Editing for Music Video

Filming For Real...Well Not Really

On Friday, 11/29/19, my group spent time confirming our filming details for the following day. We planned to meet at my house saturday morning between 7:45 and 8:00. We decided to film in my neighborhood, because my house is the closest to school and I am the only one in my group without a car. We planned to start filming right when everyone got there. This way we would be done filming by 10:00-10:30. We felt that two hours would be enough for us to film all the footage we needed to have to film at the other location. We talked about and sent pictures of our costumes. We chose to go with two different types of outfits, semi-fancy/nice and ghetto. We also talked about which car we were going to use. After a discussion, we decided to use my dad's truck, because it is jacked up and cool looking.
I woke up at 7:15 Saturday morning, to start getting ready to film. At 7:30 I called one of my teammates to insure that she was on her way. After she did not pick up multiple times, I began to worry that she was still sleeping. She eventually texted me back saying that she was awake but not on her way yet. She told me this at 7:45, and she lives about 45 minutes from my house. At 8:05 my other teammate showed up and we started discussing and reviewing the plan for the music video. Around 8:30, our other teammate showed up. Her and I started getting dressed, and changed up our outfits here and there. When we were finally dressed and ready, we realised that the camera was not charged.
We then decided to just use our time to make a very detailed plan for each lyric and exactly what we wanted on the screen. I then explained to my group that it would be way easier to do it the way I’ve done it in the past. To film the whole song at different locations with different people many, many times. Then we can just pick and mix them together. This gives it the feel of a real music video.

Filming Fail

This past weekend was one of the options for weekends to film. My group did not film this past weekend. My other group members wanted to film, this past weekend, but due to my school situation, I wasn’t available. I wasn’t available to film because I was behind in my current online class. I was unable to stay ahead in my class due to my extracurricular, softball, taking up my nights and weekends. With season starting up, I ended up almost 4 weeks behind in my class. This past weekend was my only free weekend I had for a while. So I told my group that I needed to catch up before we film, making me more behind. My group fought me on this for a while, until they ran out of time to actually film. So I spent this past weekend trying to get caught up in my online class, instead of filming.

The reason my group was pushing for filming this past weekend was out of one of my teammates convenience. This next weekend coming up, is our thanksgiving break. This was the weekend we originally chose to film on. One of my teammates wanted to go on vacation instead, so she was trying to convince her parents and our group to allow this to happen. However, her not being being here for this weekend only left us last weekend. As I explained, I need last weekend to catch up in school work. My group mate felt that I could just blow off my online class for another week. I then tried to explain, it would put me over a month behind. My group mate was not happy to hear that she could no longer go on vacation. However, then the plans changed.

My group member then said that we had to film last weekend because her family was coming in town and she would only have time to film on Sunday. I tried to explain to her that I didn’t think it would take any longer than a day to work on. Then, she came back by saying then let’s just film on Sunday (yesterday). I then had to explain again that I could not blow off my school work, so she finally caved. We now have plans to film next weekend. However, we have already started to reach problems in the filming process. Our whole commercial is based off of a car. The car we were going to use was my team mates uncles. She had just informed me today that we can no longer use the car. He will now be out of town, making the car unavailable. So I informed her that we would need to use her car now, and she said, “No”. I tried to explain to her that we have to use her car, because it is a convertible and she is the only one in our group who currently has a working car. I am too young to have a car, and our other teammate recently got in an accident, so his car is getting fixed. Leaving is with only her car.

Storyboard for Music Video

In class today we finished our story boards for our music video. After two class periods we finally devised the best plan for our filming project. Since the maximum length of our video can be 1 minute and 15 seconds and the shortest can be 1 minute and 5 seconds, we decided that 12 boxes would be enough as some scenes may need to be cutout in order to stay within the parameters. Also, in our storyboard, there are several different kinds of camera shots and angles used to fit the conventions of a Rap/R&B music video, some of these being: tracking shots, three shot, medium shots, etc... In our story board we also included the types of transitions used between shots of the music video. In our music video we plan to have: jump shots, dissolves, fade outs, etc... The overall sound of the music video will be the actual song over the scenes of us, so no other sounds will be added so we can keep the entire focus on the song and the way the music video matches up to it.

Planning for Music Video

In class today, we began planning for our Music Video and how we would execute the video. After transitioning from the commercial to music video, we had to make a detailed plan of what we would use during the film, from costumes to our health and safety during the process. To help us remember what we need to include in our plan, our teachers used five key points, these were: Location, Health & Safety, Props, Costumes, and finally our schedule for the entire process.

Location- During our music video, we plan on using several different locations as it will better fit the conventions of a normal Rap Song. In our music video we will mainly be in Cooper City because we will be using one of our group members cars, the car will be a corvette in which we aren't allowed to drive far, so we will be using it within the Cooper City neighborhood. Also, we will be in some parking lots as we want to drive the car around slowly, or just have it parked in a certain spot.

Health & Safety- During the course of our music video, there are several safety precautions we must take in order to have a safe filming process. For instance, since some of our film will be shot near or in a car, we needed to ensure that we would off the roads as we planned to go slow; we decided that a parking lot would be the safest location to film the video as it will be secluded with no flowing traffic. Also, when going in the car, it will be mandatory to wear a seatbelt at all times for the duration of the car ride; although it may not be an extremely complex safety measure, seatbelts are an extremely effective way of staying safe. Also, when filming in the car we will have two people in each vehicle, one being the actor and the other being the person filming. In doing so, we will be able to have one person filming while the other is driving to prevent any multi tasking while driving.

Props- Since our music video belongs in the Rap/R&B Genre of music, usual props in Rap/R&B music videos would be nice cars, jewelry, and designer clothes. For our music video we will be using a corvette from a group members family. This will fill the spot of a nice car in our music video, also, a specific line in the song refers to Jeeps, so a group member has volunteered to use their jeep for our music video as well. In our music video we will also be using some jewelry as the song frequently refers to nice chains and watches. In order to fully capture the conventions used in a normal Rap/R&B music videos, we will also be wearing designer clothes such as Gucci and Tommy Hilfiger. For example, I will order Gucci shirts/jackets for the group to wear during the music video so it can be more uniform.

Costumes- During our music video we plan on using two different kinds of outfits to represent two different ideas in the video. At the start of the music video there will be a student in a classroom wearing school appropriate clothes. However, once we transition from the classroom to the scene of the Corvette, we will be using new costumes of designer clothes as well as jewelry. This would fully capture the essence of the song and also bring attention to our video from younger audiences.

Schedule for Music Video-

 11/22/2019- We will finish our storyboard for our commercial and begin to gather the supplies as well as secure locations for the music video

11/26/2019- We will finish our plans and check out a camera to use over the Thanksgiving Break to get the most amount of filming done.

11/29-11/31- We will be filming our music video during these days

12/2/2019- We will begin the editing process of our Music video.

Music Video Conventions

We completely finished our commercial project. For our first project I think my group did well with this project. While we were finishing up editing (our last day working on the commercial), we started to experience controversy. We had a problem with agreeing on some final decisions/changed for the commercial. We solved this problem by asking for our peers opinion on different scenes and shots. Overall, I felt that the commercial went smoothly, and our commercial came out better than I thought.  I believe that this is because when decided to go out and get extra footage, on our optional filming day. We did this because we felt that even though we followed the story board, we felt that we did not have enough footage to meet the time requirement.

My class has now moved onto a new project, a music video. In this project, I will need to get in a group of 1-4 students, choose a song, and then plan and film a music video outside of school. I chose to work with a semi-new group for this project. I am working with one of my teammates from my last project, but my other teammate had joined from another group. Before we came to class today, our teacher wanted us to already have our group and song in mind. So knowing that we needed to pick a song, I started looking at some sample music videos made by students for a school project. I found an extremely funny music video to the song plug walk, in laughter I sent it to my teammate Montana to start brainstorming ideas. She loved the video just as much as I did, so we started to think of songs like Plug Walk to use. Montana came up with the song Ballin’ and after listening to it I agreed that we should use it. We chose a song in this Rap and R&B genre, because we thought it would be fun to film and this way we could use Montana’s car in the music video. We could also dress all “dropped out” or rich.

 My group and I researched conventions of a Rap or R&B music video. We watched a few music videos and saw many repeated conventions. The camera angles that were commonly used were low angles to show the rapper, high angles to show their location, wide shot to show them bragging about their things, and close ups which would usually show detail on their wealth. The movement is not specific but they had a lot of zig zagging, pan shots, and tracking shots. These movements helped to make the scene more dramatic. The sound would be the song they are promoting in the music video. They also might have diegetic sound relating to where the scene takes place. We saw many transitions such as fade, dissolve, and rotation. In an editing perspective, they edit the sound in after filming the video so the sound is more clear and loud. They also insert text into the video during the editing process to inform people the name and artist of the song. Then at the end they insert the credits which include the people that helped with the production of the video. 

There is many examples of Mise En Scene in music videos. While researching we found that most of their costumes deal with big fur coats or leather jackets with expensive accessories to show their wealth. They usually take place outside or at night clubs so the lighting would be either natural lighting or strobe lights. While researching we noticed that they did not wear extravagant makeup and if they did wear makeup it was natural, and something they would wear on a normal basis. For their hair the guys sometimes would wear durags and the girls would have straight or wavy hair, or braids. During the video they use many props such as expensive cars, drinks, and money. The setting would usually be on the street, open area, night clubs, mansions, neighborhoods, and/or casinos. 

Editing Pt. 2

For the past two class periods in AICE Media Studies, we were working on editing our commercials. On the first day, my group and I grabbed our laptop and began the editing process. One of my teammates used their log in for the computer, and opened Pinnacle Studios. Then I reminded the group that because we are no longer on the desktop, we would need to re-upload our footage. Since the footage was on my google drive, I opened the page and logged in. I then downloaded the footage onto the computer. I attempted to import the footage into pinnacle studies, however it wasn’t working. We were not sure How to fix this problem, so I asked my teacher what we should do next. She informed us that you can not import a zipper file (the type of type we created) so we would need to create a new one. So that’s what we did. 

Now that we had gotten that problem out of the way, I imported the groups footage. This took longer than expected, for what we assume was just internet problems. Then, I noticed some unwanted ‘example’ footage. I showed my teammates, and one of the other groups over heard us. They told us that we needed to clear the example project before we could began on ours. So my teammate Montana, reset the project to start from scratch. So we then needed to re-import all of the footage. Once the footage that we wanted was finally imported, I decided it would b best to start off by just roughly, piecing the footage together. While I was trying to look through the takes, to decide which ones to use, I was unable to make out what was happening in the video. The program we were using was causing our videos to lag, to a point where we couldn’t even tell which take it was. In frustration of possibly not being able to finish my our deadline, I asked the teacher if we could use a different program. We explained to her the problem and she then relieved us by allowing us to use iMovie. 

Now that we decided to use iMovie, we could no longer work on it on the school laptop. My group mate Montana has iMovie on her personal laptop. So we had made plans to have her bring it to the next class. Knowing that we should get started, I FaceTimed Montana to work on the assignment. Over the phone I was able to walk her through the steps of getting the footage off the google drive and onto her computer, along with converting the file out of a zipper file. After we went through these steps, I walked her through the storyboard as she pieced the footage together. She made a rough draft of the commercial so we could get an idea of what it looked like. In this rough draft she cropped the videos, but she didn’t put any transitions yet. After seeing the rough draft, we decided to work on it more in the next class. 

The night before the next class my teammate Montana explained that she was not going to be at school the following day. Without her laptop we would not be able to work on the commercial. When I got to class my other teammate Amanda and I discussed different transitions that we could use and we brainstormed ideas for the finishing touches of the commercial. After school I FaceTimed Montana, and attempted to work more on the project with her, but she still felt ill, so I wasn’t able too. We plan to finish the commercial, if not before our next class, through outside communication.

Editing

Today in my AICE media studies class, we were supposed to finish filming, then start our editing. When we got to class we started the process of checking out our filming materials: camera, tripod, Sd card, pass, etc. We got all of our planed scenes and shots and more last class, but we did not think that it would be enough to meet our time requirement. So, we went out and filmed different shots of our school, to use as fillers just in case. We first went to the bus loop to get a shot of building five, which says our school name. We then moved our gear to the football/track field, where we thought we could get some good shots. We tried our best to get a good shot, but it just didn’t seem to work out. So we moved onto the baseball bleachers, where there was a sign saying “Welcome” to our school. I don’t think that this came out as well as we thought. So we went back to our classroom to begin editing.

We came back to our classroom and checked our gear in. We saw that someone was using the computer that had our previous footage on it. So we had to wait a few minutes before they were done. While we were waiting we checked out our Sd card reader. The other group left the computer and my group member began to log in. This took extremely long for (at the time) an unknown reason. We began our process of dumping what we filmed today. The dumping process went as usual, but we went a step further. After dumping the footage on the computer, I decided it would be best to put it with the rest of the files, in my google drive. When I tried to open google to login, it took forever for the computer to load.

This was not the only computer problems we experienced. After chrome finally loaded, the computer had trouble loading each step through uploading onto my google drive. Many minutes have gone by and finally all of our files were uploaded. So we proceed to try and start the true editing process. We began by looking for the pinnacle studios icon. After spending 10 minutes trying to find the icon, we realized that our computer did not have this program. Which meant, that we would not be able to edit our footage today. The lack of access to good technology that our school has given us, has prevented my group and my class from continuing our lesson in my class. Bringing my education in this class to a pause.

Filming

Yesterday my group and I got to film for the first time. We were filming for our FLHS commercial. We finally got a chance to bring our storyboard to life. We started this process in the classroom where we were distributed our filming gear: Cameras, tripods, bags, passes, etc. I carried the tripod and props to our first filming location. Which was the main stairs of building 5. This is where we shot our first two scenes. For the first scene that we shot I was the actor. I had to put face paint in a close up. For our next scene, we stayed in the same spot, because we thought that the scenes would flow together, or be inner changeable. My teammate Montana and I were the subjects. We had to do a medium close up, two shot. In the scene we put blue confetti in our hands and then blew them into the camera. This scene was one of my favorite that we did. After we shot this a couple times we decided it was time to move to the next scene. Our next scene was shot in the same location we just centered ourselves with the staircase. We did this instead of filming in the bus loop, out of mm convenience. It helped us save time and we felt it would be a better transition. For this scene we had one of our classmates to film my group and two other volunteers from our class. We all stood in a line. I had the idea to film a few of takes while holding up our L’s.

We moved to our next location and I carried the tripod and camera. This location, was the high top tables outside of our cafeteria. When we got to this location I had set up the tripod and placed where I thought it would fulfill our scene. However, after my teammate looked at the placement and lighting, she thought it would be a better idea to move the camera to the other side to get better lighting for the scene. For this scene, we didn’t have someone to record so I pressed record and ran over to the table where my teammates were waiting. We decided we were going to just edit out the part where I’m running. In this scene we were pretending to eat lunch, as a group. This scene was an easy one to film unlike our next scene.

Our next location was at the mural at the front of the school. I only carried the props to this location, because my teammate wanted to carry the camera and tripod, but had some trouble doing so. At this location we all took turns being in the scene and filming. We did this because it was a very hard shot to shoot. So we tried to get the shot as best as we could. This shot was of two students walking by. We tried to get this as a low angle tracking shot, but we had some difficulty with that.

We grabbed our gear and moved onto the next place. We then got a bunch of our classmates to be in this next scene. It was at a small patio type area by a stair case. All of the subjects stood in the patio, while I stood on the stairs with the camera and tripod. I directed them into forming an L. I then took the shot of them holding their L’s up and then waving at the camera. This scene was a lot easier then I thought it would be.

We were going to shoot a scene where we jump on the golf cart as we tell the viewers that we “Hope to see you next school year.” We ran out of time and had to get back to class to dump. When we got back to class Montana and I dumped all of our footage and saved it into a file on the computer. I then went a step further and saved the videos to my google drive, so I had access to them at anytime.

Storyboard

Today in AICE Media Studies, we storyboarded for our current commercial project. In our storyboard we have our project plans, our different scenes, angles, shots, camera movements, and edits. We felt that it was important to make a storyboard so that we could write down all of our thoughts and ideas for this project and I have a flexible plan when filming and editing. This way we stay organized and limit the amount of mistakes we make during this project. Below you can see our storyboard with our commercial details.

Editing lesson

Today, in my media studies class we learned our varied camera procedures and had our lesson in editing. Our camera procedures are quite simple, every time we wish to check out a camera we must fill out an equipment agreement. We must have that completed before we receive any filming or editing equipment. We were taught how to use our cameras and tripods, not just the basics like how to turn on and off and how to charge. We also learned the different angles and types of shots that we could  do with the tripod. Knowing these things prior to our filming day, will help keep things going smoothly. While she was explaining the different things we can do with the tripod, my head started to fill with ideas for our commercial. Thoughts of possible scenes that we could use to help “sell” the school flooded my head. I tried to start and jot some of them down like, using the pan feature to get a cool shot of the school. But, before I knew it we had moved onto editing.

The first thing we learned with editing was how to dump. Dumping is when you take all your footage and you put it on the computer. The first step in dumping is to place your SD card into the SD card reader. Create a folder on you desk top for you to keep all you footage in. You should name this folder commercial or project1, etc., this will help you identify the file later. Next, plug the reader into the USB port of the computer, gently. Once you have done these step you are going to want to open your files icon, and click on the reader to view the content. Then, you should select ALL of YOUR footage and download it into the file you had previously made. Once all of your footage has downloaded you can then take the reader out of the computer and the SD card out of the reader. Place your SD card, back in your camera or camera bag. Congratulations you now know how to dump too!

The rest of the editing process is easy to understand. First, you  want to click on the pinnacle studios icon, then click on import. Select all videos, to select all videos click one then press the shift key and click on the last clip. Once imported, you must wait until the yellow bar turns green otherwise the computer will crash. Start editing, as soon as you wish. My group will most likely start editing on the class day after the 22nd of October. This is because we are filming on this day. I am excited and looking forward to editing our footage and proud to have this skill to create these transitions and edits for films.

Planning Blog for FLHS Commercial

Today my group members and I planned our commercial project. This process was overall a helpful assignment, it helped my group and I, have a good understanding of what we want in our commercial. We planned put our list of props, costumes, schedule, locations, and our back-up plan. It is important that we plan whenever we have a new film project, because it helps us stay organized. Staying organized throughout this process will help us limit our mistakes and make the most of our time spent on the project. Planning out our props and costumes ahead of time insures that we have them the day we film. Our location list and back-up plan helps us later, when we have to storyboard. Writing out our schedule will help us stay on task. 

• Props: Id’s, backpacks, and lunch. These props will help accentuate that we are on school campus.
• Costumes: FLHS merchandise, blue, black, and white clothes, blue accessories, and blue and white face paint. Our costumes emphasize our school colors, showing school spirit.
• Schedule: 10/10 Planing, 10/14 storyboard, 10/22 filming, 10/24 editing. 
• Location list: FLHS, building 5 stair case, senior patio, bus loop. This are prime locations in our school, making it sensible to express them in our commercial. 
• Back-Up plan: In the event that it rains, instead of filming at the senior patio. We will extend our scene at the stair case instead of filming at the bus loop. In the event that one of our group members are absent we will have another student in our class step in and play there part(s). 

Commercial Project

Today in my Aice Media Studies class, we picked our groups and did research for our commercial project. My group members are Montana and Amanda. I think that we will be a good team because we all share the trait of creativity. I think that having all this creativity in our group will help our assignment in the long run. However, I do think that it may cause some bumps along the road. When deciding which topic to do our commercial on we had narrowed it down to two topics, anti-vaping or a FLHS commercial. We decided on doing a commercial for the school, advertising to persuade 8th graders to attend Fort Lauderdale High School, for the next school year. 

In a commercial there are many aspects relating to conventions and codes. They can be described as techniques, props, and people that are used to enhance a scene. In our particular theme, we focus on an academic and friendly environment at the school. We will provide information on what makes our school unique, from expressing details on our many clubs and activities to the great education you can receive at our school. We could possibly incorporate opinions from other students and talk about the positives of the school’s overall atmosphere.

We chose this topic of FLHS for a few reasons such as, the possibility of our video being shown to the class of 2024, to persuade them to attend Fort Lauderdale high school for their upcoming freshmen year. It is also a good project to start with due to its simplicity, since we have firsthand experience of what would draw in these students. Lastly, this topic was ideal over the others because our designated filming location, is the perfect scenery for the scenes of the commercial. Making this the ideal topic for my group to choose.

Intro

Hello my name is Reese and I attend Fort Lauderdale High School. My favorite subject in school is math. I like math because of it's simplicity, the way there is always an explanation and set steps to get the correct answer. While in other subjects like reading there are a thousand different ways to interpret the text. I guess this shows a personality trait for me, saying that I like more structured things. I must say that I am somewhat good at math and that might be another reason that I like it so much. It always came easy to me, so I never really needed to try super hard. That was until I got to pre calculus, it was a little bit of a change for me.

Some other classes that I am taking are Communications Technology 2 honors, Aice European History, Aice English Language, Aice Marine Science, Dance 3 Honors, and of course Aice Media Studies. So far in Aice Media studies we have learned terms used in Editing, shots, camera movements, etc. As a group a few friends and I completed a PowerPoint on Epic genres. We are about to start working on our first commercial. I am super excited, to begin this journey.

Outside of school I play softball, travel and for the school. It is currently travel season and I am on the Pompano Beach Riptides. Right now we are preparing for our next tournament that is in a few weeks. Only a few weeks ago my team hosted our very own home tournament. It was a lot of fun and we definitely got the home team advantage. I also play for FLHS varsity and JV. I am a utility player, this means that I can play any position they need me too.

This is all about me stay tuned for more updates on my adventures through my Aice Media studies class.