Starting the final task

Through the previous two projects, the commercial and the music video, I feel like I have improved a lot. I now know what to expect from the planning, filming and editing processes and how to prepare for the inevitable problems we will encounter. I am working with the same group as the previous projects, Joshua and Breanna. We discussed getting into different groups, but in the end we decided to stick together. This is because we know what to expect with one another, even if we don't always get along. Before we started planning, we talked to each other to try and improve our teamwork, which will hopefully have an affect on the quality of our work. Lastly, we decided to shuffle our jobs around when filming. For the first two projects, Joshua and I were actors, while Breanna was the camera woman. This time, Breanna will be the main actress, I will film and Josh will play a larger part in the editing process.

For this project I have several things I want to change. Firstly, I think having different versions of the same shot was very useful from the last project, so we should do the same thing. Next, we need a better story board. On the last projects we didn't have a clear storyboard and so we didn't stick to it. This made us lose points on our final grading, which is something to be avoided this time. Additionally, we should defiantly use a tripod to film instead of a mono-pod which made it hard to get stable footage when editing. Of course, the stabilization footage helped minimize the shaking footage, but it wasn't perfect and should only be used in extreme cases. Of course, we always need to take more than one shot of everything. During the music video's filming process we rushed on some shots and only took one. This ended, predictably, with that one shot being blurry.

Our first pitch is simple and straight forward. He never wanted to go back, and he thought he got out, but in reality he never left. While easy to follow, my main issue with it is that there isn't much to in the plot department that we've worked on, unlike our other pitches. Our second pitch is a bit more interesting. Step One: Find the Chosen One. Step Two: Make Them Fix Our Problems. Step Three: ... Find Another Chosen One. While formatted strangely, it gives way to many ideas.

Our final pitch is more modern. They made me forget, I guess I'll have to be more subtle next time. I'm back baby! This pitch is about a villain reawakening their powers. We feel like we could use more interesting filming techniques with it, like maybe from the first person!!

Editing the Music Video

When editing the commercial, we encountered many problems. Thus, we never had the chance to use Pinnical studios. For this music video, we decided to use our own editing software, thankfully we don't have to rely on IMovie for this project. We are using Final Cut Pro, to edit our music video. So far, it seems to be going smoothly. The only problem I have encountered isn't technical. It is the fact that the program is on a teammate's desktop, so it can not be brought to school. To work around this fact, we have decided to work in class, and that teammate can then change the video as we have talked about. On the first day of editing in class, the weekend after we filmed, a draft version of the footage had been compiled! That day we watch the video over and over to compile as many notes about the draft as we could. 10

Some things we would comment on was the timing of the transitions from shot to shot. We needed to find the perfect balance between keeping it on beat, and having the right section of the shot selected. This proved one of the most difficult things to fix, in my opinion, due to the fact that once you change something at the beginning of the video, things may shift around, becoming unaligned. Another problem I found was with the footage. Some shots turned out shaky or slightly blury, and there wasn't enough retakes to make up for it. This we have had to work with, a solution we came up with was to take different part of already used footage and put a filter on it. This reuse of footage was fine, as we were making a parallel between the shots. Luckily, Final Cut Pro had a solution to the shakiness, it had a stabilizer that kept the footage relativity still while still keeping the quality of the shots. Unfortunately, like all things, the stabilization has problems. In our last class, a method of counteracting the distortion of the stabilization was brought to light. The teammate used this method to fix the stabilization problem. 10

Other problems were also discovered or continued to persist. The persisting problem seemed to be what part of each shot was chosen for the music video. Sometimes the part was too still, making it look drained of life and uninteresting. Other times the action in the shot didn't quite line up with the beat or lyrics. In the last class, the main note was to try as many things as possible for the music video. This includes filters, cropping, and everything in between. We plan on getting together over the weekend and work on the project together. This will be easier than making notes for one person to use. Over all, I'm expecting a better product than the commercial was. Partly because of the new editing software, but also because of our experience. I don't think it will be perfect, as some of our shots are messed up, but it would have been at least a good experience!

Filming The Music Video

My group and I filmed over last weekend. This was the only time we could film, as the group member who had the equipment wasn't free the next weekend. We decided that Saturday we would film at FAT Village and the C&I cafe. I managed to get to the right place just fine, just a little later than planned, but we quickly ran into problems. The C&I cafe wouldn't let us film! This was because it wasn't for personal use, but rather for a project. I didn't let this deter me, though, so I came to the decision that we should keep filming. While wandering FAT Village, we got some shots of me, the main actress, "wandering," with some graffiti in the background. Some B-roll was taken, some of it graffiti, some of plants and the like. While walking around, we got some unplanned shots, most of me walking. Overall, even though our plans for the cafe were ruined, we make up for it in extra shots. 11

Later that day, we decided to deviate from our original plans and go to Wynwood on Saturday instead of Sunday. As suspected, the drive was long but very worth it. Wynwood was full of graffiti, so much in fact that we didn't even need to go to FAT Village in the first place! We found an outdoor cafe to film at and we got the shots we needed. While traversing the art district, we came across some graffiti artists doing some installations! Wynwood wasn't only a filming experience, it was like a vacation, as it is so different from my city. Sunday, we went to the beach to get some footage of the sunrise. We set up a tripod, opposed to the mono pod we had used for the footage on Saturday, to get a time-lapse of the sunrise with my phone. Using the other camera, we got footage of a palm tree lit with the sun from behind as well as my silhouette with the sun over my shoulder. After taking a break and getting some breakfast, we returned and took the same footage again, the tree, me and the time-lapse, except during the day! These parallel shots were the last shots we needed and concluded the filming part of our project.11

Some other problems I encountered during the filming process include these. The heat, despite it finally being winter, was close to unbearable. The fact that I was wearing a dark red turtle neck and jeans didn't help, so next time I'm the actress I'll have to keep that in mind. With our previous project, the time it took to do each take was surprisingly long, which was the opposite for this project! Each take was done in about 30 seconds, while traveling between each location could take up to 10 minutes while walking. Another unexpected problem was the surroundings. Cars lined the side of the street in FAT Village, making it hard to get close to the graffiti on the walls. At Wynwood and the beach we didn't have this problem, as the sidewalks were wide and provided parking in a different area. All in all, I think this project went kinda similarly to the commercial, although we did improve in some areas

Music Video Storyboard

For our story board, it is more of a guideline then strictly what we are going to do. But, we do have an idea of what we want. We have thought about the aesthetic we are going for, and we are all happily and smoothly moving forward with the project. We plan to get all of the filming done on the weekend, hopefully that is all we will need.

The storyboard starts out with a shot of the sunrise, preferably still on the monopod. We will need to remember where we are when we take this shot, as we plan to make a parallel shot during the daytime for later in the video. There is the same line for both of these shots: “so slowly a sunlit dream pulls me out of sleep.”

The second shot is of blinds, from the inside during the morning. The light breaking through, maybe we can catch some dust particles. The same place for the parallel shot later in the video, only during the day. The reason we are focusing on the blinds is because of the lyric: “feel the morning through the blinds.”

The third shot will be of a flower. We don’t have a specific flower in mind, but we will find a flower in the morning, do some takes and shoot the same flower during the day for later in the video. The lyric for these shots are: “I turn my head to meet/I get to thinking ‘bout your sun-kissed face.” None of us really wanted to finalize what the face the artist is singing about, as we wanted a more abstract feel. We had the idea of a sunflower, and settled on just finding a flower to shoot.

The lyric for the fourth and the last shot is “In this/And a quite place where I can give you all my time.” There was some debating what we should use as symbolism, and we decided that a palm tree would fit, from the beach. We would shoot it twice, in the morning and daytime.

Then we switch it up a little, we want to get graffiti into this video, and this would be when we would put the first one in. For the fifth shot the lyric is “You know I want to be your rock, my love.” If we don’t find a graffiti we like for this we will probably take some takes of a boulder. These shots don’t need to have a parallel later in the song, so this will be during the day.

The sixth shot will be something of a cliche, but we like it for this lyric: “You know I want to be your light.” The shot will be a sort of tilt, where the sun hides behind a persons shoulder for a second, but ultimately silhouettes the person as the sun ends up above their shoulder. We don’t want to have any focus on the face of the person, so it will be of their back. We aren’t sure where we are going to shoot this, but the background won’t matter so much as it being during the morning. This makes the previous shot almost out of place, so we might need to tweak the plan a little, but we will make it work.

The seventh shots lyric is: “In darkness how you find me just in time.” We want to have a cloud pass by, where the shot starts shadowed and ends up in the light, so everything brightening. We know we will probably not have the perfect cloud pass at the perfect time, so we are prepared to edit and add effects. Maybe just changing the brightness? We will work it out when we get there. The thing we will be filming will be a wall, with graffiti. Or it will be the door to the C&I cafe, one of our locations.

The next few boxes on the storyboard(the eighth, ninth and tenth), are all of the same shot. The camera will tilt up, focusing on the foreground first(a coffee cup), then the middle ground(a book) and finally end up focusing on the background(train tracks). This will be done in the C&I cafe. We wanted to have some sort of focal shot in the video and this will be it. The lyrics for this is, “To tell me what I needed to hear, So if you don’t know what you need, You can leave it all to me.”

The next takes will take place outside(daytime) in FatVillage(another location). The actress in this shot(who is carrying a coffee cup) will be calmly walking down the graffitied street. The shot after this will be a shot directed at one of the graffitis from the street. The lyrics for these shots are “Don’t want you worried about a thing, I know you’d do the same for me.” Maybe in the shot directed at the graffiti the actress will be walking through or off screen.

Now, here comes the chorus. The first two lines in the chorus will be of two different graffiti(“‘Cause you’re so lovely, you’re so lovely.”). The next part will be of the coffee cup the actress is carrying. It will be open and we will request the barista to create a heart of froth on top of the drink. There will be two shots of this, one from the side and one from the top(“I can’t help but fall for you my love/when you love me.”)

The next lyric(“It’s so lovely loving you.”) will be of the actress spinning carelessly far away, down the street. We will change the shot to be slow motion to make it seem for weightless.

The next lyric is a simple “uh-oh” that the artist sings. Each part of this will be a different shot of the same graffiti. For example a little closer or from a different angle.

The next line, “So lovely loving you,” will be of the actress spinning again, only the camera will be close enough to be a medium shot. Again, slow motion.

There is another “uh-oh,” and it will be almost the same as the “uh-oh” before it. It will be two different shots of the same plant, like from a different angle, etc.

The chorus ends there. The next lyrics are the same as the first. These will be the parallel shots that are during the day, instead of during sunrise(as explained earlier).

We are super excited to execute our plan and hope we can find everything we need.

Music Video Planning

For our music video, we have chosen several locations: the beach, FAT Village, The Alchemist, The Top Hat Deli and Wynwood. Most of these locations are public, we won't have to ask permission before filming there. However, some places within these public spaces, such as the C&I cafe in FAT Village, will require us to ask permission. I am not worried about this, as the cafe is very art friendly. We will have to film at the beach twice, to get shots in the morning and daytime. This might be a problem as there will be more people at the beach during the day, making it harder to get the shot we need. Similarly, timing the shots of the sunrise on the beach might be difficult, as if we end up taking a time lapse we would only get one chance. Moreover, going to Wynwood might not be necessary, as we can get plenty of graffiti shots from other places like The Alchemist. This would simplify our schedule, as the drive to Wynwood is quite long.

Safety is an important aspect of our music video, as there is a lot of traveling involved. Seat belts, as always, are a must. Sunscreen and hats for sun protection are to be used as we will be filming outside for the majority of the music video. This is especially necessary for filming at the beach later in the day, as nobody wants to get a sunburn. Winter is approaching, and even here it is starting to get cold. Packing a jacket to keep warm is a good precaution in case the temperature drops. Of course, throughout the entire filming process, we will have adult supervision. They will drive us to each location, and stay with us until we need to leave.

The chosen costumes and props are relatively simple, thankfully. To keep with our established aesthetic, sweaters and jackets will be used. Preferably, they should be autumn themed, in colors of orange and red. A sweater that fits this description has been obtained, so no panic over costumes is necessary. Props might be a different story, however. In the storyboard, there are books and a cup of hot chocolate that are used in some shots. While they are not hard to come by, it's the aesthetic that might be harder to match. Fortunately, the hot chocolate can be easily purchased from one of the locations we’re filming at, so it’s aesthetic will match. A wide variety of books could be used for the shot, so this is really the only problem we could face while filming.

Our teachers offered each group to check out the provided equipment, but we chose not to. This is because we will use our own! We will use our own tripod, camera and SD card. This might be a slight problem as any technical difficulties with the camera’s won't be excused by the teachers. The choice to use our own equipment is a good one, though, as the last time we lost some footage when dumping it on the provided SD card. Lastly, we might get the chance to use a professional editing program that’s not Pinnacle studios, which would be a very interesting experience. One last concern is that our story board might be a bit vague. Most of our shots could easily change, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this would complicate the editing process. If we end up taking a lot of unplanned shots, we could spend a great deal of time sorting through them when we could be editing.

Music video Conventions

Our first project, a Converse Commercial, is over! I really enjoyed the filming process and editing as a group! I loved filming the most because it was the most collaborative part of the project, while when editing only two people could crowd around the phone to edit together. I hope that with this new project we can get the chance to edit using Pinnical Studios, as I feel it will give us less problems than IMovie did. One part of the filming process I think we can fix, is using a tripod more often. When filming the commercial, we only used the tripod when reshooting and it really messed with the overall quality of the commercial. When planning, I made sure our storyboard was very in-depth, and generally we stuck to it. I want to make sure our storyboard for our next project is just as good as it was for our last project!

My group, thankfully, decided on a song with little argument. In order to come to this easy conclusion, we started off with a theme. We wanted a soft, chill song with only a bit of beat. This lead to a few song suggestions, almost all of them by the artist Khai Dreams. The suggestions included Ultimately, Time to Time and Sunkissed; additionally there’s was one other song called Grow by The Oh Hellos that was more lively than any of the other three songs. In order to decide, I thought everyone in the group should come up with their favorite, and then a second favorite. Eventually, we each had our list prepared, and it turned out there wasn’t much need for discussion. Everyone chose Sunkissed as their favorite! Sunkissed is an indie pop song, although it doesn’t seem like one from listening to it. We all decided on this song because it was optimistic while still being chill. It’s lyrics were easy to put to any visual, and we already had a possible filming place. For the setting, we chose Winwood in Miami, and Fat Village. They are both artsy places with some graffiti, to capture the planned aesthetic. 

In class, my group had to research the usual conventions used in indie pop song music videos. We came across many, and most didn’t suit our visions of the music video. I was beginning to think that we may need to step out side of the conventions to achieve the aesthetic set forth by the song’s lyrics and tone! Until I came across one music video that caught my eye. The video in question was awkward in a sense, it was edited to be funny and approachable in a sense. It wasn’t overly professional, and it didn’t focus overly on the band. A little later, I found another video with the perfect aesthetic. It was simple, with clean cuts from one still shot to another. There wasn’t a lot of movement in the shots, but their use of lighting was exactly what I was looking for. Their shots had a color scheme, so when the shot changed to the musicians the color change was hating and added an extra element to the production. Other things I noticed in the music videos was their general use of lighting and color in tandem. Color schemes went with specific places, as so when the shot changed from one to another it would be easy to tell them apart. Lighting was also used to highlight specific parts of each shot, which is something which I hope to use in our commercial a lot. The colthign died in the music videos was causal, their jeans were cuffed and jackets were a must. This is something   we might not need in our video, as we don’t intend on having many people in any shots. For sound, I heard that little to no dive tic sound was used, the main thing was the actual music. Although, for our project we could use some dive tic doing for the into and ending. Our project has a time limit of 1:05-1:10, and our song is about 2 minutes long. We had to cut down the song, so we decided to stop at the chorus. 

Editing Process Part 2

After that fiasco, a few classes later I finally got a chance to edit. My teachers got Pinnical Studio’s on some laptops, since the desktop computers weren’t working. Unfortunately, only 13 of the laptops had Pinnical downloaded. This wasn’t a problem for us, however, because I grabbed us a computer! The teachers said we only had 45 minutes to work on them, because other groups needed to work on them. While I was worried that the editing process would take to long, but my concerns didn’t matter. As soon as the laptop turned on, I opened the Pinnical Studio’s application. Only, it didn’t open correctly. It just stoped at the loading screen, and when we clicked it again, it refused to load. I went up to the teachers to ask for help, and they told me to keep trying. Eventually, we decided to give our computer up to another group.

Fortunately, we had a back up plan. I had the nessesary files downloaded on my phone, as well as IMovie. Unfortunately, IMovie is less than reliable when it comes to using it. It often crashes, or just stops working. I often find myself loosing most of of my saved work when working with it. Sadly, it was our only option, so using it was unavoidable. I inserted our chosen shots into IMovie and helped edit them down to be around 30 seconds. Next, I worked on the transitions, making them all the same and timing each shot to coralate to eachother. Continuity was a big issue, as I the actor was walking at different speeds in each shot. Once that was done, it came time for audio. There was a lot of background noise, so I had to adjust the volume of the audio to be lower. Next, I inserted the voice overs over the dialogue that couldn’t be heard over the ambient noise in the background. This turned out to be a really good call, because almost none of the original audio was very clear.

Finaly, it came time to choose the music. This was a rather hard decision, because everyone in the group had a different idea. In the end, the chosen music track was from a video game’s background music. It was casual with no build up, just simple guitar. Sadly, all of the debate turned out to be meaningless. IMovie, as corporative as always, didn’t allow me to upload the track. Back to the drawing board, I suggested that we use one of IMovie’s provided tracks. No one, including me, liked this idea, because most of IMovie’s tracks were predictable and boring. Surprisingly, as I looked through some of IMovie’s tracks, there were some I hadn’t heard before. In the end, we decided on a song called Sun Room. It was labeled as, “chill,” and generally matched the mood we were trying to present with the commercial. It was electronic, but not overly so. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could find in the provided tracks. All in all, I think our project turned out good, despite the many problems we encountered. I hope the next project I do will include getting to use Pinnical studios!