Filming Blog #1

Last week, I checked out the camera and the tripod for my group members and I to film. My teacher was not present the day before so we thought we would not get to film. However, another teacher was there in substitute of her. We were able to check out the camera and sign the form. When you check out a camera, you have to fill out a sheet. This sheet includes your name, group members name, and the day you are to return the camera. It also includes the number of each necessity such as the camera and tripod. The whole class period after I checked out the camera, I sat there and did not fill out the form. I completely forgot to do it and I left the class without the paper. I made sure I grabbed the camera and tripod though.

After a whole hour and 30 minutes of my 7th period, I left the class. It wasn't until I got on the bus that afternoon that I realized that I left the camera in my 7th period. The worst thing about it was that it was on a Friday. Meaning I had to go the whole weekend hoping the camera would be where I left it. I was worrying myself to death because I thought maybe the janitor's or someone would misplace it. I was worried that I'd have to pay for a missing camera and tripod. I had to let my group members know that we could not film because I'd left the camera at school. Saturday was supposed to be a successful day of filming. However, because of my carelessness, we could not film. By that time, I was really trying to figure out how are we going to film.

Finally, Monday comes. I get on the bus with hopes that the camera will still be in my 7th period. When I arrived at school, I went to the building. I got scared at first because the doors were locked. Luckily, a student was in the hallway, and he let me in. I got to the teacher's class and he let me in. I was relieved to see that the camera wad still there. I then went up to my filming teacher's class and told her that my group and I were not able to film because of my actions. Luckily, the only thing I had to do was change the date of when I'd bring the camera and tripod back on the paper. I now have the camera and tripod, which means my group members and I can film this weekend. I made sure I kept the equipment with me throughout the whole day so I would not forget it.

Storyboard Blog

Costumes: we will be wearing dresses , the male will be wearing a hoodie or regular shirt . The victim or main character will be wearing regular clothing like a shirt and pants.
Lighting: Our scenes will be filmed inside of a well-lit area and some out on the beach when we are singing.
Acting: We will be portraying caring friends in a time of need for a friend undergoing domestic violence in her relationship.
Makeup: We won’t be wearing any but the victim might have a slight bruise.
Props: The male will bring her flowers.
Setting: A table and at the beach.

Planning Blog

The location that my teammates and I decided to use is downtown, near our city's beach. That area is a one-stop place. There's everything and every store available. From ice cream, to pasta, to pizza, every type of food is available. Additionally, there are beautiful stores filled with all types of clothing to satisfy the different styles there are. The scenery there is nothing short of amazing as you can walk on the sidewalks and enjoy the breeze as you watch the sunset. This will be useful as it is included in our music video. Our two specific locations will be whichever restaurant we decide to go to and the sidewalk. The restaurant will be where we film our dialogue and the sidewalk will be where we are walking as a group. Hopefully we find someone nice enough to do this. Jessica wanted it to be a tracking shot. Wish us luck with that.

As for health and safety, my teammates and I plan to ensure that as much as possible. One of our teammates, Micahia, plans on taking a Lyft to the location. This is a car riding service that is connected to an app. On the app, the driver's information such as first and last name, license plate, and car type is listed. we will try to ensure her safety by having her send us a screenshot of this information. Also, we will call her and stay on the phone with her throught the ride. Depending on the specific day we choose to film, Jessica may have to take a Lyft too. She will send her sister's her location, so if anything were to happen to her they can track her down. She would really like to have her sister's to take her though. As for me, Janell, my mom is taking me. Either way it goes, all of us are going to be on a 3 way call to make sure everyone is safe.

The props that we will incorporate in our video are purses. We are young ladies in a music video, and we have to play the part correctly. Another prop we will have will be from the restaurant, such as silverware, napkins, and menus. This establishes our location and how we plan to do our video. The last prop we will have is a flower. This flower will be given to Kelly, me in our video, the young woman in the video who will be portraying the person that is in an abusive relationship.

Our costumes will pretty much stay the same throughout our whole video. In certain slides, I will be with Lesly, the young man who is playing my boyfriend, in which I will wear a regular shirt and some pants, and he will have on a snapback, a t-shirt and some jeans. For the other slides, me, Micahia, and Jessica will all have on dresses.

Schedule:

1) 11/15 - The blog was about song choice, genre, and conventions.

2) 11/21 - The blog was about location, safety, props, costumes, and storyboard.

3) 11/25 - Filming Blog #1.

4) 12/2 - Filming Blog #2.

5) 12/9 - Music video is due.

6) 12/11 - CCR is due.

Music Video Research Blog

In our commercial, we used a storyboard and I feel that it really helped us. When we got to film, we filmed every slide up to par, exactly the way we drew it. The editing part however, was challenging. I took notes on it in class, but it was not that simple when we got to actually doing it. The computer was going slow, and we had trouble cutting certain parts to make our video within 25 -30 seconds. Transitioning into this music video, I feel it may be harder since it is longer. However, since we have experience with the storyboard, filming, and editing, this should be a piece of cake.

The song that we are doing for this music video is Girl by Destiny's Child. We picked this song to bring awareness to the ongoing issue of domestic violence.


Genre:

The genre of our song is Rhythm and Blues. We chose this genre to get into the melody and talk about a deep and important matter.

Editing:

Editing in this video most likely had cuts in it. For example, they cut out the people talking in the background, so the song can be heard. They also had reverse shots in the video, from them walking, to being in the restaurant, and back to walking.

Camera Angles:

Camera Angles in this shot include high angle, eye level and low angle. An example of this is the beginning of the music videos where it shows the group of girls in two different scenarios. One is where they’re at home watching TV and the next is them actually being in the TV show that’s playing for them on the other side of the world. They’re watching themselves.

Camera Shots:

Camera shots are long shot, close up, three shot, two shot,  point of view shot and medium close up. This is also in the beginning in the video where the three woman are walking down the sidewalk, talking and laughing and also when they’re all seated on the couch. Additionally, in the world where the three women are living the lives that play out the meaning behind the song, they occasionally have cutaways.

Camera Movements:

Tracking shot and zoom. This is what follows the life of the three women.

Sound:

The sound used throughout this music video is dialogue that can not be heard through non-diegetic sound, sound bridge and imperial sound.

1. Costumes: The maximum length for our music video must be 1 min. and 15 seconds, because of this my team mates and I only studied 1min. and 15seconds for the music video that belongs to the chosen song. Within the first and only scene that we watched, we were introduced to a female group (the artist’s of this song). First one is Beyonce, the lead singer. She is wearing a white tank top with short shorts, Kelly, the next one up, is seen walking into the room wearing a fur coat covering her whole body, looking fierce. Michele then comes in wearing a cardigan with a tank top and cargo cargo pants carrying Kelly’s luggage.
2. Lighting: Within the short clip that we watched, there are three different settings. Outside at the restuarant and the scene of the group of women walking down the street with interlocked elbows was obviously filmed with natural lighting. In the house, the lighting is a golden dim type lighting.
3. Acting: As stated before, there are three different settings of the video. In each setting, the group of women are doing something different. When seated in the restuarant, there is dialogue which cannot be heard by the viewers through non-diegetic sound. Within the scene where they are walking down the sidewalk, singing along to the song. At home, it shows them simply watching TV with nothing but shocked facial expressions to give the illusion of a juicy gossip show.
4. Make-Up: In the video, the three have on light make up. They also have on little to no jewelry.
5. Props: The props in the video may include the computer, wine glasses, menus and silverware seen in the restuarant.
6. Settings: Within this short clip of the video, there are 3 different settings. One is shot with the three women at home in comfortable clothing, next scene is shot with them in a place that seems to be New York City. This clip shows the life they’re watching on TV at home. Third clip is all three woman dressed up in professional attire walking down the sidewalk with interlocked elbows.

Final Commercial Blog

Today was our final day of editing. We had a lot of issues, as this is our first time actually filming a video and using Pinnacle Studios to edit. The most problems came from when we were trying to cut the scenes for example, some of the scenes wouldn't cut and we have to try to shorten the video from 25 to 30 seconds. We also had technical problems. The computer was going so slow, and I almost thought that we wouldn't have enough time since today was a professional study day. I can admit that besides the technical problems and it being our first time to edit, it wasn't that much of a hassle. We wrote notes on how to edit in prior class periods. Also, in the class before, I had already edited three out of five slides of our video, so it was a little bit easier to do this class. The first problem we always seem to run into while logging on the computer is using the wrong login. At first, I logged onto the computer with my username and password, only to find out that the footage was on my partners login. That basically translates to we wasted another 3 minutes, waiting for the computer to load, to get into her account.

Although we had a hard time editing the video, I can say it was a lot of fun looking at the slides seeing ourselves, and hearing our voice play over and over to see which footage is the best one for our film. The time management was partly my fault because I may or may not have wasted time trying to click between videos to see which one my face looked better in. Also, my partner kept on making comments about how we should have had another day to film because it probably could have been better and also her voice could have been better. It was very funny but tedious when we would try to edit the scenes to make it fit the time. Most of the time when I would try to cut a little bit of the footage out, more than a little bit gets mixed up in the cut and I cut somebody's voice out. Luckily, we have an undo button so I was able to take that back and try editing it again. Another thing I found funny is how much time we wasted laughing at ourselves in the scenes. For example, I was supposed to be a mean business lady in the commercial so we would sit there and laugh at my part. At the end of our editing we ended with a little over 30 seconds. Boy was I mad that it wasn't a solid 30. 

With only seven minutes left in the class, we were trying to figure out how to cut this part out to make the video 30 seconds. For whatever reason, the computer was not letting us cut, which we really freaked out about. Luckily, we finally figured out how to do it, yet we figured that we should export the footage, and save it onto our drive just in case. We had a little more issues with that then we thought, so we had to ask our classmates for help. We even had to ask the substitute, hoping that she would give us an answer. By this time, the bell had already rung, and we were going to be late to class.  At first, we tried to go through the computer to export it to our drive, but it did not work that way. I took over the computer and I tried to go into the drive from Google Chrome, import the footage from the folder, and put it on to our drive and it worked. All in all, we were able to save our footage, although we were late to class. Once again, it was a hassle trying to cut, shift, and make the scenes make sense, but it was fun.