Editing process

Today in class, I tried to edit the footage. Unfortunately, I ran into many difficulties. First, when I came into class, I noticed that our computer was weird. It had a message on the screen, and I couldn’t make it go away. I tried turning the computer on and off, but that didn’t work. Eventually I went up to the teacher to ask for help. She said to check if the computer was plugged in. Once I relayed this information to the rest of the group, I found the unplugged cord and fixed it. Then I turned the computer off and on again. Finally, it turned on and I could login. However, this wasn’t the end to our trouble. 

The next big difficulty came with the files from the filming process. I had my suspicions that not every shot taken made it onto the computer, and I was sadly proven correct. The first two scenes taken of me walking were missing. This would have crippled the whole commercial, if there wasn’t a reshoot! Last class, it was decided last minute to reshoot the whole commercial. So, the missing scenes were made up for! Additionally, reshooting created even more shots to use for the other scenes. Overall, I’m expecting to use the reshot scenes in the final product. This is because I felt more confident when acting those scenes out, and had already practiced what to do. 

The last problem was with Pinnical Studios. When I tried to open it, a message apeared that said it needed a login. I didn’t not have a login to use, so I decided to approach the teacher about it. Before I could ask, the teacher made an announcement. She said that no one would get in trouble if the school computers weren’t working, and to focus on saving the footage somewhere else besides the computer. I decided to email the footage to myself. Again, more technical difficulties, I found that I couldn’t email large files together. To try to find a way around this, I said that we should email each file independently, choosing the best shot to use out of each scene. This would make it easyer when it came to edit, as sorting thought to find the best shot wouldn’t be a problem. Watching the shots, I thought taking more shots total would have been better. Over all, the process of editing is proving to be more difficult that I had imagined. 

Filming process

Filming our commercial started with us checking out equipment. I filled out the agreement form, while one teammate signed us out to leave. We got to our plan A filming site, and luckily no one else was there, except for some people filming on the baseball court a little ways away. We started filming  inside the second floor of the building. There we did several takes of me, the actor, walking out the door. Before we shot, I had to take off my purse and put on my teammates backpack because it had no branding. I also put in my ear buds, as we had decided that I would be wearing them to then offer to the second actor in the final scene. All of this, our camera woman did hand held. This was because we decided to make this shot a tracking shot. We did do a version that wasn’t tracking, but it was less dynamic.

Next, we shot outside on the stairs. This part was easy, as it was just a wide shot. The hardest part was when it was time for both me and the other actor to work together. The timing was hard to get because we both had to be walking. That shot ended up taking a long time. Next, the camera woman had us do my topic shots of just waking from point A to point B, which is something different than our storyboard was. This wasn’t hard to do, but again our timing was the hardest to get right. Then, we had to do a long shot, ending on my shoes, which were converse. We did this many times in two different places. At first we tried a closeup, but then we decided to tilt down and move the camera in. 

Once we had everything filmed, we decided that we had enough time to reshoot some scenes, just in case. We decided to quickly run through all of them with the camera in the tripod. I think all of those shots were better than the previous ones. This is dude to us knowing what to do, and the other people filing in the background had left. Over all, the dumping process of the commercial was very stressful. It took forever to turn on the computer and get the information to load. In the end, we stayed after class to finish. I’m slightly worried that some of our dm footage didn’t save, but I’m sure it will be ok. Over all, this was a great experience. I wish to do it again!

Storyboard

Today in class we were supposed to create our storyboard, but, our group had already finished the storyboard in previous classes. The storyboard we worked on is for Building 17, but if we need to, we can film in lots of separate locations.

The first shot is of actor M walking down a hallway(maybe a tracking shot?), eventually leaving the building through the double doors at the end. We have planned to have music in the background, where it is actually what actor M is listening to, so actor M will need to wear headphones. The next shot will be actor M beginning to walk down the stairs after leaving the hallway(maybe a wide shot, showing the surroundings?). In the third shot(probably wide) actor M reaches the bottom of the steps as actor J walks across the screen. Actor M gets actor J's attention with a "Hey, wait up." Then the fourth shot shows actor M catching up to actor J, and the fifth is of their shoes(specifically actor M's Converse), actor M asking "Want to listen?" to actor J. Continuing the fifth shot, the camera is still as the two actors walk out of the shot, with text appearing and a voice-over reading the words, "Converse, keep it simple."

 We have been struggling a little with the sound, though we are still working to find a song. Also, we think that each shot will vary in length, each one might not be exactly 5 seconds. Here is a picture of the storyboard:

Research Conventions

My group started to work on our commercial project today. We will be creating a commercial about converse. We had to choose from a list of topics, including Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts, Wendy’s/McDonalds, and Nike/Converse. We decided against doing a chain restaurant because we couldn’t think of any strong ideas on the spot. Once we thought more about converse, we saw that it would work the best.

We started to research more about converse. Like their past slogans like, “Made by you,” and the like. We saw that most of their recent commercials were all about the diversity in daily life. This is great since our school is very diverse and we can only shoot on campus. All in all, Converse is looking to be a great choice for us to choose for this commercial project.

In class we started working on ideas for various shots that are commonly used in their commercials. We noticed that they used a lot of closeups on their actual shoes, and generally revealed their brand towards the end. We plan to storyboard our shots like theirs. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough class time to discuss this all in class, so we decided to plan via group chat!

Editing Lesson Blog

Today in class, we were introduced to our editing software called Pinnical studios.  The first thing we learned was how to Dump our footage from our SD card to the computer. Our teacher was very clear when she told us that we needed to create a folder for each individual project. She also gave us tips on how to find out footage on the SD card, and how to tell when footage was ours or someone else’s. Next, we learned how to import our footage onto Pinnical Studios so our teacher visually walked us through the steps. She then continued to teach us the editing process. She told us we can’t click over and over, and she showed us how we have to wait for Pinnical to save each piece of footage before we can change any more of it. Our teacher showed us where to place our video footage, which is in track two, and explained how layers work. Then, we learned how to cut, arrange and delete footage. All of this, I was already familiar with as I had used IMovie which had similar features.  

She then got into the challenging stuff. She showed us how to give footage effects. The example she used was changing the brightness of the raw footage to make it appear like it was shot at night. She showed us how to crop the video and add transitions. Next, we were shown how to add titles. We learned how to create them, how to edit their font size, placement on the screen and color! Once that was done, our teacher showed us how to add transitions to the titles. She then moved on to explain sound, like how to add voiceovers and remove sound from specific footage. She did this by detaching the audio from the video file and either deleting the video to create a voiceover, or by deleting the sound. This was very helpful, as I wasn’t familiar with how to do any of this from my past experience with IMovie. 

On a slightly unrelated note, our teacher went over the class procedures for checking out supplies. Earlier, she had us student fill out a user agreement form that would allow us to use the school provided equipment. In our three person group, two of us have turned in our forms, and unfortunately the only person who hasn’t turned in their form might have to film. This makes me a little worried, but she say’s she’ll turn it in next class, and I’m inclined to believe her. Our teacher explained the small nuances of checking out equipment. Such as signing out a camera, and where to put your check paper. She also mentioned how there are only so many SD card readers and how that might affect the speed of the editing process. She then warned us how if we don’t dump our footage off the SD card, she can’t guarantee it won’t be deleted accidentally. Additionally, there might not be enough computers for each group to work on their project. Luckily I have a loptop, but it doesn’t have the editing software. 

Planning Blog for Converse Commercial

Today we are planning our commercial. Figuring out the props, costumes, schedule, locations and our backup plan for if anything goes wrong. We want our commercial to be simple. Just following a normal student, and eventually revealing they’re wearing converse. The slogan we are going for is “keep it simple,” and “made by you.”

Props: definitely a backpack(not branded or too distracting). Maybe a binder/folder/notebook or book, to show more context of the actor being a student, but it’s not completely necessary. We want the actors to look natural.

Costumes: keeping with the “natural” and “simple” theme, we want the actors to wear their own non-branded clothing, enough to give them personality but not enough for them to distract. In the event we cannot use the clothing worn, a jacket will be used to cover it up.

Schedule: today we are planning and we might draft the storyboard. Next class we will complete the storyboard with definite shots. Then the next we will film. Having planned so thoroughly, filming shouldn’t be a problem and won’t take more than 30 minutes to accomplish. We don’t quite know what editing program we are using so we aren’t sure if it will be difficult, but we will make sure to have plenty of shots to choose from.

Location list: for what we have in mind, all we need is a hallway, stairs and a somewhat open place. It could be the balcony hallway of building 5, the media center stairs and the patio in front of it; It could by the second floor of building 21, the stairs and the walkway next to it; Or it could even be the second floor hallway of building 17, the stairs and the stone path by it. Any of these locations can be used, and there are plenty of others we have planned for if some don’t work out.

We have talked about each backup plan within each subject, and can’t wait to execute our plan!

Introductory

Hello, my name is Madelene and I am very excited to be taking AICE media studies. I enjoy reading in my spare time, my favorite book series is The Raven Cycle. I also cook or bake on occasion and my favorite thing to make are dark chocolate cookies, they are simply delicious!

This school year, I am taking 7 classes: French, Chemistry, Algebra II, AICE English, AICE Media Studies, Fashion and AICE European History. Luckily, all of my teachers and great, they don't assign to much homework or lecture, which is always a plus. By far, the most exciting class I am taking this year is European history. I've never been so interested in history as I am learning about the bloody French Revolution! My favorite Core subject is science, and so far I am really enjoying Chemistry.

I expect this blog to be difficult, as I am not used to writing about my self. Hopefully, I will improve and become accustomed to this writing style over this year. The reason why I chose AICE media, is that I love almost any kind of art. I've tried painting, pottery, photography, acting and dance, but never film. Media studies is my introduction into the world of film, and I can't wait to start filming!