Filming Blog 1

My group and I have created a Microsoft document paper to map out our plan while filming.  Our goal is to take two days to film and complete that aspect of the music video.  The first day will be us filming at the local park.  There we will film around seven scenes or clips.  The opening clips will be us walking down the side walk and start playing the song.  We will than skip down the side walk towards a mailbox.  We will than open the mailbox pull out a love letter, and zoom in on the writing.  Another clip will be of us knocking on a door and bringing a flower to a girl im pursuing.  It will be finished off with a clip of us all jumping up at the end and landing at the beach.  This is when the second day of filming will begin, and it will take place at the beach (lauderdale by the sea).  It will start off with us landing on the beach. Than it will be us strolling down the sand and an over look of the pier and ocean water.  After that it will be us dancing on the sand and an over look of the sun and and clouds. When we film these videos I am usually doing most of the recording and I like to take multiple retakes of each scene to make sure that at least one of the clips turn out good. I also like to film the scenery a ton of different times and locations to get multiple clips and choose the best looking one.  For example the sun setting over the beach and tall buildings would look better than a crowded beach or park with kids running around.  So im going to make sure that I do that once again for both days of filming.  We will wear the same costumes/attire on both filming days to make the transitions and flow of the music video smooth and fill in with each other.  I am wearing a button down shirt because I have a scene where I give a female group member a flower at her door, so I came prepared with the nice looking dress shirt.  The girls are all wearing pretty dresses, and nice flat bottoms to allow the clothes to blow in the wind and give them that special effect look.  We are also still deciding on weather or not we should use strangers to be apart of our music video to give our video that realism and backround effects. I am beyond excited and ready to get this show on the road.  Ive began to really grow a love and interest for filming so every chance i get allows me to work on my craft and skills.   

StoryBoard Blog

1. For the opening scene of the music video, it will be a closeup/extreme closeup of the sun and sky.

2. Then, it will be a tracking shot of me walking down the park with headphones on and my cellphone as apart of my props and costume. Along with this will be my actual clothing of a long black/floral one-piece. The sound will be low at first as I'm listening to it on my phone then high when I remove the headphones. 

3. The following scene will be a pan shot of me meeting my friends to tell them of this song I just found. 

4. A close up of the phone will be inserted and the song will begin to get louder.

5. For the next scene, me and the two friends will begin dancing in bright lighting, switching from medium shots to long shots to view the singing/dancing down the park. 

6. Next, the scene following that will be the "knocking" scene. A split screen in editing  will show the male actor knocking on the door with flowers in hand as a prop, and my reaction shot on the other side waiting for his arrival. 

7.  The next shot will be the "mailbox" scene. My friends and I will be waiting at the mailbox, getting ready with anticipation to open the mail.

8. A close up will show the letter and its contents as another prop.

9. The next shot is another reaction shot, which may turn into an action match to transition to the beach scene that follows.

10. On the next shot for the beach scene, it will be a track shot with a long to medium angle of me and the friends who then will continue dancing on the sand to the chorus of the song.

11. The final scene will look over the pier back into the sunset, zooming into the sun. 

Planning Blog

Location- The music video "Walking on Sunshine" will be filmed in a couple locations. The first place that the filming will be done at is Hagens Park in Fort Lauderdale. At this park, the opening scene will be presented of walking/dancing and singing along with the song. Then, the filming will be done at Fort Lauderdale Beach. The video will switch from the park to the beach during the song.

Health & Safety- The filming will be done in public and secured places. When the group takes an Uber, we will make sure to stay safe with the driver while on the road. During filming, the area will be checked for any hazardous object or people that could be around. When we're walking around to different locations, we'll make sure the area is safe and that the roads are clear of cars when crossing.

Props- The props include a cellphone which will be in the music video and headphones. These props will act as the source of where the music is coming from. Then, we'll have flowers in one scene for a part of the song. Then, a letter prop will be made for the mailbox scene.

Costumes- The costumes for the music video will be casual and floral. This will include accessories like bracelets, dress-up outfits like dresses, jumpsuits and blouses. The male actor will wear a button up shirt to be casual but clean looking. By doing so, the costume will represent an outdoor theme for the music video.

Schedule:

Monday-11/18/19   

On this day, there was no Media studies class. Planning will begin the following day. 

Tuesday-11/19/19

First, the class got together to discuss the blogging process for the day. My group and I did more research for our music video as well. We discussed the first couple scenes that will be shot and the location. We also implemented a few dances to go along with the music video. We discussed dates of filming. Even more so, we discussed the props and who would bring them in on the day of filming. Most importantly, I made a phone call with Hagen Park to confirm the location was appropriate to film at. Lastly, I began the storyboard for each part of the song that will be recorded. 

Wednesday-11/20/19

Finish up the storyboard and practice the choreography with the group. Secure the filming locations and make sure the weather permits for filming.  Get props ready: letter and flowers. Make sure costumes are ready.

Thursday-11/21/19

This day is set for filming at Hagens Park ONLY. All shots for specific scenes will be at this park until it's time for filming at the beach. More practice on dancing will be done as well before filming. Many shots will be taken as well to ensure the best takes.

Friday-11/22/19
All footage will be reviewed and checked for any choppiness in case re-shooting is needed.

Saturday-11/23/19
No filming or editing was done for the music video on this day.

Sunday-11/24/19
No filming or editing was done for the music video on this day.

Monday-11/25/19
Filming at Lauderdale by the sea beach will be done on this day. Many shots will be taken to ensure the best shots were taken. Editing will be done on the park scenes. Dumping of footage will be done.

Tuesday-11/26/19
Review the shots taken at the beach and make sure they don't look choppy.

Wednesday-11/27/19
No school- no filming or editing will be done.

Thursday-11/28/19
No school- no filming or editing will be done.

Friday-11/29/19
Thanksgiving-no school-no filming or editing.

Saturday-11/30/19
No filming or editing.

Sunday-12/1/19
No filming/editing.

Monday-12/2/19
Editing for the beach scenes will be done. Discussions will be made if any scenes need to be shot again. The song will be converted to mp3 to be ready to import to the Pinnacle Studios for editing.

Tuesday-12/3/19
Review the video for any choppiness and potential re filming on this day. 

Wednesday-12/4/19
Render the video to get ready to export. Do last minute editing for the music video (if needed).

Thursday-12/5/19
No filming or editing.

Friday-12/6/19
Make sure the music video is exported and finished complete

Research Blog

We are going to continue using the energy and momentum we had from out super successful commercial.  It was a great turnout and we as a whole are satisfied with the turnout.  It was a grind to edit the whole thing and redo some of the clips to make them better.  In total it took about a week or so to complete the whole commercial and are planning on the same time period or a little more to be required for the music video. 
The conventions for this music video starts off with the genre. Since this is Pop-rock, then the sound can always be heard to have up-beat, high tempo-themed music. This can include drums and electric guitars. The camera angles typically include close ups of artists faces. They can also include long shots of dancing/partying scenes. In the editing process, tints and filters are used to boost colors. Transitions are also included to switch from singer to instrument and back and forward. Sometimes they photo-shop artists to look "perfect".  For Mis-en-scene: 
Costumes: The costumes are usually bright-colored with fun designs. A microphone can also be apart of the costume, along with fashion accessories.  
Lights: The lights are bright and meant to showcase the actors appearance or the instruments. 
Acting: The acting is very light and meant to be fun/ adventurous. The actors can be seen jumping around or dancing. 
Makeup: The makeup can usually be very drawn out. The actors/singers can wear a lot of makeup that can bring to light a specific feature on them whether it be the lips or eyes. 
 Props: Props can include all the instruments used which can be in the background or physically held. Most times the prop is the microphone that's always on them, which can also be apart of costumes.
 Setting: The setting typically switches from outside to inside. This can be the beach/park/skate park to the inside of a concert on a stage. 

Editing commercial pt2

   So today we finally got computers. All of the desktops are still down. The ones that are working don’t have Internet connection. We have a few days so far editing our commercials and it’s been going very well. The first thing I did was combine all of the clips. After that we can make them perfect timing.  We do this so that you can be under 30 seconds. The commercials have to be within 25 to 30 seconds and we had perfect timing in between the both of them.  After Merging the clips together we added transitions. This makes the commercial a lot smoother and cleaner.  That’s the key to having a eye-catching commercial. It’s important that the audience or viewer catches it and pays attention to it it needs to stand out. It also needs to be short because people lose interest very fast and also get sidetracked so the quicker the message gets out the better it is. While we were editing we recorded a voice over and we had edited it into the commercial.  Our group also added background music that we took off of YouTube.  In order to use music off of YouTube we had to switch it to an MP4.  It was very difficult to choose between what background songs you want to use because we had so many but I am very glad we choose one that we did because it flowed together so nicely.  The beginning of the commercial has a title to it. The purpose of adding a title at the beginning is to let the audience know what’s in store and know what to expect when they watch it.  It also just pushes out the word Nike more often.  The more you hear see and think Nike the better chance you are to purchase it or ask about it.  Our group did a great job of this as well we were editing we made sure to focus and zoom on the Nike symbols to emphasize it.  The way we filmed our commercial was preparing us for the editing, what I’m trying to say is we planned how we wanted to edit the commercial and how we wanted it to turn out filming that way.  So typically you film and then you add it to make it look good and there’s a commercial but we had planned out how we wanted it to look how we are going to edit it so we filmed accordingly.  Doing this allowed us to finish editing within one class, and it had a great turn out.  Pinnacle studios was so easy and compatible, it was super easy to transfer all of our files and clips over merge them together and add all of the sugar on top of the cake.  So overall the editing process was a success on our first commercial, and a huge thanks to pinnacle Studios for making it so easy and convenient.

Editing

   So very sadly and also unfortunately the computers were down and not working the past two days we were suppose to edit.  Our computers are from 2008 they have a lot of problems.  We have been asking the administration to get us new computers and equipment but they are so cheap.  All of the computers are crusty and very slow and it makes it extremely hard to get work done in class.  Also the computers cannot connect to Wi-Fi all of the time so we can’t access Internet during class either.  Since this happens it makes working in class and getting our commercial done extremely hard and a lot more difficult.  So the Pinnacle studios wasn’t allowing us to edit and it was making it hard to even save our clips that we were trying to work on.  The computer is also didn’t allow us to save any of our clips or work that we had done so the second day we had to restart all over again which happened again today.  Our teacher told us to put everything in the Google drive and we will get laptops next week so hopefully we can start working on editing our commercials.  This entire process has been very frustrating and aggravating because we were going on such a good role and had a ton of momentum and then it all just got shut down.  As a student I wish there was more I could do to try and get this solved and get new computers and the stops put in the class but I don’t have that type of money and neither does the school. Me and some of my other classmates have sat down and discussed ways that we can raise money for the program.  I am thinking of doing a fundraiser to build money in support of the computers.  Being it will be a nonprofit and will be totally benefited to the school and helping our fellow classmates it should be very easy to collect enough money to get at least some computers installed.  I’m really hoping this comes through and we follow through with that plan and make it a success.  Because not only will it benefit us but it will benefit tons of students that will come later than us for the next couple years.  The better the computer is the longer it last so hopefully once we raise some money we can buy very well made computers that are a little bit more expensive but it will be more worth it in the end.  You only get what you put in so if we pay for cheap computers they’re going to break down and not work and last long.  I have already reached out to the principles about this situation.  Every time somebody reaches out they usually take a couple days to get back to you but it’s understandable because of how busy they are and how much work left to do so I’ll give them about a couple days and hopefully I will hear back from them.  For now just gonna keep my fingers crossed that we get laptops this following week and can start editing.

Filming Blog

   During the first two days of filming, i took part in many different clips and scenes.  Both days i wore Nike outfits to be the main person in the commercial.  When I first got to class i had to fill out the filming pass and gather all the filming equipment and write out a plan of what order we were going to film the scenes and what places we want them to be taken at.  Then my group and I all gathered up and headed outside to begin filming which turned out to go very well.  The weather was perfect out and their wasn't too many background sounds and noises being made which helped us be able to make the voice overs without any interruptions.
    The first area we went to was the track and field, our first clip was of the bleachers it was a wide shot that also was a pan shot to start off the commercial kind of like an opening scene to have the audience be prepared for what they are about to witness.  I filmed my partner running up the bleachers and made sure to focus on the Nike clothing and shoes.  I feel very happy and confident with the outcome of all the clips i filmed and participated in.  I also ran up the bleachers in my Nike outfit to compare which clip came out better, to have more options to work with to make this commercial is well done as can be. The second scene we filmed was the over the shoulder and first person point of view of me throwing and catching a football.  First i threw the football which is showing the audience how well made the Nike football truly is.  Then i was seen catching a pass and the ball was zoomed in on to emphasize the Nike symbol. We took these shots more than once to make sure if it didn't come out right because of lighting or sound that we would have a good version of this clip.
   The next area that we filmed at was the track.  The track was an amazing idea for two reasons, first being that I am filming a sports wear commercial a track and field is the most ideal place to be.  Secondly we were able to get a great wide shot of the bleachers on the outer side of the fence that separates the two areas.  This is where we also filmed a clip of me running the track in my Nike gear and running a route on the football field scoring a touchdown, then i did my celebration dance.  Luckily I was able to get all my filming finished in the first day of filming so on the second day I was able to review all the clips I took and make sure everything was ready to rock and roll when it was time to start editing.  I was very happy overall on how it turned out and cant way to see the finished process.