Filming Blog

     When we first got this project we planned on filming on the 23rd and 24th. We then started to realize that there were obstacles. Bianca first asked her friends if they wanted to be in the music video. We didn’t want to be in the music video, so we needed to ask friends to be in it. Only a few of her friends answered not all of them. She also texted some of her friends separately to see if they would answer. They first agreed to being in the music video. Then Bianca told them the plan and they quit. This meant that I had to ask my friends to be in the music video. I chose a bunch of my friends and made a group chat. We also asked our friends from lacrosse if they wanted to be in the music video.

     I told them that I needed people to be in my music video. All of them answered, but I needed more people to be in it. I added people to the chat and asked they all agreed to being in it. Bianca got in touch with me and told me to make a group chat with her in it. I made one and we started to tell my friends our plan. The plan was that we were going to film in the 23rd and 24th. We then realized we couldn’t because all of my friends were busy and had things to do in the 23rd and 24th. I had to babysit on the 23rd in the morning which was the only time Bianca was available. On the 24th Bianca couldn’t either because she had to watch her brother. This meant that we couldn’t film over the weekend and had to film during Thanksgiving break.

     We decided to film on Tuesday and Wednesday, but then Bianca couldn’t do anything on Wednesday. We moved it to Tuesday and Friday. The people that could do it on Tuesday couldn’t do it on Friday. Then the people that could do it on Friday couldn’t do it on Tuesday. We weren’t going to film on Monday because both Bianca and I have lacrosse practice. Then we got a remind from our coach saying that lacrosse practice was canceled on Monday. Now we are planning on filming in Monday, Tuesday and Friday. I have to ask my friends when they can come, so that we can film. Bianca is going to have to miss her study hall to edit. 

Storyboard Blog

     We started our story board on the 18th and we got to write two blocks. We couldn't finish in time, so we had to finish it today in class. This morning in class we debated on how our story board should be set up. We struggled deciding between certain scenes and how long the video was supposed to be. We ended up drawing multiple scenes on the story board template. We also threw away some story boards because we didn't like them anymore. After we decided what we wanted we wrote it all down. While we were writing it we came up with new ideas. We then had to stop writing and decided what we wanted. After we finished writing we took turns drawing out the scenes.
     While we were starting our blog we realized we didn't have the shots written on the story board. We then stopped writing our blog to write the shots down for future use. Our first storyboard template was easy to map out. This first template is the park scenes. After we wrote and drew everything out we went back and added cut scenes and shots to our story board. We decided to have a long shot, pan shot, tracking shot, mid shot, close up, zoom shot, low angle plus tilt. Then we went back and decided how many cut scenes we would have, which was between four to five. For our second story board template we switched to the beach scenes. We start with a mid to long shot. Then we switched into a pan shot, then cut to an over the shoulder shot. There will be five cut scenes.
     In our last story board template we are at the beach at night. We start with a medium close shot, which transitions into a long shot. Then we have an extreme close up and a medium shot together. After that scene we have a long shot. The long shot then switches to a medium shot and eye level shot. This then switches back into a long shot. For our very last shot we have a zoom shot facing the water and or the moon. The video will end with the moon fading out. There will be three to four cut scenes.

Planning Blog for the Music Video

1) Location-We will be at the beach for the sunrise and sunset scenes. We will also be at the beach to record dances. These we will check if they go with the final film. We will be at the park where we will shoot the middle of our video. Majority of our dance scenes will be shot at the park.
2) Health & Safety-On the way to the park and the beach we will have our seatbelts on. Also during the cab videos we will also have our seatbelts on. At the beach we will have sunblock. On top of the sunblock we will also carry aloe vera incase someone gets sunburned. Also for the park and beach a First-Aid kit will be handy. In our First-Aid kit we will have band-aids, tweezers and hydrogen peroxide.
3) Props-In the beginning of the video one of the props will be a taxi hat. We will have a speaker at the park for the middle of the video. Towards the end of our video we are going to use sparklers at the beach. Sunglasses will be worn throughout most of the video.
4) Costumes-The main singer will be wearing old country clothes. The back up dancers will be wearing high end "hollywood" style clothes. The clothes will be based around sundress's, high-heels and business casual outfits. Towards the middle of the video we will switch to the beach scene. This is where our dancers will be wearing shorts, tank tops and flip flops.
5) Schedule-For the first week of the project my partner and I will be story boarding. We will also be planning the video. For the first weekend the dancers will be learning the choreography. The following week we will be filming. We will also possibly edit. If we don't have the scenes that we want by the end of Thanksgiving break we will reshoot and re-edit before it's due.

Intro to New Project Music Video

     Today we are starting on our new project which is the music video. We are done with the commercial project. Storyboarding worked really well for us in our commercial because it shortened the amount of time we spent filming. Storyboarding is something that we will be utilizing in our music video. I am very excited to start this project. I am working with a different group for this project. I’m excited to use the some of the props that we’ll be using.

     We chose the song Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus. We chose the song because it's nostalgic to our childhood. It will also bring back happy memories and make it more exciting. The genre of the song is pop. The song was released in 2009. This means that we will have to go back to our 2009 childhood and remember what made 2009 different than our time today. The song goes back to our elementary school days when times were easier and when we had more fun. Since we had more fun a small the song is a pop song, it will be very easy to recreate this video in our own perspective because our 2009 selves were so light hearted and care free which is what pop feels like.

     1) Costumes- our costumes will be based around the style of clothing in 2009, and mixed with expensive outfits. We chose to do it this way and not remake it for our time, a decade later because we wanted to feel the nostalgia of our childhood and because it took place in Hollywood originally and even though we don't want to recreate the video completely, we still want to follow the lyrics of the song.  

2) Lighting- the lighting will be varied throughout the entire video because we will be shooting at different times a day on different days. This will work with the video because it will give it a storyline feel. 

3) Actors- We will be using the help of our teenage friends for the dancing and acting. Since in a teenage music video, there are usually many people, it wouldn't make sense to have one person in the entire video. Since there are only two of us as a team, one person would have to be shooting while the other acts, which wouldn't make for a good video. 

4)Makeup- Our actors will be wearing basic makeup, like mascara and light eye shadow to replicate the 2009 pop culture vibes. This will call for a lot of research to figure out how 2009 teenagers used makeup. 

5) Props- Our props will consist of sparkers when it gets darker, a speaker to show the music that would play, and a taxi driver type of hat. We chose these to stay as close to the lyrics as we can. 

6) Setting- We will be shooting our music video at the beach around sunset and sunrise for the beginning and end of the video, as well as dancing. We will also have it around a park near the school for the cab scenes and for the dancing, and also downtown for the tall building and city feel of Hollywood.

7) The camera angles will be shot from far away, low angles, and tracking shots. The sound will be the music playing for the video. We will have to edit a lot in Pinnacle Studios to have our scenes together. This will take time after the filming which we are hoping to have. 

Editing Blog

     Today in class, we starting the editing process. The class had to take shifts on the computer because there weren’t enough computers for the whole class. My group got a computer to work on. We first dumped our footage from the SD card to the computer. Kyndell had the SD card and we asked for the SD card reader. We moved our footage to the folder we created. We went onto Pinnacle Studios and imported our footage. There was a video on Pinnacle Studios and we didn’t know how to remove it, so we asked our teacher to remove it. After that we started by moving our footage to Track 2. We waited for it to load and then we played all of our footage to see what we wanted to cut.
     We forgot how to cut the footage but then we figured it out and started to make cuts. I helped cut the second scene of our commercial. This was the easiest scene to edit. I helped to make the transition where Bianca turned around at the end. We had to cut it perfectly, so that it had the effect of Bianca turning around from two different views. I also had to cut out the parts where u could hear us say “cut” and “action”. Bianca accidentally clicked on something and two arrows came up at the sides we didn’t know what it was. We asked our teachers and they told us to just move it to the sides. We continued editing the second scene and moved onto the first scene. This scene was harder to edit because we had a lot of clips.
     The next day in class Bianca wasn’t at school, so it was just me and Kyndell. All we had to do was finish editing the first scene, add the title and add music. Kyndell got us a computer and we started to edit. Everything was put together all we had to do was cut out the parts where you could hear Bianca. When we finished that we moved on to making the transition between the scenes. After we finished I did the title. We chose a transition between the title and the first scene. Once we finished that we looked for the music. We didn’t know how to add the music, so we had to leave it without the music. We finished right before the bell rang.