was a good day! Tomorrow looks like a day of filming commercials! Expect another post tomorrow!

Today was the first day of media magic we learned many new things. Our Yodas, or mentors helped us create our first video. As a group we all made videos about perspective. Charles and i made a video  about the perspective of a chair. We started with him standing on the chair and then followed the chair around the room until he sat down.

This is our video enjoy!!!!

The Beginning of Yoda and his Padawan

Felipe: Today,  my young Padawan Jordan was thoroughly introduced to the world of media arts. He has done a fantastic job today and we have gotten along very well.

Jordan: Today I met a bunch of new friends and learned the way of media magic. I learned different types of perspectives on filming.I feel that the force is strong with my ability to learn the art of media.

Eamon's and Jack's first day of Media Magic

First day of media magic, we introduced ourselves, and began the lessons of basic filmmaking. Our first task was to make shots using perspective. We used a perspective of somebody looking at a computer over Jack's shoulder, and a captured chess piece behind a king. Here's the results.
                                                                                       
Video #1, looking over Jack's shoulder.

Jack eating popcorn, from the perspective of a plate.

From the perspective of a captured chess piece

Eamon's views, how it felt to be new.
"I thought it was a good day, I'm looking forward to learning more/making myself more useful. I'm definitely excited for the weeks to come."                                               

Jacks views of today

I feel todays first day of Media Magic when very well, we all met are (jedi) new students and worked on are first project on learning perspective shots and their view point. Today went very well and im excited to see what we will do next.

             

                                                                 

Yoda-Jedi alliance day one

My first day at CMP was great! We did a video on perspectives with my Yoda Billique. learned how some perspectives will make you really think. Things aren't always what they seem. First i learned how to use a flip camera, it was easy to use and figure out theres not much to it. Well me and my Yoda tried to trick everyone by doing the perspective from the plant but i was really pouring a glass of water instead of watering the plant. The plant made the scene look like you were outside.

                                                                                                   -Nyree, Jedi

Wow to say before that I was ready to mentor, was an understatement because it's not easy to help someone who gets what you are saying but they're new to this experience and its multiple was of doing films and well it was really fun and now i feel i'm ready to get the old gears rolling. Hopefully we can be the best tandem out of the Yoda and Jedi teams and strut our techniques.
                                                                                                          -Billique, Yoda

First Day of Media Magic

Hey! This is Jake and Martha. Today we had our first day at Media Magic. We were all introduced to each other, and then paired into groups based on our experience with video creating. Following this, we viewed videos regarding perspective, to prepare ourselves for the creation of a video of our own. For this video; we decided to do something a tad outside of the box, which we decided would be the life of a plant (from the seed to the adult height of the plant in a matter of seconds).

After the production of our raw videos, we went back together and viewed each other's videos and tried to decide what it was that the other's videos were the perspective of (per se, the camera crawling over the floor and then eyeing cheese would be a mouse). Once we figured it out, we told each other what we thought that could have been added on to make it more clear what the perspective was of, or what could be done to enhance it.
Today was a good day for learning, we learnt what could be done to increase the brilliance of what could already be an excellent perspective. What could be a goal to achieve before the end of the time at Media Magic is how to properly retrieve a video from a Flip camera.

Yoda and Jedi Blog post, woohoo!

Yo! It's Tyler and Taylor! This was the first official day of Media Magic 2013! Today, we learned about perspective filming and we shot a video from the perspective of an object.  

We were a pair of headphones, cool!!!

We are so excited for this program, it's gonna be super cool!

It felt awesome working with someone who was knew to this process, teaching people things is so cool, especially when I love the subject! -Tyler

It was exciting working with a someone more advanced than me and I feel like I learned a lot from my yoda!- Taylor 

Jacks Goals at Media Magic 2013

Day 1 orientation questions  (1) For Media Magic this year as a (Yoda) media mentor my goals are to learn and better my skills at teaching film and media to new students, and getting a new student involved and enjoying film making.         (2) How will i know if my (Jedi) new student is on track? How i will know if my Jedi is on track with learning and assignments is by asking how they are doing and understanding everything and do i need to show or explain the the topic in different way.                                                                                           (3)  CMP refection (3a) when did you start. I first joined CMP in the summer of 2007 with a food and media program and ever since than i have been apart of CMP programs (3b) How far have you come since i have started CMP  have learned tons of filming skills and been apart of filming a commercial. (3c) where do you want go. I would like to continue learning about filming and go to college for it and possibly and get a job in film making.                                                                                                                

Maru is BACK!

Hay-o! Martha here for all of you that do not know! I am officially a Yoda at Media Magic! Let me explain. Well, I will be mentoring younger youth in  media and film making. I have a few personal goals. I want to be able to not only learn to help my apprentice but I want to be able to learn for my own video making as well. I make my own videos for Youtube and it'd be nice to learn more ways to make them look more and more professional.  As for my Jedi (apprentice) there are a few ways to be able to tell if they are on track and learning or not. Even if I ask if they are learning and doing everything okay, they may tell me they are, but really are to afraid to ask for help. So one way to fix that and actually know how they are doing is to give them a time frame. Get whatever they are doing one third of the way done in fifteen minutes, then when the times up, go check on them and see if they've done a lot or a little depending on the skill level the project requires.  A little more about me. Well, I started at CMP actually I started on February 28th so this Thursday I make one year officially at Children's Media Project!  Well aside from knowing ALOT more about filming and working with Mac computers and such, I've learned to let go. I've learned to be a lot more confident in myself and in what I do.  Currently I'm studying at Dutchess Community college, taking Visual and Commercial Art but hoping to go to the Culinary Institute but so far, I just want to continue expressing myself like I do. Because art is my life and, I love it. Until next time, TOODLES! <3

The Goals of a Yoda

In my time of being a Yoda in Media Magic, I vow to be an excellent mentor to the Padawan I have been assigned to. I will use my great wisdom to guide my student to greatness. Probably once a week or two weeks, I will ask my Padawan a series of question about what they have learned how they have learned it and what do they think about it.

I joined the Children's Media Project since I was in the seventh grade. I am now a senior in high school and my fondness for the Children's Media Project is immense. I will be staring The Culinary Institute of America this September and my excitement for it is great; once I graduate, I wish to open my very own restaurant and use my media making skills to advertise the wonderful food establishment I will be opening up.

Tyler's super cool totally awesome first blog post. Woot!!!

This is me, posting on the internet. This is the first day of Media Magic, and I am so excited to be back here. I missed out on the fall session, but now i'm back, excited and ready to go. My goals for this spring are to further expand my expertise in video production, as well as help younger people learn the process. I also want to learn how to blog... this is probably going to stink, considering it's my first post, but hey... It's okay to make mistakes!!!
You can thank Mary-Ellen for that one. 

My history at CMP. Hmmm... well, I started out with the DROP-TV program in the summer of 2011. I wanted to do media magic that fall, but some issues prevented me from doing so. I did DROP-TV again in the summer of 2012, and i'm here now, doing Media Magic in the spring of 2013. I hope to be back in DROP-TV for this summer, it would be awesome!

How will I know if my young Jedi is on track? Hmmm... well. I assume they're going to be like me when I first started... very curious to know how everything works and the process of film making. I hope to walk my Jedi through this process and teach them the steps involved in making a totally awesome movie!

My goal for being a Yoda is what I said above, just to teach a new generation of young filmmakers the process and how to do it all. I remember being new to all of it, and the knowledge I have gained here at CMP have helped me grow and change. 

I would like to learn more how to use Adobe After Effects. Thank Mike for that one. 

Being A Yoda!

Charles here! I'm back for another year at CMP. For this year, I'll have my own mentee to teach them about the world of creating films and media. My goal as a Yoda is to teach my young one the ways of CMP's filming techniques and styles. Also, I wish to gain more leadership skills because I want to own my own graphic design business. I also want my Jedi (the children we're taking under our wing) to stay on the right track for learning. I'll know I'm doing my job right when he or she will begin reminding me  on the steps of brainstorming and flimmaking! Come to think of it, I'm been here for a couple years now! When I was first here, all I did was sketch on Ryan's tablet and stay to myself. Now, I running up and down these halls like the wind when I'm at work. If I use what I learned here correctly, I can end up being the next Walt Disney! 

Being a Yoda

So i upgraded into a Yoda after some time as a regular Jedi (average joe) and I think my personal goals as a Yoda is to be a great teacher. Notice i said great, not good, I wanna become a better film maker while learning how to teach more efficiently. I believe one the best ways to ensure and know if my Jedi is on track is to ask if they need a quick recap on anything they may have missed or never really grasped while I was explaining the techniques and tricks of the trade. Man I think I got really lucky to get a Yoda role because my co-Yodas have few years more of experience than me . I started a year and a half ago when my cousin charles told me about CMP and I thought "wow, a place where i can hang out with friends regardless of how we look or talk". A place where I can actually be myself and not have to go through the usual facade of my day. I think I have come a very long way and ill be somewhere hopefully in the near future here as a intern.

                                           -Billique Smith