Filming Blog

This past week my group and I decided that we should film our video so we can get it out of the way and have time to work on the editing process which much time was going to be needed. My friend texted in our Media group chat around 10pm on Saturday that we should film on the following day around 4pm. We all agreed except one member of our group. He had left town for the weekend due to other extracurricular activities. We kept in touch with him the whole time while we were taking pictures and recording some videos. We thought it was crucial to keep him involved as we are a group and we all need to be on the same page. Although every picture looked very good due to our group member camera quality and my skills acquired from that of Photography class, we had to pick the best ones from that day. Luckily we all agreed on which ones to pick and we didn’t have any arguments over a picture or video.

Unfortunately, one of the problems which we had to face was that none of us had a car or were allowed to drive, so we decided to invite two of our close friends to help us with the process. They drove us to the different locations where we then took pictures. They were also part of our project as we involved them in the pictures when we were playing soccer at the park, and when we were at the beach. We all met up at the park at 4pm on Sunday, and we quickly started the process as some of us had to be home. The first thing we did was play soccer and football at the park while one of the group members was taking pictures of us. This part was very fun as we just played around for a while even though we were actually working on our project. After this, our friend drove us to the beach where two of our group members decided to jump off the peer. Before they jumped we all made sure that the area was safe and that the water was deep enough. When we were about to leave we decided to record some of our video and take some pictures at a restaurant on the beach. We ordered a snack so that we could stay inside and we asked the manager if it was fine if we filmed and took pictures inside. 

After we finished eating we were all sitting down in the plaza talking about our project and all the props we need to buy, and when the next day we were going to film was and especially where. We decided that we were going to film on Wednesday, November 27th, at one of our group member’s house as he lives close to the beach and that’s where we originally wanted to record most of our music video. For our props we decided to buy fireworks and candles that we will use when it’ll get darker, but of course we asked and made sure that one of our parents was available to supervise us while we use this material since we are not familiar with it and it could be dangerous. I believe that my group and I are doing a fantastic job with the music video because we are already getting ahead and doing most of the work now so that we can finish before the deadline, because if any inconvenience would happen we would have time to fix the issue. I have had a great time working with our group and our newest member. Filming also our music video I think is very fun as we get our work done but we also enjoy and have fun doing it. Hopefully nothing goes wrong with our music video and we can finish our filming process as soon as possible with the fact that it comes out much like the storyboard design is.

Storyboard Blog

At the beginning of our storyboard it starts off with a adult man on the beach with a book of memories. This will be the establishing shot and it will also be a wide angle. Then, on the next box there is a shot of the book, held by the adult. On this book there is a picture of him and his friends. This is an insert of the book, with the pictures in the book, including pictures at a basketball court or a restaurant. This next step is very crucial to our editing process, as this will probably be the hardest part of the music video. We will lock onto on of the pictures, which will be the friends locking arms. We will then zoom into the picture and zoom out into the actual beach. This will be hard because the smooth transition will be crucial for the flow of the video. We are thinking of doing a fade transition and a color transition.

The next box is a tracking shot from behind the car that we are driving in. This is the first shot of our general flash back scene. We then proceed to meet up with the girls at the beach and begin the main part of our video. We then begin to walk the beach together in the night, this could be adjusted for filming purposes. Then we begin the real fun, the pyrotechnics. The very next square is where we have the pairs playing with sparklers on the beach. This will paint a beautiful picture as the contrast from the sparks and the nights will created that tone. After we have a few visuals of the sparklers, we will have some sort of fireworks like some Roman candles. This will be accompanied by the dancing of the friends. This will be perfect for the music as it is more of an upbeat and party song.

Next, we move into the third phase of the video, which is the relative ending. The first box of this phase is where we will have one of the friends separate form the rest and sit. They will just be watching the moonlight in the calm of the night. We will then fade to the friends coming together to take a picture. This will be a picture that we started of with in the book. It will zoom out and the picture with be in the book. Next we will cut to a wide angle of the adult version of the subject sitting at a table in the beach. He is then approached by the adult version of his date, they are now married and living happily. Then, we will fade to an image of the couple sitting on the beach watching the sunset. Finally, we will have a drone shot of the sunset from high in the sky. Thus concluding our music video.

Planning Blog

In our music video we will have many different locations. Our music video will be based on past memories of a person, so we will have to film in a variety of places. We will first start filming at the person’s house which will be My house since I live close to the beach. After we do our filming there, we will be going downstairs to the pool and film there too. After we film in the pool we will go to the beach and do most of our filming their since we have a really big space. When filming in the pool we have to make sure that we are safe before everything. We will make sure we don’t do risky jumps and running around the pool to make sure we are safe. We have to be even more careful when we film at the beach. We will make sure we ask permission to the lifeguard since we want to film a shot there. Our group will make sure we are safe and not doing anything that could harm or interfere with someones routine.

In our music video we will be using many different types of props. At the beach we will use sparkles to shoot one of our scenes. We will use a soccer ball as well since everyone in our group loves to play soccer. Our group is also taking shots in a car. When we film the shots in the house our idea is to show the person that is watching what we like to do with our friends, so we will be using a PS4 to represent that because we are always playing video games together. When we film at the pool we will be using a beach ball and a volleyball. At the beach we will also use soccer goals to recreate a game. We will try our best to make the memories as realistic as we can.

Since we are doing many different memories in our music video we will use many different costumes. When we film at the beach we will mainly be using swim shorts and some of us will be using shirts. Some of us might even be wearing something beach related costumes like a necklace or sandals. When we film at the pool we will be wearing almost the same outfits but with some small differences on the details of the clothes. When we film indoors at the house we will just dress up using normal comfortable clothes that we usually wear at school. If we film at the park we will be dressing up using soccer clothes because our idea is to play a game there too. This project will be really fun and I’m really excited to start filming since we will be filming outside school. We have almost everything planned out and we will try to start filming as soon as possible.

Codes and Conventions

Today being November 14, 2019, we have begun the music video project which will be a 1 minute and 5 seconds to 1 minute and 15 seconds video. My group and I have chosen to focus and work with the song “Rocketeer” by Far East Movement. We are truly excited to film this music video due to that fact that we had a great time shooting our commercial and learned many new and interesting techniques which we would love to incorporate in our new project. In this new project I want to keep on improving my craft and attempt to try new camera angles and as well learn the pinnacle studios application much better to take our video to the next level. Our song is in the pop-rap category of music and has a fast and uplifting beat to it. Due to this, we will ensure our video shows the uplifting beat and does not portray anything else. I believe I have chosen a great group to work with and I am expecting no less then the best of each and every single one of them. We have great chemistry so working on this project should be easy and Non-problematic.

Furthermore, going in depth on the song “Rocketeer” it is basically this song about a boy who is in his relationship with his girlfriend, which in another perspective could be considered his crush, and he practically feels as he could do anything when he’s with/around her. One of these things being flying. As the song continues he keeps on telling her how much she means to him and he wants to continue feeling the way he does for her.

1. In our music video we will be on the beach, so we would be wearing bathing suits. There will be other times, however, were we will be on a basketball court for a picture, in which we will be wearing  clothes for basketball. There will also be a picture that we will be in a restaurant and laughing, so we will be wearing regular attire, maybe jeans and a t-shirt.

 2. In most of the pictures in the book, it will be daytime. This is except for the picture that we will zoom into, which will be set at night. We might use a flash for some shots though.

3. In our music video we will have an adult hat is later in life, maybe a father, that will grab the book an open it. Then the pictures will be of us at the beach or in a restaurant. Once it zooms into the main picture, we will have a few teenagers acting naturally. We will be at the beach playing volleyball or playing with sparklers.

4. We will not be using make-up in our video, as we want to put out a natural and relaxed mood. There might be somebody wearing make-up, but it would be coincidental.

5.  Throughout the video we will be using a hefty amount of props. This could include the sparklers that we are using at the beach. It would also include the book of pictures that will be used at the beginning of the video. There also might be some other props like a basketball at the court, or some food at the restaurant.

6. The video will start off inside of a house, in a room, where the subject will grab the book. Then we will have different settings in all the pictures in the book, like a park or a basketball court. The main setting; however, will be at the beach.

Editing Blog

       Today my group and I were finally able to commence the editing process on our commercial. The school in response to the technological errors, gave us laptops with the software on them. Due to the fact that our teacher explained to us that there was a shortage in laptops for the class. Our group got there bright and early. The teachers had created a system in which the class was divided in half and the first half of people got 45 min to work on editing, and thus after the other group would receive the final 45 min remaining. This putting us on a tough time frame to complete and edit all our work. We were fortunate enough to be chosen as one of the first groups to edit. However, we filmed the commercial on my phone. So in reality all we had to do was download it onto a Flash-drive. During this whole process we really only had problems on the desktops with downloading the video files. We were very fortunate that it downloaded flawlessly, however my guess is that due to apple using a different platform then that of the laptops it did not have the same applications leading the computer to have a troubling time trying to upload it.

     Furthermore, when we got on to the laptop it was very bothersome how long it took to turn on. This subsequently Gave us less time, and the worst part was time was of the essence. After some minutes of waiting it finally started up and my group and I opened pinnacle studio. The only problem was pinnacle studios was an application that went extremely slow as it had so much information. So we decided to work on iMovie. We edited and found music for the film and I even got this app called “video blender” which allowed me to do double exposure on the ending of the commercial. Throughout the using of iMovie we allowed pinnacle studio to open up and tried to use it. We saw that it functioned like a normal editing software but it was a difficult application to use with so little time. We were able to upload a few of our clips and mess around with them, but then  pinnacle studios crashed and thus wasting a grand portion of our time.

    Due to everything which occurred with pinnacle studios we ultimately decided to leave the laptop and only use iMovie on my phone , the only thing was that we first had to choose a song which fitted our video. The requirements we had for this song was that it had to have an upbeat song to pump up the audience. We went through a few songs we were familiar with, and when we found a very good song that was brought by me after watching videos of sports compilations. It was the perfect.The song had a good tempo at the beginning and then quickly drop the beat right as he is scoring  and continues as he controls the ball. Moreover,  another big part of our commercial was a small sound byte that we would use when the shooter “Mario” scored. We discussed the use of a clip of the commentary during Sergio Aguero’s title winning goal, however in the long run we decided to use a player much closer to one of our partners, Philippe Coutinho. The reason we ultimately used Coutinho is due to the fact that as our partner has been growing up he has idolized to strive to become like the star player which is Coutinho.We used a clip of the reporting done when he scored a free kick for Liverpool. Our finalized commercial ended up looking great as the music was perfectly timed with our subject’s steps, the beat dropped right when we wanted it to, and the clip of the commentator was parallel to when they scored the free kick thus giving the watcher goosebumps as they feel as though they were in that stadium watching the game.