Pixar (by William)

Pixar is an animation movie studio.  Yesterday I went with my dad to the California Science Center to see the newly-opened Pixar Exhibit.  I am going to tell you how Pixar makes its movies.

The first step to make a move is to draw the characters and scenes by hand.  Movie creators have to work very hard.  For one second of the move, some artists will have to draw over 30 different variations to make it perfect.  The next step is to rig a character.  To rig means to add joints to characters to make emotions or actions.  Then you add colors.  For example, in the movie Cars, McQueen’s bright red was added first, after that metal flakes were added using the computer to make the character shiny.  After that you make the character 3 D using the computer animation tools.  After a few more steps such as lighting, sound effects, story line development, you can finally sit back and enjoy your work.

I am inspired by how hard movie creators work, and I might want to help make a movie in the future ahead of me.  

Halloween Survey (by William)

Last night, I went trick-or-treating. While talking to people giving out candy, I got to know my community better. I went to more than 20 houses and some of them were really creepy.

When I was trick or treating, I asked two questions. The first one was “Why do you want to participate in giving out candy?” The top three answers I got were “It’s a family tradition.” “I like to see kids smile when giving them candy.” and “I want to be kind.” The second question was how much money they spent for candy and decorations. The answers were the budget ranged from ten dollars to hundreds of dollars.

When I was trick-or-treating, I saw so many spooky sights. There was a big screen showing a girl ghost saying, “Hey, you don’t belong here!” Another spooky sight was a spider jumping up with red eyes when you walk up in front of it. The most amusing sight was fog streaming out of a haunted house. I heard moaning and groaning sound effects.

I met three retired teachers while trick-or-treating. One of them gave me advice for improving piano. She said, “Playing the piano helps you organize things better.” Another retired teacher gave me extra candies so I could have more candy to sort and organize later in the evening. It was like she could read my mind.

I feel like Halloween is a chance to know my neighbors better. A lady gave me a research question. “17 years ago, candy bars were 3 times as long as current ones. They were sold at the same price as our candy nowadays. What happened?” I will leave it to you to find out the answer of the question.