Filming Blog : How we didn't film

   Unfortunately, this weekend my group and I couldn't film our music video due to complications that came up. For one, I went to the Florida classics football game. It's a big football game between two historical black colleges. The two colleges are Bethune Cookman University and Florida A&M University. Another complication that came up was Laurens ankle injury. Unfortunately, Lauren hurt her ankle in soccer practice. Now she's on crutches which pushes back our filming process. It pushes it back because in certain scenes we planned to run throughout the mall and dance. This week we plan to film Tuesday after noon or sometime this week. The plan is to meet up at Laurens house and film the first scene. After that we'll head to Sawgrass Mills Mall to film the rest of the music video.
   Even though these complications occurred we are still going to film this week. This blog was supposed to be about why my group was unable to film our video this past week. Now that I've told you why we were unable to film I'll tell you about our future filming plans. When we start to film our music video we'll begin recording at Laurens house. We haven't decided if we're going to record in her room or her living room. We should have our final decision by the day we begin to film. Either location will work. After we film inside of Laurens home we will film on the outside of her house for a short period of time. That's when we'll record the tracking shot of all 4 of us walking to the car heading to the mall. Once we record a few takes of this then we'll meet up at the mall. Lauren or Jarvia will take the camera and record a couple of takes of them driving to the mall.
   After we reach the mall that's when we'll record the main footage for the music video. This footage will show us entering the mall through a walkway that connects the parking garage and the outlets. The footage will also include scenes of us touring the mall on a shopping cart. We'll use low angles, high angles, and a ton of tracking shots. We'll also include establishing shots of the store signs to show viewers what store we'll be entering. All of these different shots will show how creative our group is when it comes to using certain camera angles while filming
   Even though we were unable to film this weekend we plan on making it up for it this week by filming an amazing music video.

Planning Blog: Storyboard

 Hi, today my group and I had to create our storyboard. In this blog I'll be explaining each part of the storyboard. Our storyboard fills up 3 pages which adds up to one minute and eighteen seconds when we time it. The beginning of our video will start with a wide shot of all 4 group members talking inside of Laurens bedroom. While were talking the song "Catch Me Outside" will be playing in the background. Only the beat will really be heard, along with a few words that the artist says in the beginning of the song. The next scene will be the girls singing the song and talking about how good it is. The next scene will be a 2 shot of Jarvia and Lauren rapping to a part of the song. A swipe will take the video to the next scene, which is an establishing shot of the clouds and trees. During this shot the song name will appear with our names on the bottom right corner of the screen. After the song name appears the music will start to play. After the music starts to play the next scene will start. In the next scene there will be a split screen. Instead of being split into 2 the screen will be split in 4's to show each girl getting dressed. The next scene will be a tracking shot of the girls walking into the car headed to the mall. 

After the girls make into the car the setting of the music video will change. The next scene will be a point of view shot from one of the passenger seats in the car to show Jarvia or Lauren driving us to the mall. Once we arrive to Sawgrass Mills Mall we will record a wide shot of us dancing across the cross walk entering the mall outlets. The next scene will be a shot taken from behind us showing us entering the mall (the music will continue to play as all of this is happening). The next scene will be a wide shot of two of us sitting on a mall cart touring the mall. We will also be lip-syncing to the song while the cart is moving. The next scene will be a shot of us walking into Hot Topic. While inside the store we'll be walking around dancing and lip-syncing to the song. After filming in Hot Topic we'll go to the next scene which will be filmed in Zumiez. In Zumiez we're going to take shots of us checking out skateboards and clothes in Zumiez. We'll use a pan pavement to film that scene.

The next scene will be of us looking at shoes in Foot Locker and trying them on. The next scene will be a tracking shot of us walking around the food court showing off the different food choices. While we're at the food court we'll also be lip-syncing and dancing around the food court. After we finish recording all of our scenes inside of the mall we'll head outside to the arcade. Once we get to the arcade we'll take a full body shot and then the screen will turn black. After the screen turns black it will switch to a split screen of us playing games which is where the video will come to an end.

Planning Blog

 Today my group and I got together to begin outlining our plan for our music video. We started planning by confirming our different set locations. The locations we chose were: the Sawgrass Mall outlets, Lauren's living room, Zumiez, Hot Topic, the food court, In the Game (a large arcade), and Footlocker. We chose Sawgrass Mall outlets because its an open area outside and it fits the theme of our film, which is teen girls hanging out and having fun. The next location will be at Lauren's house inside of her living room. We're going to use her living room to get an establishing shot of every group member. We chose Zumiez and Hot Topic because those stores have clothes that the creator of "Catch me Outside" wears. The inside of the store has a very cool and dark vibe which goes great with our song. The food court and Footlocker will be to record us walking around the mall shopping etc.

   When we film Lauren or Jarvia driving the car to the mall that would fall into the health and safety category. We will have our seat belts on and there will be adult supervision. None of our group members have a license so it is mandatory that an adult is in the car with us. Another thing that falls into the safety category is asking mall security for their permission to record. I'm pretty sure they will give their consent as long as we aren't bothering other civilians at the mall. I also plan on bringing a first aid kit just in case one of us trips or falls while dancing in the video.

We have multiple props in our music video. The first pr

op that we have is a speaker. The speaker is what's going to be used in the intro of our music video. We'll set it on low and once the first verse starts we're going to blast the speaker. The second prop that will be used is a car. We want to use a chucky doll as a prop but they are expensive. We'll have some type of doll in the video which will count as a prop.
   We don't have specific costumes. We plan on dressing out in a regular outfit that someone would wear to the mall; a nice top, some jeans and shoes. We came up with a schedule on when to film. We chose to film on 11-26-19 (Tuesday). We also plan on filming during our Thanksgiving break. Hopefully we'll be able to record good takes next Tuesday so that we can start editing our films at home over the break. That's all we did today, I'll be back tomorrow with our storyboard.

Intro to new project ; music video

Today we are starting our new project which is to create a minute and 5-15 second video. We want to at least record enough scenes to have the time add up to one minute and twenty seconds. We said one minute and twenty seconds because we know that when editing scenes normally get cut which shortens the time. In out last project we went over time because we didn't properly time our takes. In the last project what worked for my group was story boarding. Story boarding helped us getting a more organized idea of what we wanted our film to look like. Story boarding assisted us with choosing the proper angle shots to film certain scenes at. For example, while story boarding helped us figure out that we could add a trunk shot into one out of the six scenes. On the contrary, using pinnacle studios didn't work for us mainly because of the glitches that came with it. We switched to iMovie because it was easier to work around and it wasn't as glitchy or complicated as pinnacle studios.
My group and I chose to do the song "Catch me Outside" by Ski Mask the Slump God. We chose this song because we want to create a music video with a fun vibe that can include all of our friends in it. The theme of our video is basically girls hanging out with each other. The main scenes will be recorded at the mall. Other scenes will be shot at different locations such as the park or the car. Our song lies in the genre of rap. In this genre the sound that is typically heard is loud bass and a nice beat. Most rap songs are fast and upbeat while others have a slow tempo with a good corresponding beat.In rap songs the songs begin to get hype during the chorus, which usually consists of a catchy slogan. Our songs catchy slogan is "Catch me Outside". In most rap videos the editing is very different from different videos. Some rap videos use different angle shots such as low shots, trunk shots, or tracking shots. My group plans to include all of these shots in our video. The people in our video will be given instructions to dance and have fun once the recording starts. We want the video to have a fun/chill vibe that appeals to this generation.
The costumes will be regular everyday clothes that teens wear. The costumes will consist of a tee shirt jeans or shorts and shoes. The lighting for our music video will come from outside. We plan on recording during the day and during the night. At night we will record near a light so the actors will be seen. The actors in the music video will be some of our friends and family members. We already have people that we asked to be in the film. There will be no make up in this video unless its necessary. When it comes to props we will have many. The car and anything in our setting will be considered as a prop. The main setting will be at Sawgrass Mall. This setting gives off a fun vibe which is what we are going for. I'm ready to start planning and shooting our music video.

Editing Blog

   Today my group members and I had to edit our commercials. Last time we couldn't edit because pinnacle studious wasn't working and some of the desktops were malfunctioning. Today we checked out one laptop. We only grabbed one computer because we only needed to do the editing on one computer. Last class Lauren transferred our footage to a google drive. Lauren signed into the computer after Jarvia checked it out. Our final version isn't due until next week Monday. Since, the film isn't due until Monday we spent Tuesday's class period reviewing our footage. We had at least a good 30 takes. Some of the takes were useless because they were accidental recordings.
   We started by looking at the takes we filmed for the first scene. The first scene consisted of  me (a mother) walking into McDonalds with Lauren and Jarvia (my children). We had to cut a lot of takes mainly because in some takes we were laughing or staring directly at the camera. After reviewing all of the takes for scene 1 we decided to keep two good takes. The next takes that we looked over were the takes for scene 2. Scene 2 was the scene where Anishcka (our waitress) came to take our order and inform us of what McDonalds has to offer. In this case she told us about the happy meal because that's what our McDonalds commercial focused on. We chose 3 takes for this scene. The takes that we chose were the close up of me ordering the food and the shot of our waitress taking our order. Finally we reviewed the shots for scenes 4 and 5. The takes for scene 4 showed Jarvia and Lauren opening their happy meals to find a surprise. The takes for scene 5 consisted of the children discussing their toys.
   Lastly, we chose the takes that we were going to use for the closing scene. After we chose the takes that we we're going to use to edit our laptop died. We made sure to save our work so that we'll be able to get started right away next class. Today is Thursday (11-7-19) and we started using pinnacle studios to edit our film. We had to find a ;picture of the McDonalds sign with a red background to fade into the first scene. After Lauren started reviewing the takes and cutting them she noticed that we went over time. Our commercial is supposed to be 25-30 seconds long. We realized that we had to cut out unnecessary scenes. We also had to do a split screen for the scene where the kids open their happy meals. We did this to save time and add in more important scenes. We ended up adjusting to the issue and we came up with a plan so that we wouldn't go overtime. Our computer died again, however we were able to save our work. Next class we should be done with editing our commercial.