Filming Blog

We have now turned in all of our preparation for the music video. We have created a detailed plan of our schedule and what we are going to be doing every day. We have also completed a Storyboard, and have the main outline and idea of exactly how the video is going to look. They were turned in on Friday of last week, and all that is left is to actually begin filming. We did not have the opportunity to film on the weekend so we will be doing it this week. Most of my group mates were busy with other responsibilities that made them unavailable to shoot. I took this opportunity to further research music videos, and get a good idea of exactly what I wanted our music video to look like. I watched mainly Rap and Hip Hop videos, and made sure to study them closely. I especially studied videos from the early 2000's as that was the era that our song was released. My research was very useful and gave me a great idea of what we should do once we film.

The first places where we are going to shoot are my house and a park nearby my house. Due to this, I had to make sure that I had my parents permission. They quickly agreed, although they were a bit surprised since I usually don't invite people over. They were leaving town for the week, so it is even better, as we will not be disturbing them while we filmed. I was quite relieved that they were leaving, as that would allow us to take as long as we wanted while filming. I am quite excited to see how we will actually do this, a its my first time doing something like this. I fill like it will be easier and more challenging than the commercial at the same time. This is because I was alone for the last project, but now I am in a group. However, this project is more complex, and will require more editing and work on all of our parts. I am very excited to see our final product.

For our other locations, we are going to be shooting at a mall. However, to do this, we are going to need permission from said mall to film. One of my team members made sure to do that over the weekend though so we should have that covered. Other than that, we did not do much else over the weekend, and will complete must of our work during this week. Even though we did not film this weekend, I was quite busy. I was informed on Friday that I would have to take three tests on Monday, and I was quite stressed about that. So I studied a lot during the weekend. That took a lot of my free time, but I also hung out with my sister for quite a while as well. We had to do grocery shopping since our parents were leaving, and we decided to shop around as well to have some fun. That was basically what I did during the weekend, and what we have planned for this week.

Storyboard Blog Music Video

Today our group worked on the storyboard for the music video that we will be filming. After countless deliberation, brainstorming, and replaying, we managed to finish our storyboard, laying down the framework for the filming process. For our music video, we decided that we will be doing the song “Kiss Me Through The Phone” by Soulja Boy Tell’Em featuring Sammie. This song was a perfect choice as it lacked profanity and would be easy to recreate with the resources we each have access to. We would detach all audio and let the song tell a story itself. Since we were given a minimum of a minute and five seconds and a maximum of a minute and 15 seconds, our plan was to cut various parts of the song given that it is a total of three minutes long. We chose to use the introduction, a phrase towards the middle of the song, and the ending. From there, we divided the song by increments of five seconds, establishing what exactly would be taking place within the said time frame. We knew that it was essential that the audio not only fell between the specified range but also still flowed together. This would help us avoid any inconveniences that could potentially offset our productivity during the filming and editing processes. Since the goal of this project was not to create an imitation of the original music, the creative juices had no choice, but to be activated. Our vision for the project took a sharp detour in regards to the general direction of the original music video. The overall plot of our music video goes as follows: A young teen’s love at first sight quickly evolves into a mesmeric obsession, resulting in the pursuit of a connection to an oblivious boy by all means necessary. Initially, one of the ideas presented was a love story in which the guy pursued the girl with good intentions and romantic interests. We ultimately decided to stray from the norm and go with a more “stalker story” as it was more original. 

Within our storyboard, we divided the music video amongst 15 boxes. The first six take place in the mall. During these scenes, we anticipate there to be bright, white lights as it is a shopping center. There are four actors, all which are members of the group, Autumn, Emilio, Victoria, and Jeffrey. The actors will all be dressed in casual clothing and will be carrying shopping bags. The next 4 take place at a park. Lighting will depend on how the weather is looking that day, though, we intend to film on a sunny day. Emilio and Jeffrey will be dressed in sports apparel, playing basketball, while Victoria and Autumn will be in casual clothing. The final 5 take place in an apartment. During these scenes, Jeffrey and Emilio will be dressed in light clothing such as pajamas. Victoria will once again be dressed in casual clothing. We will likely use dark lighting in order to build the suspense of being stalked. We intend to use jump cuts, inserts, establishing shots, point of view, and various other cinematographic elements in order to not only transition between the scenes (boxes) but also effectively portray our vision. For example, the first box, marked the 0:03 seconds to 0:8 seconds of the actual song, displays a wide shot in which Victoria and Autumn find Jeffrey and Emilio at the mall and Victoria becomes infatuated with Jeffrey. This will jump to the second box, marked 0:8 to 0:13, a close up in which Victoria and Autumn look at each other and notice that Emilio and Jeffrey are gone.

If everything goes as planned, we intend to stick to our story board and end the music video with a minute and fifteen seconds. 

Planning Blog Music Video

The first day of our planning process was November 18th. The teacher gave us instructions on what to do and we began. The first thing we discussed is what we wanted to do for the music video. We know we didn’t want to follow the normal convention of the music video. The original video shows a couple who is dating and even though they can’t see each other they call and text each other. We decided to change the theme and now instead of it being a couple, a girl has a crush on a guy and she’s delusional thinking that they are together. For this project, things were a little harder because the concept was more complicated than the commercial. The biggest problem for us was figuring out when we were actually going to be able to film. We wanted to start filming this week, but we couldn’t figure out a day when we were all free. Some of us had to work and others had after school activities that conflicted with each other. We talked about our schedule for about 20 minutes before I suggested a solution.  Since not everyone was going to be in all of the scenes, the people who were free a specific day could go filming and film the scenes that they can get, then another day the other people in the group could go filming. 

By the time we figured out our individual schedules and the plan it, the class had ended so we got on group call at night to discuss the video in more detail. We discussed the health and safety issues, the props we were going to use, the costumes and the schedule we were going to be following. 

Location

To create our vision, we figured that the best place to film would be the mall because the mall is a crowded area where people can easily be followed without being spotted. So when the female is stalking the male interest, he wouldn’t be able to spot her in a crowd. The next location that we chose was someone’s house. In one of our scenes, we have the female looking into the window of the male interest’s house trying to see if he’s home while calling him. A one-story house or an apartment with windows on the first floor would be the perfect place to film the scene. The last location that we chose was the park. The male interest is going to be hanging out with his friend playing basketball and the female and her friend are watching him. Once again when stalking someone, the person stalking normally does it in a crowded area. In the scene, you would see the female fawning over the male interest while he is up and active. An important task we had to do was make sure that we were allowed to film in all of the locations that we chose. Autumn was in charge of getting the approval of the people in charge. At first, she called the Galleria Mall, the mall we wanted to filmstrip.  and the manager stated that it was fine as long as we gained permission to film the people in the mall. The next part was getting the house. Our new member of the group offered to use his house so he asked his mom and she said yes. We figured that since the park was a public area as long as we had permission from the people playing on the court, filming shouldn’t be a problem there.

Health & safety 

Because we are filming outside of school campus, we have to make sure that our group, the equipment and everyone around us isn’t put in harm's way. We will have to drive to the locations so everyone in the car will use the seatbelts. Another safety issue is the weather. The weather forecast says there will be days of thunderstorms. To protect ourselves we will stay inside and shoot all of our inside scenes. If we happen to get caught in the rain, we will bring umbrellas to protect the equipment and raincoats to protect us from the rain. 

Props

The props we will be using 

Phones

1. 
   

Basketball

2. 
   

Shopping bags

3. 
   

The room in the house

4. 
   

Costumes

Basketball shorts with a t-shirt

1. 
   

Jeans and a hoodie

2. 
   

Pajamas

3. 
   

Schedule 11/18-12/9

11/18- Discussed the theme of the music video 

11/20- Plan the props, location, and costumes

11/22- We are going to storyboard, our video, write the script and figure out the kinks with our individual schedule. 

11/26- We begin filming. We will start off at the mall, then make our way to the house to shoot our opening scenes.

11/30- Film the scenes at the park and go back to the mall because we need a shot with all of the actors/actresses in it. 

12/2- Begin the editing process, figure out the scenes and takes we want to keep and what we want to get rid of, adding the music, and doing the voiceovers needed

 12/4- Double check to make sure that the music video looks put together, add any last-minute details that we might have missed and play it back. 

12/06- Turn in the final music video 

Music Video Conventions

I have finally finished and am moving on from the commercial that I had to do before. My commercial was one to promote the school, and everything good about it. Everything went relatively smooth for me last time except for the editing. The story boarding and filming was easy and there were no problems. For the editing, however, I had multiple technical difficulties, and was delayed severely by them. This time we are going to be making a music video. I am working in a group and I learned much about the editing program from the last time I worked on it, so I feel there will be no problems this time around. I am looking forward to working on this project, and I feel it will be a great improvement from the commercial.
For our music video we are doing “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” by Soulja Boy Tell’em ft. Sammie. The song we are doing is clean, and contains nothing inappropriate for a school project. We came to this song after thinking of some options, like “Let Me Love You”, and “Because of You”.We decided it would be the best one to do putting our schedules into consideration. Whilst videos of this genre are very well done, they are not excessively complicated, and will allow us to create a great video. Everybody agreed that this was the best option, and it was an unanimous decision.
“Kiss Me Thru The Phone” by Soulja Boy Tell’em falla under the genre of Hip-Hop and rap, therefore it has the same conventions as videos of the same genre.

The original music video has the typical mis en scene that a Hip-Hop/Rap music video would have. The different camera angles, sound, and editing techniques. In a traditional music video for Hip-Hop/Rap, the camera angles are usually low-angled close up shots in order for the main artist of the music video can seem like the most important focal point of the video. Shots that are taken in a Hip-Hop/Rap music video include many two shots, typically with the main artist and a love interest to indicate that they are desirable. It also includes shots like club/party scenes where it gives the artist credibility because it shows how large groups of people are enjoying their song. Depending on the song itself, there can be a range of sounds that are not including the song. There can be sounds of engines revving to depict the luxury the artist or people yelling their name so it shows their importance. The editing, like the sound, also depends on the song and how the director and the artist want the song to be interpreted. 

Within the Hip Hop/Rap genre, artists tend to wear a variety of apparel. This may range from designer clothing such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Ferragamo complimented by expensive chains, watches, and other forms of jewelry. This aims to emphasize the wealth that the artist has accumulated and is often a reflection and even a product of the rags to riches story they likely experienced.

In a music video there isn’t a lot of acting involved unless there is a background story to the music video. In the original music video you see spots in the video where the person is looking to be having a conversation on a cell phone. They did this to signify them calling the other person through the phone.

The makeup is also an important part of Hip-Hop videos. Back in 2008, the girls wore vivid makeup that popped on screen. For example bright eyeshadow colors, or and big eyeliner. Some videos would showcase the girl in a scene where she would just need normal makeup. The guys however, didn't really a lot of makeup due to the fact that makeup was more fememine. 

Props that are heavily featured in many of the videos of the hip-hop genre would include phones, jewelry, clothing, and stacks of money. They serve to captivate the audience’s attention, and portray the characters in the video as wealthy and well off in terms of power and status. 

Setting is very important for these types of videos, as they help to demonstrate where the video is taking place. Most often in the Hip-Hop genre, the setting is usually on the street, or a neighborhood, parties, and social gatherings. 

Editing

It has been a week ever since I finished filming the commercial. I was satisfied with the shots that i took and was prepared to edit. Unfortunately due to circumstances out of my control, I was unable to do so. The computers in the room we used for class ceased to function and our project was delayed due to this. We were forced to wait for a week in order to receive temporary laptops with editing software. Whilst we waited, we continued with lessons in cinematography. Our lectures focused on how to identify angles and editing techniques as well as why they are important. This week, on Tuesday, is when we finally got the temporary laptops. However there were only a limited amount that did not allow the whole class to work on their commercial at the same time. To remedy our problem, our teachers made us take shifts of 40 minutes each on the computers so that everyone would get a chance to edit our project.

We were randomly selected to go either first or second on the computers. I was selected to go second and told to wait my turn to get the computer. I waited and planned what editing I would do. After the first group was finished, we were called up and told to get a laptop. I collected the computer, and sat down to edit, however, there was something wrong with the computer. After successfully signing into the computer, I tried to look for the editing software but I could not find it. I informed my teachers, and they told me that there was a couple of computers like that and that I had to put it back. I was frustrated, as there was no additional computers, but I put the computer back as instructed. I did not manage to edit at all on Tuesday due to this. Therefore, I planned my edit in more detail and thought about what I wanted to do it. I headed out of class frustrated, and even more stressed than before.

Finally, on Thursday, I could now actually edit my commercial. I headed into class, and got  a laptop that I hoped actually worked and turned it on. To my surprise, it actually did, and I could, after a week, finally start my editing. I took my files that I had on my google drive and put into the actual computer. After, I took said files and put them into pinnacle studios. Then, I arranged the shots in order and made sure that it was like I planned it on the storyboard. I then make sure the cuts were timed well, and that any one shot dragged on too long. I then removed the sound from the shots themselves. Unfortunately for me, Thursday was a short day, and classes were less than half as long as they usually are, so my edit was not complete. The good news is that I only have to smooth out the transition between shots, and add background music. I hope to have this finished quickly by next class.