Endfest 16

A little while ago, I went to a concert called Endfest 16. There were a whole lot of bands there. The first stage was the local stage; one of the bands that played there was called Moneta. My dad told me that the lead singers mom comes into the coffee shop sometimes. The next stage had some really good bands play there. The bands that I enjoyed most at that stage were The Bravery and The Shiny Toy Guns. I didn’t really used to like them but seeing them live was a really fun experience. On the main stage were the best bands; the first that we watched was Hot Hot Heat. They were a really cool band, the drummer came out on stage wearing a jean jacket, a bandana and a pair of aviator glasses. I cant remember what band came next but I’m pretty sure that it was Bright Eyes, then Satellite Party played, which was probably my favorite band there. I think that the singer was drunk because he was saying all this random stuff and running and jumping all over the stage. He also said that he was the singer from Jane’s Addiction, which is another band that I like. Now it started to get dark and the other two stages performances where finished, the crowd grew to fill about two thirds of the Quest field parking lot. The next performance was Social Distortion; we made our way into the crowd until we couldn’t go any further in. As the band came out onto the stage, the crowd went crazy, screaming and roaring.

Thanksgiving

This thanks giving my parents had two other families come over. My dad was going to make this one thing that is a chickenwith some stuffing in it, then he would put that in a duck with morre spicy stuffing sauce. Next he would put that in a turkcey and cook it. But in the end we just ended up having a regular turckey.The next day my dad and I watched a movie called Deadman. It was about this guy (Jonny Depp.) His job was an accountant. He was offered a job in the west so he took all of his money and bought a train ticket to go there. When he arrived he did not have the job anymore, so he ended up helping this one girl to her apartment, but a man came in and shot at the accountant, but the girl took the bullet which went through her and into the accountant. That's just the beginning of the movie. The rest is how a Native American helps him avoid the white men who are after him. This is a really good movie, it was made in black and white. It is a very well made movie that I would strongly recomend.

Winter

This week it was really cold, it's been feeling alot more like winter the last couple weeks. I hope it will snow up in the mountains because I cant wate to go snow boarding. This season is going to be lots of fun because more of my friends are riding up on the Stevens Pass snow bus. I just got a new jacket because my old one is to small and new snow boarding pants because my old ones ripped at the knee because I fell and slid when I was runing in them on the ferry. Now I know why they don't want you to do that on the ferry. I got some bigger boots because of some deal we had at Mt. Pilchuck Winter Sport Shop an dbecause my old ones are to small. We took my board in because I kinda wrecked the end on it, but the guy there wanted my dad to fix it. In the end they ended fixing it, alhtough after my last soccer game, we went to see if it was ready to be picked up, but it wasn't. In the end though it will be ready before it snows at Stevens.

Hernando de Soto

Oliver Rock
American Studies
November 5, 2007
Stop Frame Reflection Essay

I made my stop frame animation about Hernando de Soto, it tells about his life, his journeys to find new lands, and explorations of the world.

The part of the project I thought was most fun was watching the all the little pictures we had taken. It was satisfying to watch as all those little pictures turn into a stop frame movie. I also liked watching the special effects happen. For example the water, which was made out of plastic wrap, looked really good when we moved it around. We could also make a splash with the water. The clay was also fun because in one of our scenes we had our characters digging for gold in the ground, which was made out of clay. Although, we did use Lego’s for our main material.

I thought that the most difficult part of the project was starting on the first scene. The first few scenes were difficult because it was hard to gage how many pictures to take because we hadn’t ever done this before. After we’d done a few scenes it got easier though. Bringing the materials was hard because I didn’t really know how many Lego’s to bring. Although when we had them at school, it was easy to make do with what we had. The audio in the stop frame was hard. You would have to try to get all the words out in time without skipping any words or not pronouncing something right.

The most important thing I learned when doing this project was to do a fair amount of work. If Riley or me didn’t work on something we were supposed to, it just set both of us back. I think that we both did a good job on working together. I learned that putting in hard work is better than just messing around. We both had to be focused when working on the project. Also learning how use The Gimp like on our map. I learned how to make an iMovie movie, and then upload it on to YouTube.

I thought that it was really satisfying to go onto YouTube and watch the movie. I’m glad we did the stop frames and I think it was a good experience to have. Taking all those pictures was definitely worth the final outcome.

Halloween

On halloween night I went to a halloween party. I brought my costume, which was a gorilla, because after wards me and some friend were going trick or treating. Since it was halloween we were going to watch a scary movie, we decided on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, about a quarter of the way through the movie we decided to go out side. Some of us got on our costumes (including me). Then we had scooter races down this huge hill, I fell over so many times because the costumes eye holes are super small. We went back in side and everyone started to watch the movie, then we heard the sound of a chainsaw it got louder and louder until we could tell it wasn't coming from the TV. then the door opened and someone wearing a mask and holding a chainsaw rush into the room, everbody screamed. It turned out to be someones dad though, then we all laughed. Afterwards we went down to Langly but no one had candy though so we just went home.