Isabel Lau, Age 10
Cardboard Boat Regatta at Annenberg Community Beach House
On August 29, 2015 we went to the Annenberg Community Beach House for a very special event. The 4th Annual Cardboard Yacht Regatta! It was at 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica. It lasted from 6:30 p.m. -9:30 p.m. The event was held in the pool.
The regatta is a boat race where a team of two build a boat made with duct tape, cardboard, and glue. It is a fun event that brings family and friends together. The winner of each race gets a medal. But, all the participants get a souvenir. Registration is $15. There were three categories. The adult/adult, adult/child, and child/child.
There was one boat that caught my eye. I just had to interview the designer of Party Boat which is the name of their team. The boat had a disco ball in the front. It was decorated with a lot of confetti and old party supplies. For some reason, it made me think of the 70's. I think a more suitable team name would be Boatie Night. Like the song Boogie Night. As it turned out, they won by a landslide. The other boats however, just sank to the bottom.
This was a fun event. I had a blast. I'm going to come again next year.
PBS Studio Tour
On Wednesday, August 19, 2015 I went to PBS SoCal studio tour. It was located at 3080 Bristol st. Costa Mesa, CA 92626, The building was huge! In front of the building were a couple of fountains. Overall, the scenery was very appealing. When we went inside, we turned right. We met up with our tour guides named Christine and Allison.
We were in the lobby. There was a desk on the left and some green sofas on the right. There was a cardboard statue of Elmo. I found out that PBS stands for Public Broadcasting Service. Next, we went into the video sound check room. There was a huge control panel. Turns out you have to go to a tech school to learn how to work the control panel. That must be a lot of work! There are also three clocks in the room. One shows how long you've been filming. Another one shows what time it is. The last one shows how much longer you have to film.
After that, we went into the sound effect room. There were a lot of buttons on the tables. I also learned that usually one person controls the sound effects, but if they need help, then it's two people. Someone also noticed that the windows were made out of clear glass. It's built to provide people inside each room to see each other. If you need to talk to someone you can contact them visually.
We went into the makeup room. The light around the mirror were blinding . Reason being that filming is done in HD and actors are able to put makeup in very details that makes them look good on camera.
Our last stop is the studio. It was a very spacious room. It contained two couches and a lot of enormous cameras on the side which is use for interviewing celebrities and famous people. Christine asked us to look up and we saw about two hundred lights up in the ceiling. We also saw a lot of computers and headphones. Behind that, we saw a green screen! It's used to slip in backgrounds in action movies.
Overall, this was a very fun and educational experience. Our 2 tour guides did a exceptional job despite they're only been working at PBS for a few months. I'm sure the will pass probation with flying colors. I enjoyed this tour very much.
