Posts

Showing posts from November, 2020

Filming Blog: Thanksgiving Week (A Minor Setback For A Major Comeback)

Image
During the week of the Thanksgiving holiday, students are given that time off from school to celebrate and spend time with family and friends. I planned to begin the process of filming throughout this week because I thought this time would be the most ideal and suitable for the actors in my music video. I planned to start filming on the 21st and finish before the break was over. Sadly, this was not the case and all of my plans fell through. The days leading up to Thanksgiving were extremely spontaneous which caused my filming to be put on the back burner. My actors and I began to disregard the schedule we planned together and focused on spending time with our families. As the week went on and Thanksgiving came to an end, we decided to form a new schedule in which we tried harder than before to abide by. With this new plan, we started some of the filming towards the end of the week. I decided that filming for 90 minutes on the appointed dates would be reasonable for everyone. I did not ...

Planning Storyboard for my Music Video

Image
The First Scene In the first scene of my music video, I will start by panning the camera to show a male teacher teaching the women why they need men. To make this idea even more straightforward I will title the board he is teaching from "Why Women Need Men 101".  The location of this scene and further scenes will take place in an office setting.  The Second Scene For the second scene, I will film the women sitting at their table listening to what he is saying with a confused expression on their faces as they look at each other. During this scene, there will be props like notebooks, folders, pencils, and pens for notetaking on the table.  I will use a medium shot when filming them to effectively show my subjects and to portray how they are feeling at that moment. The Third Scene  In the third scene, I will cut back to the man and the board he is teaching from. I chose to do this so that I could add the element of cutaway when I edit my music video. I will pan the came...

Planning for my Music Video

Image
Song Title I chose the song "Independent Women" by Destiny's Child.  Props As of right now, I don't plan on using many props as there were not that many used in the music video. But, some of the props I know that I want to use are mirrors, makeup sets, and some hair care products. When I begin to draft out my scenes, I hope that I will incorporate more props into my music video.  Costumes For my music video, I plan to have my actors matching and complementing one another. Destiny's Child was a girl group so their clothing and hairstyles were always coordinated with one another. I also want to include a lot of jewelry into the costumes to enhance the overall glamorous look I aim to accomplish. Finally, the actors will be wearing dramatic makeup to tie their looks together.  Schedule  On November 15-16th, I researched artists, songs, and music videos, and the conventions of R&B music videos. Once I selected my song, I focused on the conventions that were challen...

Research Blog: Music Video Conventions

Image
The song "Independent Women" by Destiny's Child is categorized under the R&B music genre. R&B is short for rhythm and blues, and it is a pop kind of music that originated from African Americans during the 1940s. In R&B music videos, there is a range of conventions that can vary from artist to artist. During my research, I noticed that majority of the music videos told a clear story. Whether it be a man chasing after a woman or merely reminiscing on past events, the stories are told not only lyrically but visually. The videos usually take place at a house or in a party atmosphere. The location is constantly being changed as the story is further explained. But, this convention was challenged in the music video for Independent Women. During the video, a great number of special effects were utilized as the background. I also noticed that the lighting that was used remained consistent, unlike many R&B music videos. Normally, the lighting would start off darker ...

Introduction to the Music Video Project

Image
Hello, I am finally back with another project which I am incredibly excited to share with you. It is a music video project! For this project, I chose to work by myself. I made this choice not only because of the pandemic, but because I believe that I work my best alone. Due to the pandemic, it would be challenging to work with other people because of the social distancing measures. In addition to that, I always find it hard in a group to sync schedules, this usually ends up in the prolongation of the project. But regardless of that, I wanted to work alone so that I could reach my greatest level of creativity. When you are working with a partner or partners, your creativity can be somewhat limited since you have to agree on one idea when there will be many. This can cause unnecessary conflicts throughout the production of the project. I believe working alone is the best decision for me since I will get to portray my own ideas and have control over the project. When it came to selecting ...

CCR For My Body Armor Commercial

Image
So what did you think about my first project? Although this project was fairly simple, creating my commercial was a journey. But I am glad to say I came out more educated than I came in.  1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? In my project, I used and challenged the conventions of a sports drink commercial. When I conducted my research I found that these types of commercials usually show actors exercising or playing sports. They were also outside or training inside a facility throughout the commercial. Finally, they used close-up shots of the actors to add to the intensity of it. I made sure to incorporate these conventions into my commercial by filming my brother exercising outside and occasionally using close-up shots. For this reason, I was able to bring the high energy I needed into my commercial. I challenged the conventions by not including a voiceover in my commercial and a variety of sports scenes. Instead o...

My Commercial

Image
 My commercial is finally here! I know you're just as excited as I am to see the final product. I had a great time doing this project. Even though I was frustrated at times, this project has taught me a lot. I learned how important it is to make a schedule, to have a backup plan, and to be patient. The biggest lesson I learned from this was that just because one scene does not turn out how you envisioned it, it is not the end of the world. While I was filming and editing, I noticed how hard I was being on myself to make everything as perfect as it was in my mind. I realized that this mindset hindered my ability to be creative and spontaneous. After I accepted the fact that everything wouldn't turn out how I envisioned it, I could come up with better ideas. These new ideas helped me produce a commercial that was far beyond what I ever imagined it would be. Each aspect that went into making the film was special to me in its own way. From researching to watching a bunch of commerc...

Editing Blog: Decisions & Revisions

Image
Just as I thought, editing my commercial was one of my favorite aspects of this project. Although I am not the best at editing, I think I did well this time around. Editing my commercial was not that difficult for me. Before I filmed my shots, I thought about how I would edit them together. This not only made the editing process smoother, but it made filming easier. I edited the commercial on my phone and later exported it onto my laptop for minor editing. As much as I would like to say I didn't run into any problems while editing, that would not be the truth. One of the issues I had while editing, was cutting my commercial down so that it would 30 seconds long. When I first dumped all of my footage into the software the duration was about 48 seconds long. I began to worry about how I would cut down 18 seconds of content that I had filmed. After thorough decision-making, I decided to cut out the shots that I felt were not intense enough, and the ones that did not flow that well. Fo...