Personal Journey

Over the last few classes, we have gotten a lot done. We are getting ready for our next project. Our next project is gonna be a music video. We chose the song No fear by Dej Loaf. I originally wanted to do a Christmas song. I thought it would be better because we are in that season. But another group member did not want to do that song. So, she choose the song she wanted to do and that is the song we are doing. After she choose the song, she started figuring out our story board. We also started figuring out who was gonna be in the video.

The story boarding was  kinda hard. It was kind of hard to figure out what exactly we wanted to do in the video. We also had to figure out what movements would look best with the lyrics. We had to choose the part of the song that would best fit us and our ideas. Then once we decided on what part of the song we did and what lyric we wanted we had to decide on, we decided on each individual six seconds.The first couple boxes were fairly easy. But the last couple were hard. I had trouble of thinking of so many different scenes. The song is kind of repetitive. It was kinda hard to think of different things to do for the same lyrics.

After we finally figuring everything out we had to choose a day to film. That may have been the hardest part. It is hard to find a day that everyone is good with. Everyone has different schedules. So usually one day is good for a couple people but not everyone. Some people have work, after school activities, or just practice for a sport. We decided on tomorrow. So as of now we have not filmed yet. But, I am excited to film. I am also excited to see how the video will come out.

Planning + Schedule

For my group and I project, we will feature our self in the music video with the song “No Fear” by Dej loaf. Each one of us will be responsible for recording a part of our music video. This will take place on Ft. Lauderdale Beach. Places on the beach such as the ice-cream shop, tattoo shop, on the sand and at the park across the street from the beach. We will also have a scene in the car with high hopes. If the beach is not fitting that specific day, we will change location and go to a local

Park. We will test these spots and take multiple footages as well to see what works well for our video throughout the process. We will probably not get every location but we would like to try and get as much footage as possible. For safety purposes, we will get permission first from our parents of course. We will be in a large group to make sure that we are protected at all times, we are aware that is very important that we stay attentive throughout the process and make sure no one is harmed. Our phone will also be on us and well charged incase of an emergency to call 911 or our parents/peers for assistance. In the car we will be wearing our seatbelts as well. Since our video is about having fun and being free, we will be eating ice-cream at the ice-cream shop. We will probably include more other food items depending on how we feel that day to spice up the video. Food makes anyone feel better and since it's a “feel good” song, the food will be a good element. The car that we will be riding around in will be or other prop as well because we want a scene looking out the window while driving past the beach. There will be no specific costume set for our music video. Due to the fact that the weather can change at anytime and we are not sure what we will want to wear the day of filming, it's better we just go with the flow. Permission wise we will ask anyone around if they don’t want to be in the background of our  video and get their consent before recording. We will not be wearing black for obvious reasons. 

Schedule

11/13

Choose the song

11/15

Research for our music video and genre

11/19

The planning process starts 

11/21

 Creation of the storyboard 

11/25

Getting camera and Tripod 

11/26

Recording 

12/2

Adding finishing touches 

12/4

EDIT!

12/6

Music Video due date

Shots for our Commercial

• eye level
• hand held
• establishing shot
• zoom
• high angle
• hand held
• pan
• zoom
• zoom out
• two person shot
• three person shot
• tracking shot

C- no costume needed

L- The natural light of the sun since we are at the beach

A- Everyone will be acting throughout the music video to certain parts

M- No makeup will be used

P- Car, Food

S- The beach, ice cream parlor

Transition: dissolve and fade out

Angles: eye level and high angle

Movement: Zoom, tracking shot and Pan

Shots used: establishing shot, two person shot, and three person shot

Editing: insert, eye-line match

Sound- No fear Dej Loaf

Review of Project

I think this music will be better than the commercial. The commercial was kind of hard for me and my group. We didn't really know how to do a lot of stuff because it was so new to us. But, now that were are more familiar with Pinnacle Studios, how to film, and how to edit I believe this will be a lot easier. In our previous project, I think we did a good job at planning. I think we also did a good job at thinking of back plans. We had a plan for everything that happened even if it was something that didn't go our way.

Hip hop/ Rap is the most common genre in music and is being played on repeat on our radios. The genre has so many elements to it. It is to the point where there are over twenty other smaller genres in this hip hop/ Rap genre; Small genres such as lyrical rap and alternative rap was exhibited through our song “No Fear”.

When it comes to the camera angles in the music videos it’s very common to see low angles, long shot, and Dutch. The establishing shot and tracking shot is used in every music video as well as medium long shot.

The music video itself has a lot of sound but there are things that go on beyond that for the whole video to come to life such as non-diegetic sound, sound bridge, and dialogue.

The editing part of the music videos are very creative, i see a lot of cross cutting, eye-line match, and action match. The most popular editing is graphic match when scenes are matching with each other.

There is also mis-en-scene that goes into making the whole video and it includes things like #1 the genre ; In genre's with hip hop/rap the kind of costumes that they wear are things that are popular at the moment so it can be things like designer outfits (Balenciaga, Christian Louboutin) with accessories such as big chains and shades.

2. The lighting in the music videos are usually dark and flashy lights since they shoot the videos in a house, but they also tend to switch scenes and go outside to shoot their videos as well so natural light from the sun is also used

3. Most of the time in music videos it’s usually the artist just singing the song but sometimes there is acting i realized that it usually has to deal with someone being in character and talking on the phone or even acting as if they are having a dance battle like in Chris brown no guidance.

4.As i look closer i notice that everyone does have on makeup but it tend to always be a nice natural look nothing too crazy.

5. To spice everything up props that are commonly used are cars and stacks of money

6. When researching I noticed a lot of the same settings but some were really different it varied from roof tops, houses, hotels, and some even on train tracks or in the middle of nowhere on an open road but, most were in an urban setting living the “lavish” lifestyle

Editing commercial

Recently in class we began to work on our commercial again. We had to take a break until we got laptops again. But, we got our laptops and started editing. It is harder than I thought it would be. I thought it would be just like like editing a video on my phone. We had to learn how to cut and blend the videos together. We needed to do this so that the video would flow very smoothly. When we first made the video it was very choppy. We had scenes that over lapped each other. This made the takes very easy to see. Someone watching it would be able to tell there was different takes. They would also be able to tell where a video started and stopped.

After we put all the scenes together, we showed our teacher. She told us that it wasn't clear that it was a nike commercial. She said we would need to make it more clear what kind of commercial it was. So, we had to edit the video differently. We added different cuts in that made it clear it was a nike commercial. We made sure to add in parts where the Nike logo on our clothes and shoes were shown clearly. We also tried to emphasize the Nike logo every way we could. We also added the word "Nike" to the commercial.

After doing all of that, it was time to add the final touches. We added some transitions and music. We chose music that sounded like rock music. We ended up take out the transitions because it did not match out story board. We watched it a few times to make sure it matched the storyboard. We also watched it to make sure that we liked it and it flowed properly. Then we had to save and export it. We were kind of confused on how to do this. At first we could not find the video. But, after asking for some help we were able to save and export it in the best quality.

What We have been Doing

Recently in class, we have editing our commercial. My team and I started editing our blogs. We looked at our films and choose the best takes. Some of the clips had to much wind and extra noises. Some of the clips were taking at bad angles. But, we had many different tapes. There was a lot of different takes to choose from. It took a little while to go through all of them. But once we did, we were happy with the ones we choose. They also matched our story board.

We ran into a few problems while editing. First, when we went to dump and edit, someone was using our computer. So, we had to wait for them to dump and log out. When they were done we had to dump our videos and put them on a flash drive. After we dumped them on a flash drive, we were able to go to a different computer. Then we began to dump our video. But, then we ran into another problem. We couldn't hear anything from on the tapes. At first, we were very confused. We thought there was no audio on any tapes.

So, we had to ask our teacher for help. She also thought there was no audio on any of the tapes. But, she soon figured out that we just needed headphones. Without headphones, no sound came out the computer. So, she gave us some headphones. But then I had a problem. My ears were too small for the headphones so I could not hear anything for the most part. After we figured out most of the problems we started editing. We had to cut takes so that the film would look better. Then, the teacher realized that many of the other teams in the class were having so many problems too because of the computers. The editing app was not working for most of them. So, now the class has to wait for laptops.

Commercial

Blog

Today in class my group and I filmed. We filmed a Nike commercial. Na'mya, Ambi and I were being filmed. We were the track runners. Brandon filmed the commercial and directed. Before we filmed, I had to change into my Nike Gear. I wore all black. I had Nike shoes on, a Nike shirt and Nike shorts on. We wanted to wear Nike for every piece of clothing we had. After we all changed, we started set up the props. We started filming directly after setting up the set.

When we started filming, I noticed a couple problems. The first problem was the heat. Considering we had all black, it was very hot. This made us get tired very quick. Another problem was the running blocks we were going to use. We could not find very good blocks that we wanted to film with. We also needed another person to stand on the back of blocks. The blocks slide when nobody is standing on them.But, because we didn't have an extra person we decided not to use them. We just ran from a regular starting position.

I had fun filming other than that. I was super hot and tired after. I was the only runner who ran over a hurdle. That was fun. I feel like our overall video was good. After we ran, we changed back into our school clothes. When we went back to the class we cooled down and watched the playbacks. The shots were very good. They also were taken at really good angles. I enjoyed filing and so far, I like our commercial.

Storyboarding 1

•Angles- eye level, high angle
•What movement used-Zoom, tracking, and pan
•What shots used- Establishing shot, 2 person shot, 3 person shot,  medium shot, POV
•What editing will be used- insert, jump cut, eye-line match
•Transitions- dissolve and fade out