Blog

This week of February 8th, I was able to conduct some research about my topic. I was able to find articles for evidence. In those articles I also found pictures that I can use for my video. I did an interview this week and this interview is going to help bring a perspective from an adult who might be able to explain the topic better and what they think about it. I will still need to look at more articles to find data and graphs. Which can also work as evidence.

At the beginning of this week I was planning to start editing my video, however the recording of the interview I conducted didn't go as planned. The audio on the screen recording of the google meet wasn't too good. I wasn't able to edit so instead of editing I was able to find more helpful articles and pictures in can add into the video once I start editing. I will redo my interview by Friday February 19 and by next week I will start editing the video and try putting it all together.

Links to some articles/pictures

https://mspmag.com/health-and-fitness/how-minnesota-is-tackling-teen-mental-health/

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/social-media-a-silent-killer-of-your-mental-health/

In the beginning of the week I was planning on just editing and putting all the images and videos together. I was able to redo and complete my interview and all that was left was to just edit. I got to edit my video and will be finished by the end of the day on Friday the 26th. Luckily I didn't have too many obstacles to get through, the only challenge I faced was having to redo my interview. The sound quality of the screen recording wasn't too good, however the person I interviewed was able to record themselves through their phone during the second attempt which helped a lot and it made the quality so much better.

In the beginning of the week I was just going to show my finished project to my teacher, Mrs Wintemberg, and my chosen advisor, Ms. Bedhir, for any feedback. When I showed it to Mrs. Wintemberg she told me to put the volume down on the background music which I had not realized was loud so it was good that she had realized. I emailed Ms. Bedhir and shared my project with her.

I had gone to a teen arts festival which included many workshops. The first workshop I went to, I was being taught how to draw myself blindly. I had to tape down a piece of paper, look at myself through a camera or mirror and try drawing myself without looking down at the paper.

In the second workshop I learned how to draw hands as if they were realistic. I actually learned that you need to focus on the shapes to draw hands. I feel like I actually have a little bit more of an idea of how to draw a believable hand, but I would have to practice more to get better.

In the next workshop I learned how to draw eyes in a realistic form. If you want to draw eyes looking to the right or left, one of the eyes has to be smaller than the other. You have to draw in the details such as the eyelashes.

In the final workshop I learned how to draw an image using water markers. With those markers, you have to work quickly because they dry faster. You have to also be careful with the colors because then they will end up mixing with each other when drawing.

I was not able to attend the adjudication, however I am waiting to see the recording.

I have submitted my first capstone project. This week I will be completing my proposal for my second capstone project. This proposal is a small description of my project. It will include what I plan to do and what it will consist of such as data, statistics or animations. I will be doing a PSA on mental health which is a topic that I believe is important especially in today's society. A PSA seems like an effective way to get information out to people.

At the beginning of this week I was planning to conduct some research for my next project. I will be looking for any websites with data to include into the PSA. The data will serve as a type of evidence instead of just me explaining with what I think. I hope to find just percentages or ratios of mental health problems in the US. I don't think I will need much information, I will only use the information that I can get across easily.

My next senior capstone project will be a psa of animations. Psa's help get points across easily which is what I am trying to do. This psa related to my overall theme because it still shows how mental health plays an important part of our lives and how it can eventually affect us. So far I have created a script for this psa. This script consists of the visuals and what I will be saying which are all the facts I have found from news articles.

Link to the script:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hoxWN82FvQDu6R7txa5hP1UaY872ko3XjpN7Luyw074/edit

This week for my second project I have started to look for my character animations and just objects. I have found these characters and objects through a website called Canva. I also looked for some backgrounds I can use in this psa. I have not started editing just yet, but when I edit I will have to animate them using a tool from WeVideo which will make them move.

This week I was planning on editing my PSA. This edit will be a rough draft of my second capstone project. For the edit I have to put together some images I got from a website called Canva. The images are of characters I have chosen to include in the video. I have to also record my voiceover and lastly just add some background music.

This week I finished my rough draft of my second capstone project. My teacher looked at the PSA with me and gave me a suggestion. I was told to put in a disclaimer at the end, just so people can know that this is a student project and I am not a health professional. I am now waiting for my classmates to critique my work and for them to give me some suggestions on my project.

Online resource for mental help: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/

This week I finished my capstone project #2. My classmates critiqued my work and I was told it was good. On this project, a psa, there wasn't much problems as I expected. I was able to get every character I needed and to animate them. I was even able to learn something new, for two objects I learned how to take off the background using wevideo. I'm glad I was able to finish this project without any obstacles.

Self Reflection

This school year was tough on almost everyone. For some it was a negative impact on their mental health. I did some research on Mental health. Mental health is an important topic and is a very important part of our lives. In the past year we all have been through so much because of this pandemic and it has caused people to have increased mental health issues. I feel as though this pandemic didn’t have as big of an effect on me as other people. One of my successes this school year was being able to complete my projects on time. I was able to use what I had at home to complete them.

While doing my research I learned that young adults are the age group that is most affected by mental health. I was very interested in this because it seems like there are many new factors affecting mental health these days especially in teens/ young adults. What surprised me to know is that social media has become part of the problem in which mental health issues form. Social media has become a big platform and many people are now on it. A lot of hours are spent on these apps and now it seems like no one can get off of them. My viewpoint for this capstone project was that mental health in teens has not worsened, however there are more factors contributing to mental health issues. I conducted an interview with a guidance counselor at PAHS about mental health and that interview helped reinforce my understanding of my view for the capstone project. I was able to understand that teens are starting to become more open and there is now more help people can get.

This project has made me realize even more that we need to protect our mental health. I feel as though I was able to get that point across in my two videos. If I were given a second chance to complete this class again I don’t think I would have done anything differently. I know I worked well this year, I used my time wisely and I worked hard to make sure these projects came out great! I enjoyed making these videos and would hope that in the future people become more aware of how important it is to speak up when they are going through a hard time.