Filming the Music Video

     While filming this music video the number of the problems that surfaced is insane. To provide more context for what happened, I must first restate that the filming was going to take place at a friends house. Before filming out music video me and my team were going to help them with their music video. This took approximately 3-4 hours. While we were helping them with their music video we were expecting our third teammate to arrive. Around 12 he texted saying he wouldn’t be able to come because of an emergency one of his close friends had. Neither of us replied and kept on helping in anyway we could. When it came to our turn we were in need of a male actor. However, when we needed one the other two from the other group had to leave. At this point I was extremely annoyed because they used up quite a bit of the cameras battery (which we were sharing) and weren’t going to help us. This led me and my partner Rafael to steer away from the original storyboard.
     We debated several options. One of these options was changing the gender roles around because we had two girls (including myself) and one male. Rafael didn’t like this idea very much so we fell back on an idea presented a lot earlier which was to film the whole video from a point of view and have Mariapaula be the man. We had to wait until it was dark so we filmed the inside scenes first. We began with the shot of the bathroom and decided to add a person passed out in it. We popped a confetti popper and collected the confetti in a bag and spread it in Mariapaula’s bathroom. After this we began rehearsing the scenes of the “lover” in the bar turning around. These scenes made me very unhappy, not only because I hated the way I looked in them, but also because I wasn’t getting the affect I wanted. We improvised by changing the scene to just her eyes looking at him with annoyance.
     We continued to do the scenes from a point of view perspective. We waited for it to get dark outside to film the beginning of the music video. We took multiple shots of the man walking to the “bar” but didn’t like many of them. We also played the song to know how long the scene had to be and so that it went with the beat. We also realized we had a blank spot where we needed to add a scene. We decided to add the man hesitating to open the door. (26) We decided to leave the scene with the campfire for Tuesday. The last scene we filmed was a confetti popper going off and it falling down gently with a white fence in the background. This is probably my favorite scene from the whole music video. We then cleaned up the confetti and Mariapaula’s house. I didn’t think the scenes we took were that bad; although, we were a bit rushed, Mariapaula was tired from filming all day and I felt she wanted us to leave. Overall, Filipino out commercial took about an hour or two. We got into class today after getting all the clips onto the computer and we’re very surprised. The footage was extremely grainy and bad quality, I wasn’t happy with any of the scenes. We will be filming again on Tuesday and not on the school camera but with our phones. Hopefully things end up better this time around.

Music Video Storyboard

The Storyboard for the Music Video

     My group and I are filming our music video on the song “We Are Young” by Fun. We wanted to relate the lyrics of the song to our video. The costumes our characters will be using are generally dark colors such as black, dark blue, etc. Our costumes are completely dependent on our setting which is at a bar. The apparel matches the location and time of day. We will use both bright and dark lights to focus on our characters, but to also give off the feeling of a bar. Additionally, we’re using naturally lighting because we plan on having an area for a fire in our music video. The actors will be strangers and suddenly stumble upon each other. They start off good but quickly the cookie crumbles. Our characters won’t be using makeup for the most part except the girl. She might wear minimal makeup, but this is still not guaranteed. Some of the props we will be using are sunglasses, shot glasses, and bar stools. The setting we will be filming at is for the most part at the bar, but we will also film certain scenes in the bathroom, and outside where the fire is. Our set is the biggest factor in our film because it affects so many of the aspects we need to cover. For instance, it affects our apparel, lighting, acting, and camera shots.

            The equipment we are using to record is fairly standard. We are using a camera, tripod, etc. that is provided by the school. We are going to use a variety of angles to get the perfect scene. Examples of the angles we will be using are high angle and low angle. My group and I are also trying incorporate a multitude of different camera movements. The main movements we would like to use are tilt, pan, and zoom. We think the different movements will help elevate our video to the next level. We will also capture various different shots. Our video will consist of close ups, long, medium, and wide shots. These are the main ones we utilize, but we will incorporate more.

              The editing will be similar to my groups last project. Rafael is the best with computers and programs so he leads us in editing. We will assist with what he needs help with like sounds, cutting the film, and choosing scenes. Although the main sound will be the song, we are going to attempt to include other sound effects to enhance our video. We plan to finish this project efficiently and as a team. We are working together everyday and learning new techniques and skills to help us become better film makers.

     

Planning the Music Video

1) Location
          We had a variety of locations to choose from: the park, the beach, and etc. Our friend offered to let her house be used as a filming setting, primarily her backyard. We plan to film at night time since the song emphasizes a dark setting. The location and time of day will be essential since we are going to utilize a bonfire. We will also film in her dining room for bar scenes.
2) Health & Safety
          We will carpool to the location so kidnappings is not an issue. We will be very careful with the bonfire. Our friend's dad will ignite the fire and we will have a fire extinguisher on standby. We will also have first aid kit ready to be used in case of any accidents. We will also make sure to use the fireworks appropriately and effectively.
3) Props
          We may use fireworks, the small kind. It will be a cool subject to film in slow motion. We may also use drinking glasses and/or solo cups to create a night-time party atmosphere. We will also use our phones in the music video as a way for the characters to communicate. The bartender will have a cloth rag to clean up the bar.
4) Costumes
          The characters will be dressed up for a party. One of the characters will have sun glasses on because it will fit with the lyrics in the song. The 'lover' will have subtle make up on. The man will have jeans and a button up. The sun glasses character will wear all black.
5) Schedule
          This blog and the storyboard blog will be due on Thursday 11/21. We will film on Saturday, 11/23 at our friends house. The first filming blog will be due on Monday, 11/25. It will have our experience of filming for the first time off campus. If we need to re-shoot, we may film again over Thanksgiving Break. Then our second filming blog will be due Monday, 12/2.

Research Blog for the Music Video

In my media class we have now finished the commercial. We are now starting a new project, a music video. In the process of making the commercial I learned how to properly use a camera. I also learned how to properly plan for something I will be filming. Learning how to use the camera and capture certain angles and create certain effects will help me a lot for the music video. Learning how to plan and planning showed me how important it is to think of absolutely every variable that will be in your film. Now that we are starting the music video I hope it will turn out even better then the commercial.

We picked the song We Are Young by “Fun.” We discussed what song we were going to choose for about an hour. We all liked this song over the others we talked about. Hey ya! by Outkast was also a prominent candidate. We honestly just liked We Are Young more. We liked the upbeat music and decided not to do Hey Ya! because We are Young is more descriptive and we had better ideas for it. We Are Young is a son that was popular when we were about 6 years ago and felt nice to reminisce on that time so we chose it for our music video.

Conventions in pop music videos are very similar to each other. They all use identical strategies to convey their message. Most camera angles were eye level to fully capture the face of the singer. There were numerous close-up shots of the singer's mouth while they were mouthing the lyrics. Lots of sound effects of that emphasize what is going on in the music video, like glass breaking. Handheld shots where the camera is a bit shaky to immerse viewers into the video. A great deal of pop music videos used slow motion to make more actions more dramatic.  

The apparel worn in the majority of pop music videos is modern and trendy. They wear outfits that match the scene and the lyrics of the song. Also, lighting is a big factor in all music videos. The lighting used is similar to a spotlight pointing out the performers. The lights are bright and used to enhance the scenes quality. The acting done in the videos are generally just the artists singing, and dancing. Sometimes directors hire actors if the song represents a story or actions. Almost all people used in a music video wear makeup to hide imperfections or to enhance their role. They also match makeup and lighting so the two compliment each other. Props utilized consist of instruments,  mic stands, and items that connect to the song; props should also relate to the character that’s is acting. The setting used is completely dependent on what the director thinks is best. Some songs assist deciding the setting because they have an upbeat or sad vibe to it.

(Actually) Editing the commercial

     On Monday we got into class and the computers still weren’t fixed. However, we now had a laptop cart available to us. We got to work quickly seeing as how short we were on time. Rafael did most of the editing. He had the most experience with technology and we wanted our commercial to be good. He composed all the scenes together. Once he did this the commercial was really long. We hadn’t expected that our commercial would be way too long. Rafael had the idea of fading the scenes in together. This only cut off 17 seconds. We were still at a minute and 30 seconds. Angelo was getting the music to use for our commercial. After we shaved off 17 seconds we added the music he picked out. I was really happy with that very lengthy commercial. However, I knew we were going to have to take while scenes out now. Rafael asked me what he should cut out. This led to the discussion of which scenes are actually important. I really like the scene of the actors walking in, I felt like it added to the commercial as a whole. However, it look up 7 seconds and didn’t hold any critical knowledge that helped the viewer understand the commercial. We sadly had to cut it out. After this, I told him we should cut out the scene where Darwin (the principal) throws out the students. We had added it for dramatic affect. The face Darwin made after he caught the students was enough to understand the consequences that they were going to face. From then, Rafael sped up all the scenes and the commercial was still too long. At this point most the filming we did on Day 2 was cut out. We obviously had to keep the scene where Rafael lists the consequences of vaping. We kept the scene of Angelo coughing in the commercial. Rafael then decided the ending wasn’t clear enough. Because of this, I had to record a voice over that would be added onto the end of the commercial. After adding the voice over our commercial was 31 seconds long. This proved to be rather annoying. However it was solved quickly when Rafael sped up the voice over. I’m not happy with the way it sounded after it was sped up but it was necessary. Overall, I am satisfied with our commercial. I did like the longer one but the final one is just fine.