Filming Blog

  Last week Wednesday I finished my storyboard and planning. I spent the rest of the week planning a filming date. In order to do this, I had to check in with all my actors and be positive that they would be able to film; we ended up choosing Saturday. I also had to take care of equipment, costumes, and locations. On Thursday evening, I was able to check out a camera, tripod, camera bag, and SD card from my classroom. I filled out all the necessary paperwork and the equipment was mine for the rest of the weekend! Next, I had my mom purchase a stick horse from Publix, a prop for one of my actors to use. I also asked a family friend to borrow a few cowgirl costumes. She agreed, but the costumes wouldn't be ready until the next week. For now, we had to improvise with what we had until the next filming date.

 Once Saturday morning came, I decided that today I would do inside scenes only. Once my three actors were all dressed and present I began to play the song: Old Town Road- Lil Nas X ft. Billy Cyrus. The first thing I shot were a few pan shots of the horse head for the intro. While I took some establishing shots-horse included- I had my actors practice their dance moves for specific parts of the song. I also did some brainstorming to fill in the gaps of my storyboard. For example, I figured out my plan for the full intro. To fill in the scenes with no lyrics, I will film varying establishing and wide shots of my actors and our locations. I will add effects (relating to the theme) to these scenes to increase it's aesthetic. In these scenes my actors wore normal clothes. These scenes consisted of more dancing and less acting, I will be filming more acting during my next filming session.

 As I began to film more, I took several close-ups of my different actors. These close-ups included the actors holding the toy horse. This made it look as if they were riding it. I also did a few tilts of the actors looking straight ahead as they did their dance moves. Once I edit these clips they can be turned into a sort of artistic illusion. I filmed takes of the actors alone and together. These clips will be arranged throughout the official music video. Due to the lack of costumes, we didn't film for more than an hour. We will pick up filming with costumes later this week.