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.

Storyboard

Planning Blog

(1) Location:
I have chosen several locations around my neighborhood for my music video. These locations include: my backyard, a large grassy field next to my house, a room in my house, and our neighborhood park. My mom gave me permission to include the backyard in my filming and she also got permission from the association to include the park and field.

(2) Health + Safety:
To ensure the safety of myself and my actors, we will have parental supervision while filming outside. All actors will also wear kneepads under their pants to prevent knee injury. A first aid kit will be kept on hand during all filming.

(3) Props:
The props I use will be indirectly/directly related to my song and the story I will be telling in it. Some props will include a bed and house scenery that are indirectly related; they will help me tell a story in my video. Other props may include lassos and toy horses which are directly related to the theme of my song; this song is country and involves talk about riding horses.

(4) Costumes:
The costumes my actors will wear will include cowboys hats because the theme of the music video and song is country. Actors will wear little to no makeup and may also be seen with straws poking out of their mouths, similar to cowboys.

(5) Schedule:
 11/15: On this way we completed our research blog.
11/19 : Today I started and completed my planning.
11/20: Finish story board
11/21: Story board blog due
11/23: Film
11/24: Film
11/25: Must have done filming and be ready to make a blog
                         Thanksgiving break
12/2: Must have done filming and be ready to make second filming blog
12/10: Must be finished with CCR.

Intro to New Project

  Last week, I successfully completed and submitted my commercial project. I was also able work efficiently on my creative critical reflection questions and turn them into my teacher. Throughout my commercial project I gained and learn many skills and things in relation to the filming world. I was able to integrate technologies and programs such as, Pinnacle studios, the Blogger app and website, Cannon cameras and filming stands. My favorite part of the filming process was the editing stage. I favor the editing stage because, I successfully learned how to enhance media through a computer program. I will now begin the next project, a music video.

  The song I chose for my music video project is: Old Town Road. Old Town Road was written by a male rapper, Lil Nas X. This song was performed by both Lil Nas and Billy Ray Cyrus. Lil Nax X's 'Old Town Road' hit is categorized as country music. One reason I chose this song is because it's not only popular and highly favored, but it is also energetic/upbeat, perfect for a music video. For this project I decided to part ways with my partner and work alone. This decision led to a lack of actors which I solved very quickly: I decided to film my music video starring three of my younger sisters; they love Old Town Road and dance to it almost everyday, this is another reason I chose the song for my music video.

  The genre of my song is country. There are countless conventions seen throughout country music videos. Country music videos include many tracking shots, establishing shots, closeups, and pan movements. Tracking shots make the audience feel as if they are moving with the actors as they ride on horses, close-ups often introduce the character, establishing shots highlight the scene of the music video, and pan movements are used to introduce a new scene or character. There are many sound effects including ambient sound , digetic sound, and non-digetic sounds. The ambient sounds include crickets and chirping birds. The digetic sounds include the thump of horse hooves and saddles, while the non-digetic sounds highlight different sound effects such as "BAM" or high-pitched effects to introduce shocking new actors. In the editing of country music videos, I see countless cut-aways, shots/reverse shots, graphic matches, action matches, jump cuts, and a few montages. One music video even included an iris in transition. Very common costumes in these videos were cowboy hats, button-down tees, boots, and clothing. Costumes also included gun holsters and sometimes dark shades. The props used were often horses, saddles, tooth-picks (held in the corner of their mouths), trucks, and sometimes guns. Little to no makeup was used in these music videos, they were often used to create identification tattoos on the actors. Settings included big grassy fields and empty roads. I will begin the planning for my music video within the next week.

Edtitng Blog

  After getting new laptops, we began editing on Monday. When I arrived to class I checked out a laptop and then started it up. After logging in, I inserted my flash drive to move all of our media files to the laptop. Next, I clicked on the Pinnacle Studios application and waited for it to load. The application took a while to load so I restarted the laptop upon Ms. Cat's request. The application acted the same after I restarted it so I put it away and checked out a new laptop. After logging into my new laptop, I moved the media files from my flash drive onto it. My partner and I tried the application again. This time, it took a couple minutes to load, but opened successfully. I took a few minutes to get myself familiar with the application.
  I successfully found my way around the application and began to import all of our footage onto it. Next, I went through the clips to see which ones could be of use in our commercial. I found an establishing scene clip where I introduced the audience to our school. It looked good; however, the audio wasn't quite fitting. I decided to do a voice-over. I had to play around a little until I was able to left click the mouse and find a tab that said "detach audio". Next, I found the video that I needed for the voice-over, detached the actual video, and left the sound on. This was all in a separate track. After watching the clip, it looked perfect. I then imported the next clip of the storyboard. The bell rang and it was time to go, we were told we would have time to finish editing next class.
  My partner and I continued to edit on Wednesday. I checked out our laptop as soon as I got to class and logged in. Before leaving on Monday, I saved the movie file to my flash-drive. Once my laptop loaded, I copied this file to our desktop. Next, I started pinnacle studios and reviewed our clips. I began to cut and import videos onto the track, putting together the commercial. All the clips were in order of the story board. After I finished putting them together, Ms. Cats watched the commercial, she liked it but we now needed to cut down some clips. The time exceeded the limit, 30 seconds, by 2 seconds. I began to edit the clips and added transitions such as, cross fades and dissolves. I also cut down come clips that could be cut. After watching our commercial, I exported it onto my flash-drive. I then emailed the final product to Ms. Cats and put away our laptops and supplies.

Editing Fail Blog

  Hello. Welcome to my editing blog about how we were not able to edit. During our last Media studies class, I arrived eager and ready to edit our film. Before my partner even got to class, I was in my seat at one of our age-old computers and already logging in. Once my computer loaded, I double-checked that our footage was there. After watching a few clips, my partner and I got ready for the next steps, the actual editing process. I began to search for pinnacle studios but could not find it. Pinnacle studios is the application that we will be using to edit and create our films throughout the class. After alerting Ms.Cats of our issue, she made an announcement to our class. Apparently all the computers on our side of the rooms did not have Pinnacle studios.
  Ms.Cats explained to us that in order to install this application on our computers, we might need the assistance of the school's tech people. They were supposedly busy setting up for an event our school was having later that week. We tried to install them anyways. Our computers have been running since 2008 so they are extremely slow. After a while, Ms.Cats inserted a CD into my computer. She told me to alert her when anything popped up on the screen. She also told me alert her if the installation was successful. At first, nothing happened. My screen was blank for about 10 minutes. During these 10 minutes, I occupied myself with another assignment.
  Finally, a loading sign appeared on my screen. A question from the computer then popped up. It asked if I wanted to allow the app to make changes. I called Ms.Cats. She clicked the yes button and filled in the service username and password. After some time another loading screen appeared. The application was now installing. Ms.Cats told me to alert her if it fully installed. A quarter till the end of class, the application still hadn't installed. We needed new and updated computers. Ms.Cats told us all to move our footage onto a backup such as a flashdrive, just incase they got new computers over the weekend. She said that in the near future, we will be editing on laptops.

Filming Blog

  Before I began filming I had to gather all the equipment together. First, I filled out the form that allowed me to check the equipment out. Ms.Cats then gave me all the equipment necessary; this included a tripod, camera, pass, and SD card. Before I left the classroom to film, I asked Ms.Cats and my fellow peers, any questions I had on how to use the equipment. I then followed my storyboard and went to the first scene's location: the school's entrance through the bus loop. First, I took a couple takes recording the "Fort Lauderdale High School" sign and saying: "welcome to Fort Lauderdale High School". This scene was considered an establishing shot. Next, I allowed my partner to take a few shots, copying my exact movements. I then recored three tapes of my partner standing below the sign and welcoming our audience to the school. After I finished up recording the tapes and securing the tripod, we moved to our next scene/location.
  For our next scene, we needed a flying L sign. After asking around, I managed to find a small flying L sign on one of our buildings. I got close to the sign so that it would look zoomed in on the camera, and took a couple takes recording the sign and having my partner voice: "home of the flying l's". My next stop was the cafeteria. On our way there, we came across the senior patio and I saw a huge flying L sign painted onto the concrete, I decided to redo the scenes we had just taken using this sign instead. I took several low angle and high angle shots of my partner standing on top of the L and repeating her line. I then took a wide shot introduction of the patio. We continued to move onto the cafeteria and I took a few shots inside the cafeteria. i then filmed my partner standing in front of the cafe sign and introducing it to the camera. Next, we moved to the front of the restrooms where several club signs were hung on a wall. I filmed my partner speaking briefly about the Cambridge and Law program. Then, I filmed her introducing a few of our school's clubs.
  After leaving the restrooms, I carried the camera and tripod to our track. I asked a student from another group if she would mind doing a jogging take for us and she agreed to it. I gave the equipment to my partner and I sat as she took a shot of the student jogging and saying: "this is our sport's field ". When she finished, I took a couple shots of the field and me talking over it, just incase we needed to do a voice-over. I had my partner stand under a tree and I took shots of her doing the outro to our commercial. After re-doing some shots, I took the equipment back to the classroom with 25 minutes left to dump. I turned in my pass once i got into the classroom. Next, I checked out an SD reader from Ms.Cats and inserted the SD card into it. Once I put the flash-drive into the computer, i began to dump all the clips into a new folder I created called: "Media folder". After checking to see if the clips were all saved, I removed the reader from my computer and returned it to Ms.Cats along with the rest of my equipment. Lastly, I logged out of my computer and listened to Ms.Cats explanation on how to complete this blog.