Monica Alcazar


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Hi everyone :)! My name is Monica Alcazar; I am a third year SMASH Academy scholar and a senior at Henry M. Gunn high school. This is my second summer taking Tech at SMASH and I'm super excited to be taking Tech II because the projects sound like so much fun :). I love the Tech classes here at SMASH, and I also love working with the SMASHCAST team during the academic school year on podcasts. Having worked with Photoshop and Flash last summer, I can't wait to get started with Final Cut and make some videos (I really hope I can learn enough to make an alright video for my final project!). My hobbies include running, meditating, eating, making podcasts, and spending time with the people I love (family, friends, etc). My favorite color is orange, followed by hot pink and then yellow :). I love the beach and playing volleyball, and...I like to listen to music every moment possible. Bye :) !

Monica Alcazar
PSA: To the SMASH Class of ‘09

July 25th, 2008

Hi everyone,

My PSA is about SMASH students being the future of this society. I decided to make this my topic becuase I felt it could motivate our students and further expose us to the world by letting others knwo that we are strong students of color who will form and create the future of this world.

I decided to do a "montage"-type PSA featuring many SMASH scholars in order to further portray the fact that ALL of us are the future, not jsut a select few of us. I don't really have much else to say about my PSA because it is pretty self-explanatory and more of a proclamation than anything else.

I dedicate this especially to my class of OHNINE!

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#4: SMASHVIDEO PSAs, Assignments, Uncategorized

Monica Alcazar
M^2 x F^2 x A^2

July 19th, 2008

Message: The SMASH Academy class of 2009 is the generation of the future.

Messenger(s): All the messengers will be SMASH Academy students; there will be at least five messengers, perhaps up to ten…it all depends on how successful the group is at gathering the clips.

Format: I’m not entirely sure of how to phrase the format of our project, but I know there will be many individual one-word clips forming the big idea.

Focus: The words we are using, particularly “future”.

Audience: the audience consists of everyone; particularly those who may not know what the SMASH Academy is.

Action: I suppose my PSA is not necessarily one that persuades others to do any one specific thing other than to instigate curiosity about the SMASH Academy and inform them that we ARE the future!

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Monica Alcazar
Down in the River with my SMASH buddies

July 17th, 2008

Hi everyone,
Assignment #4 was to make a silent film or music video; the purpose of the project was to produce something that did not have audio and still be able to communicate. I chose to do a music video to the song “Down in the River” because it has recently become very important to me in a spiritual sense. I first head the song during a retreat I experienced just before beginning my summer session at SMASH. The most difficult part of the assignment was getting the “mothers” and “fathers” to actually go down to the creek to film; all I needed them to do was walk down some stairs, but it was so hard to actually get them to leave the dorms for a given amount of time!

Anyway, I’m really excited about having finished this video, and I’m really glad I was finally able to post it!

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#3: Silent Film, Assignments

Monica Alcazar
Music Video Time!!!

July 13th, 2008

Hi everyone,
Our third assignment is to make a silent film or a music video. I chose to do a music video because I am simply not creative enough at the moment to create an entire story line that would be well-communicated without sound.
I have chosen to do my music video for the song “Down in the River” because I first heard that song during a retreat the week before the SMASH Academy began and it was stuck in my head for days on end.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy :) !

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Monica Alcazar
Assignment #2: my Sundays

July 13th, 2008

This assignment is, quite possibly, the hardest and most frustrating project I have yet experienced in either of my two summers of SMASH Tech classes. Getting the footage was not difficult, but piecing together was frustrating. I had a lot of trouble getting the edits to work the way I wanted them to work, as well as some serious file malfunctions that made it really difficult for me to stay at all motivated to finish this assignment.

My project includes the basics of my Sundays during the SMASH session and an overview of what my day focuses on.

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#2: Documentary, Assignments

Monica Alcazar
A Day in the Life…Outside of SMASH

July 3rd, 2008

For my second assignment I decided to document what a typical day consists of when I am NOT in SMASH, or in other words…my Sundays :) .I chose to do my project on my typical sunday because I know that SMASH students all sorts of different things on their days when they go home, and I realized that my Sundays have always been focused and shaped around church. Having come to this realization, I saw no other “event” that matters to me more than church I thought it’d be nice to sahre that with all of you :)

The “events” covered will be:

  1. Waking up
  2. Eating breakfast
  3. Craziness of getting ready for church
  4. Church service
  5. Going back home
  6. Post-church activities

Thank you!

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Assignments

Monica Alcazar
SMASH Academy Scholars and Movies :)

July 1st, 2008

Hi everyone,

Our first assignment for our Tech II class was to make a video montage around some predetermined questions. My group consisted of Jose Trujillo and Shena Rapinan, but seeing as Shena was unavailable that week I decided to also incorporate Ramona (Mona) Amato in order to have some variance (so you wouldn’t get bored of just seeing me and Jose!).

Making the video was actually a lot of fun despite the technical difficulties I encountered: I had already finished piecing my video clips together and all I needed were the question clips when all of a sudden my flash drive crashed and I lost my project. Luckily Simon came and saved the day and he helped me save my project…even though I had to start on the piecing together all over again. 

All in all, I really enjoyed making the video and learning about Final Cut. I hope you all enjoy  the video!

-Monica

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#1: Interview Montage, Assignments