Filming Music Video Blog

We have finally began to film our music video. This has been long anticipated also the whole group was extremely excited due to the idea we had created in our heads. The song, "Best of both Worlds" is incredibly close to us and we knew precisely how we wished it to be filmed once we selected the song. Amy's job was to be the "celebrity" actor. This meant she had dress nicely and act as a celebrity would. Prior to filming or even storyboarding we determined that the actors would live mirroring lives with tiny variations. This showed a comparison between how a star and a traditional person lived their lives. Amy carried the tripod and Kathy carried the camera around all day once we had signed out the tripod and camera. All of us were determined to film last Thursday after school because that was one of the few dates we are able to meet.

We decided to meet at Amy’s house for filming. She had to organize before we came to her house by cleaning up her room and obtaining any props that we would need. Everybody arrived at her house and we selected what we would need to do initially. Amy had to change into her pajamas to indicate that she had just awakened. I filmed Amy applying her makeup and preparing herself for the day. I also recorded The "normal person" actor, Kathy, putting her hair up to indicate that both types of people make preparations however, usually, celebrities have additional concern for their look. I filmed Amy adjusting her straps for her outfit as well. Throughout this scene, Amy could not stop laughing thus we had to tell Kathy to leave the room. Kathy kept looking at Amy and whenever she did Amy laughed. Although this was a problem, we resolved it quickly got back on course. Kathy was about to film my part, Amy's "assistant" arriving at her house. Unfortunately the camera died so we could not film this part. We tried to charge the camera while getting food to kill time while the camera is charging. Unfortunately, after we came back, it wasn't charged at all. We began to arrange how we would film next time.

The next time we will film, i feel it will go loads quicker. We have already discussed how we are aiming to film thus we will be ready and won't need time to discuss what we are doing. Kathy and Amy can most likely film a number of scenes by themselves due to the fact that I am on vacation for the remainder of the week. This is not a huge setback, however, because I am solely in a couple of scenes and we can finish filming once I get back in town. Kathy and Amy can most likely film at Kathy's house due to the fact that she has the correct materials for the scenes. They're going to try and film earlier within the day so that they don't have to  concern themselves about less sunlight. The filming process has been a great experience and I can't wait to finally see the finished product.

Storyboard Blog

Our music video based on the song "The Best of Both Worlds" written by Hannah Montana. We will start the music video when the song is at five seconds and finish the video at one minute and eleven seconds in order to hit the time requirements. We drew eleven different scenes on our storyboard. Each lasting six seconds each. In our first scene, our celebrity actress, Amy, will be walking to the bathroom while listening to music while in pajamas. She will be filmed using a tracking shot following her to the bathroom. She will be seen picking up an eye shadow pallet and then seen applying mascara with an extreme close up. In the second scene, our normal actress, Katherine, will be seen putting her hair up into a ponytail also in pajamas with a medium shot. In the third scene, for three seconds, Amy will be adjusting the straps of her romper in front of her mirror. The scene will transition into another three seconds scene where Katherine pulls down her sweatshirt and pulls up her shorts. Both of these scenes will be shown with a medium close up. The following scene will play while the song says "I got the limo out front." The assistant actor, Aitan, will be filmed arriving at Amy's house in a nice car with a long shot. In the fifth scene, for three seconds, Aitan will be handing Amy a pair of heels from an assortment of shoes. As he picks up the shoes, there will be a low angle shot. However, as he gives the shoes to Amy, there will be an eye-level shot. For the next three seconds, Katherine will be picking out a pair of socks to wear with a medium shot. In both of those scenes, the lyrics "hottest styles, every shoe, every color," are playing. In the sixth and seventh scene, we will be attempting a graphic match. In the sixth scene, Amy is putting on lipstick while being filmed with a medium close up. There will then be an eye-line match as Amy looks at an alarm clock. In the next scene, the beginning is the camera on the alarm clock which then moves to show Katherine applying chapstick with a medium close up. At the beginning of the chorus, Amy will be seen partying under LED lights while singing with a microphone with a medium close up. Afterward, Katherine is seen listening to music and singing along with a hairbrush with a long shot where she can be seen dancing on a bed. At the scene where the song plays "mix it all together," there will be a split-screen showing Amy and Katherine doing similar dances to the song with a medium shot. In the last scene, for three seconds, Amy will be shown getting into bed. These two scenes play while the lyrics finish the chorus. It is supposed to imply that the end of the chorus can be seen as the end of the day. In the final three seconds, Katherine is shown pulling up covers and going to sleep using a long shot. This scene will conclude the music video. 

Planning Blog

1. Location
We are planning on filming at one of the actor's house and around their neighborhood. This allows us to have different locations and backgrounds without having to go to a lot of places. She lives near a shopping plaza too, so if we need more backgrounds, it is easily available to us. We also might film at one of the other's actor's houses because they have lights that would be beneficial to our video. These lights will make the video more flashy and will look good with the "celebrity" actor.

2. Health and Safety
At the houses, we have medical aid and parental supervision. A few of the actor's neighbors are doctors and are fire-fighters, who are guaranteed to be home. The main filmer/one of the actors is CPR/AED and first aid certified. While filming in the street, we will have the person not in the shot be cautious of any cars that may pass.

3. Props
We are going to use a car for the scene where it goes "I got the limo out front." Another prop we are going to use is makeup, such as lipstick and eye shadow. This is going to show how a celebrity and "normal person" live differently but still do a lot of the same things. We are going to have an array of shoes to show 'Hottest styles, every shoe, every color."

4. Costumes
The "celebrity" actor is going to wear a nice romper, high heels, and sunglasses. Celebrities are known for wearing nicer clothes and heels everywhere. The "assistant" actor will wear a nice shirt and black pants. This is normal attire for an assistant of a celebrity, who should still look nice, but not over-shine the celebrity. The "normal person" actor will wear regular/everyday clothes. This shows that normal people don't go all out when going out and how they differ from celebrities.

5. Schedule
11/18: Didn't have media so we couldn't do anything
11/19: Starting to plan and storyboard our video
11/21: Finishing storyboard. We are starting to film after school but we won't finish everything that day.
11/27-11/29: Week of Thanksgiving, will not work on music video
12/1: We will finish filming anything we didn't finish before
12/2: Starting to edit
12/4: Finish editing
12/6: Editing blog and submit music video

Music Video Research

          We have finished our commercial and are starting to move onto the music video. In our commercial we had great transitions and special effects. The filming process was smooth because we had a storyboard planned out. We used the usual conventions that would be used in a Nike commercial. Such as POV shots and upbeat and fun music. The hiccup with the computers did not affect us because my group mate Alex did the editing on his computer. All in all our commercial came out great. I wanted a different experience with the music video so I changed groups. We will be making a music video with a corresponding song.
          The song we chose to do is from the artist Hannah Montana. The song is called "The Best of Both Worlds". It fits in the genre of pop-rock and country. The song is from the show "Hannah Montana" but is in the album "Hannah Montana." She leads a double life as a pop star and a regular person but in our commercial we are choosing to do two different people for each side of her life. At first we wanted to do "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift. We ultimately decided against it due to the fact that you cannot express what the video is portraying.
          In our music video we will be going against conventions. In the original video and many pop-rock videos, they have a band playing in the background. Since we don't have a band or a stage to perform, we will do more of an original video. The camera angles of a lot of pop-rock music videos are always dutch and pan. Our video will have more of a still and eye-view angle. We think this will capture our shots best. A lot of songs that are pop-rock tend to be very upbeat and there's a lot of dancing. The background noise will just be the song. The editing is usually just shot to shot, so we won't have to edit a lot.

1. Costume: Pop-rock songs tend to have colorful and flashy clothes. We will probably have to buy some clothes, but we might have some of them.
2. Lighting: The lighting tends to be flashy lights and luckily, one of our group members has colored LED lights. We can also use flashlights to create the spotlight that a lot of these videos have.
3. Acting: In most videos, there's usually just actors dancing to the music and having fun. It won't be serious and filming should be fun.
4. Makeup: Most videos have glam makeup because they're performing on a stage. We probably won't do a lot of makeup because we are not following how a normal video would be shot.
5. Props: The props in these videos are usually microphones, a stage, and instruments. We will use cars, a guitar, microphones, and more.
6. Setting: The setting tends to be in an auditorium. It's usually a concert but we are going to film in a house and around a neighborhood.

Editing

          We have finally gotten new computers for editing. I say this because it took very long for us to get the software. Due to these technical difficulties we received more time for our commercials. It is now due next week instead of this week. This added time will allow my group to make the best commercial possible. I am very appreciative of Ms. Katz for being very empathetic to the situation and extending our time. Also that they are making sure the problem is correctly solved. This project is a large part of our grade and it would be unfortunate if a problem out of our control would take points away from us. Due to this, I am very thankful for the amazing teacher we have. Fortunately for us, Alex had a laptop that we could use for editing. He decided to bring it in so we don't need to wait. This made the editing process quicker for us because we did not have to wait for new computers.
          Initially, we uploaded the dumped footage onto the editing software. We then started by watching the raw footage. Unfortunately, we realized that it was much longer than 30 seconds. To fix this we cut some unneeded film out as well as slightly speed up a few parts. Doing this fixed our problem and ultimately got our commercial down to 30 seconds. We then started to put transitions. After cutting down the footage we started on transitions. We did our first transition were Alex was thrown a bag and when he catches the bag it changes scenes. We also added fade and dissolve transitions in between scenes. At the end we put a transition from the scene into a black screen with a Nike logo.We also made the logo more colorful. We did not add any sounds but we did add music. We chose to do this to make the commercial more upbeat and fun. We also added special effect animations. Such as effects around the soccer ball when shooting to make it look more professional. I believe that all in all our commercial came out great. This is because we spent time carefully editing to make sure it is the best we can make it.

Inability to Edit

Unfortunately, when we got to school, it came to our attention that none of the class computers were working. This has happened before so it wasn't news to us. I became worried that we would miss our due date. It is a big problem that we are not able to edit. These different troubles have led us to get behind on our due dates and are now we are behind the actual schedule. I want to make sure we complete our commercial on time, but because of the faulty computer systems, it has given us many difficulties. I would like to get all of our work done in the next class. The problems of the day have stressed me out about the assignment. Hopefully, we can get our commercial fully edited in time for the due date. The process for filming went very smoothly. This is good because it means that we have to make only a few edits to our commercial. Subsequently putting less stress in our lives and making it easier when we start to edit. In a way, this hiccup in our project gave us time to reflect on our filming process. As well as, give us more time to carefully plan our future edits. Editing the commercial should be relatively simple. I am very excited to see how our commercial is going to come out. I was not in class that day, making it even more stressful. Trying to juggle other classes and extracurriculars is a difficult task. Fortunately for us, we are allowed to do all of our Media assignments in class and not for homework. This really makes the class more about having fun and less about grades and deadlines.