Editing the Music Video

We had two in class days to work on editing our video. The first day we couldn’t work on it because we forgot the cord. We recorded with our phones instead of the camera for a couple of reasons. First, one of my teammates had to leave on vacation and had the camera with him. We also realized that our phones had good resolution them selves so we thought it would be easier with multiple cameras to use. We also thought it would be better to dump with them because of iCloud and a wire which we forgot at home. My teammate even tested it at home to see if it worked. As he was checking however, he left the cord in the computer. There wasn’t too much editing anyway in our video though. All we had to do was add the shots together and put music over it.

The second day of editing however went a lot better. We brought the wire and dumped our footage. When we dumped, we saw that the video was too long so we cut some stuff. We we cut each shot individually to make it a bit shorter. We also cut an entire shot out of it. It was a shot that was planning over the ocean. It didn’t really work with the video because there was no room for it. It was at the beginning but we already had a time lapse of the ocean and it made it look over used. After that it was the right time but then we realized that it was missing a scene because our teammate was going film their own clip at home. So we trimmed some other stuff leaving room for it. Finally we were done and all we need was to add the music.

Unfortunately, the class was over and we didn’t have time to finish. One of my teammates volunteered to edit over the weekend. He said he could do it all by himself but we offered to come over and help. So during the weekend we will add music over the video. We decided to put the music over the lobster when it’s first introduced. The music will be quite at first and then be the normal music when it gets closer. Then we were going to put the music lowers when the lobster in the pot. The music will be completely off when the pot closes over it. After that we won’t need to put anything else in our video. The editing will be over and we will have our final product.

Filming Blog: The Day Of

Today was our filming day. my group, witch did not consist of me as i was out of the state and could not be present went to the Fort Lauderdale beach. This is the most convenient beach to go to for all of the other group members. Looking at the footage, the day seemed beautiful and perfect for filming, but hearing the audio i could see that they had a windy day. They got to the beach at around 4:00 PM and started filming at around 4:20. The sun started to go down while we were still filming. Thankfully, They got all of the shots we needed at the beach before the sun started to set. The sound was not important in the film since the music would be playing over the videos, but it did effect our prop setup. For props, we brought:
Beach umbrella
Beach towel
Sunglasses
Plush lobster
Bottle of water

We filmed using our phone cameras. One of our group members has a 4k video recording camera, which looked very nice with the beach background. We were not able to film with the school cameras because of miscommunication with one of our group members. However, filming on the phone cameras turned out very nice. Our group was able to get enough shots to confidently hit the 1:15 requirement. Luckily, the group was able to get all of the footage needed.
Dylan-Filming, editing
Owen-Filming, acting
Jimmy-Acting
Trent-Editing
There is only one shot they were not able to get, sadly It is the ending shot where the lobster is put into a pot to cook. This will be done at another group members house. he will be able to do it alone because it really only takes one person. next class we will dump our footage and hopefully be done.

Filming blog: Missed Opportunities

two days ago, we were given the opportunity to bring a camera home on our own accord and decide if we should film over the weekend. We were given a digital camera, a charger, an adjunct card and the tripod. We decided not to film, mostly because of scheduleing problems and it just being too soon. Instead of filming, our group was seperate over the weekend so I am not aware of what my group mates did, but I stayed in and regretted not asking my group to film because i had nothing to do over the weekend. If I knew what my group did over the weekend privately, I would of written it here.

There are many reasons we decided not to film, the most prominent reason being that no one said anything abount filimg this weekend so it just kind of went over our heads. Another reason is that all of us live in very different places, and none of us have drivers licenses so we all needed to ask adults for rides separately beforehand wich none of us did even if I did ask, I am not assured that my other group mates did because I am not their father and do not know what they are doing at all times, and i am beginning to wish I did know what everyone was doing.

There are many drawbacks to not filming last weekend. One of my least favorite drawbacks is the drawback that we still have to deal with the stress and many logistical problems of filming even after knowing the shame that some people are already done. I am leaving over the break, so I will have to transfer the camera and tripod over to my group mates without them hopefully getting mad at me for not telling them that I am leaving in two days.

Storyboard 2

Our storyboard depicts a man's struggle with nature and one of its most unassuming creatures, the lobster. Our story starts with the hero relaxing by the beach taking the sun in, when he soon notices something amiss. music, from the corner of his ear. he looks and notices a jukebox being operated by a lobster and the lobster looking dead straight at him. instead of disturbing the lobster's peace and party, he decides to leave to a different equation, bothered, but that won't ruin his day. he gives the lobster a look and wanders off. not even two minutes after he leaves his little friend, he notices a lobster standing on two feet stairing at him, just as the last one did.

Our hero, now quite disturbed, feels as if something is wrong with his brain, so decides to replicate what a classic hero would do and splashes a bottle of water on his face. where the bottle is in the first place, we do not know yet. when he splashes this so called bottle of water upon his face, he realises soon afterwards that the bottle is no ordinary fresh water bottle, as it is a salty trap employed by the lobsters to convert him! all of this is portrayed through film with the characters emotion portrayed with easy to follow actions and readable facial expressions.

Horrified, our hero dashes away, hoping to find another person, which strangely he has not yet, even with the beach being ussualy packed on a weekend of a holiday. as he runs, he noticies more and more lobster infecting the beach and in silly positions. even looking out to the beach there is no escape, as the lobster is creeping its head out of the murky ocean and is staring at the protagonist. finally, the hero finds one other human-a cook no less!- and asks him in a panic if  he has seen anyl lobsters. laughing, the cook shows what is in his pot, an expensive lobster for two.

Planning Blog Project 2

In every project we will do in AICE Media, we will have to plan. the planning period is a critical part of the filming process, and we are excited to get started with this music video project. while this was our least favorite part in the last project, we are determined to streamline the process and make it as great and as easy as possible. Our current plan for the project is to film at the beach, as that is public property and hopefully not a lot of people will be at the jetty, which is a place far south of the beach which often does not have a lot of people and will hopefully be an optimal location. the jetty itself as lots of rocks and lots of sand (of course) and will be the start and probably the end of the video itself.  i am very excited to take the walk there.

In terms of health and safety, we know the dangers of the beach better than most people, so we will do our very best and take every precaution to make sure the actors, costumes and equipment stay safe throughout the whole of filming. we will do our best to make sure that the filming gets done in one day to minimize the risk of the elements destroying our equipment and ruining morale. we will try and ask the owners of the jetty if we can film there or not.

For props, we will have minimal because the core of the commercial will be the actors. in fact, the only two props will be an inflatable jukebox and a pot for the lobster to boil. that is virtually it for props, which is ok because the actors carry the scene completely. the props are just for immersion.

the costumes will be the driving force of the clip, as the costumes will show the two characters, the man and the lobster. the contrast between the two groups will be stark, and the viewers will obviously see the two groups as different.

For software, we will be using the same program as normal, pinnacle studios. we will be doing this because our teachers require it and it is a pretty well of the program. I sill hope we do not have the same slowness problems that we had with it before, but we are prepared to deal with them.

The music we will use we do not have to ask permission for because we will not be selling this music video. if we were, we would have to pay royalties and those are way above our paygrade and definitely not worth it.

Music Video Intro

After finishing our commercial, our teachers have told us that we are going to be working on a new project, that new project being a music video that we will be directing, editing and dancing to. I am very excited to start this project, as making a music video is one of my dreams. the time limit the teachers have given us have allowed for much more creativity and modularity when directing, as it is three times longer then the last project. this means this project will be three times the work, but also three times as fun! i am excited to storyboard and do all the things that are required to make this project as great as it can be. the whole of the story will take place at the fort Lauderdale beach, as that is the one all of the team members are closest to.


 we had to choose a song for our team, witch took longer than expected but we ended up settling on "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s, an old band from the eighties. We chose this song because it had a nice beat and the plot in the song was open ended, meaning that we could assign meaning that the original artists might have not intended. It is repetitive, meaning we could cut suddenly if we need to and it will not sound awful. the voices in the song have minimal percentage. the song was recommended by one of my team members with a comedic tone in mind. the song is upbeat, so the story that we will make will be upbeat too.

Our group chose the song Rock Lobster by B-52. We got the idea when I just listed out funny songs. We thought that this song could be funny, unique, and have a story that plays along with it. We are planning on having a beach theme which means that we are going to have to plan our mis en scene to fit this theme. There are 6 parts of mis en scene that we are going to use:

C- Costumes. Like I said before, we are going to have beach themed costumes, and maybe a lobster. However this seems very expensive so we may rethink that.

L- lighting. We are going to use natural lighting, because we do not have any of the materials to have professional lighting. It would also fit with our beach theme.

A- Actors. We plan on having most of our group doing the acting. We may also ask some friends on my swim team if they want to participate. Many of them have fun personality that we think would fit  well in our funny video. 

M- Makeup. We probably will not be using makeup for our project, unless we want to dress someone up as a lobster.

P- Props. We will use beach props like beach umbrellas, beach towels, sunglasses, hats, a rock, and a toy lobster to make our scene come to life. 

S- Setting. We will have a beach setting, and maybe another place. The setting will bring out the elements of our film.

The camera angles that we will use will be simplistic and can easily follow the story, such as medium shots, close ups, and establishing shots.

We will use mostly digetic sound, sound effects, and score. The digetic sound will fit the beach theme. We can use sound effects throughout the film to make the film pop out more. Obviously, we will use the music that plays over the other sounds.

To edit, we will be using the same editing software, Pinnacle studios.

Editing 2

Today we continued editing from 2 classes ago. The reason we could not edit in the last two classes is because the computers that had pinnacle studios did not wok and pinnacle studios needed an administration password, meaning we could not work. Instead of editing, we went ahead in preparing for the Cambridge AICE media quiz in watching the Mr. Robot clip from last year. I had some trouble, but the teachers explained some key points and I was alright after. We watched the video 4 times, learning how to look for the mis-en-scene and the overarching theme that the director was trying to portray. Through the whole excercise, I learned more about the exam and film making.

The computers being broken was extremely frustrating because we had just filmed and was ready to learn more about editing styles. You could say that all of us had momentum to learn, but that was sadly squandered by technical difficulties and the major problems plaguing our school infrastructure in terms of permissions. It was angering and frustrating because one of the main draws of this class is  learning how to edit. I wish my school had been more responsible when dealing with this. In the end, we’re were  able to get laptops and to work on it, and our teachers pushed back the date it was due. So alls well thats ends well I guess. I still wish we got to work earlier.

This time I had a much less prevailent role in editing, but it was a role nonetheless. I helped pick out the transitions because as a result of working on a new computer we had to rearrange all the footage back which made a chunk out of our class time. The transition count was low, but when they were used the really added to the movie. Our whole group is excited to show the class our commercial.

Editing the commercial

We use the pinnacle studios program for editing in this AICE media class. It is an older program, it’s last major update being in 2017, but it still holds up extremely well in place of other, more recent programs such as iMovie and others. We got a previous class in the basics of this program so must of us are close to proficient. It is pretty easy to use, allowing for quick editing at a rapid pace. It does have some trouble importing into the program from a flash drive, which was worrying because all of our footage was loacted on a flash drive. But alas, it ended up working perfectly and we were able to but all of the proper footage on the timeline. We did run into a problem though, we had too much footage.

The main three parts of pinnacle studios are the timeline, the preview and the raw footage. Mastering of these is critical to sucess in this program. It is very common, but intuitive. Many great movies have been made here, so we know it is possible to create something funny for 30 seconds. Thousands of commercial come out each year, how hard could it be to make one? Pretty hard, as it turns out. We had so much footage we had to remove some scenes. When that didnt work, we had to cut down to the bear minimum of each scene. The main message was still there, but it was a skeleton of it’s former self. It still had the plot and the comedic bits. It was exausting, but we finally got most of it done over two days, with the bulk of the work being done in the first day.

During the editing process, I helped sift through the raw footage and pick out all of the final shots. I also helped shorted the video down drastically through deleting a scene that was simply a spin around of the main character and added nothing. Sadly, that scene was my idea. I also helped speed up the footage so we did not have to get rid of anything. Our ideas were just too ambitious for 30 seconds. For that reason, we as a group are very exited for the final Cambridge project because of the much larger time limit. We believe we did our best and hope to get a good grade on this assignment.

Filming the commercial

Today we filmed the commercial. I had a great time with my friends, and it really was a great learning experience. We all learned how to do one useful skill, either filming or acting. Our commercial took a more comedic approach to advertising, which I think was a good move because the best way to capture the hearts of young people is to make them laugh. I went and bought props to make the person eating Wendy’s look cool in contrast to the people eating boring food. It worked perfectly. In contrast to the other two actors, I was probably the coolest looking person on the patio at that time.

We only had an hour to film and ten minutes to dump our footage onto the computers, so it did have an air of urgency while we filmed, but that did not stop us from having fun. The person who was filming started out poor at handiling a camera, but his skill increased drastically and he got much better as a whole through the filming time. The same was true for the actors, as our line delivery got less and less amateurish with every time we had to redo the shot. During the filming, our team employed different angles to spice up our commercial and subsequently our filming. Just some of the angles we used were Dutch tilt, handheld tracking shot and zoom in, among many others.

Our commercial tried to break many conventions of the classical Wendy’s commercial. We break the fourth wall many times to connect with a viewer on a more personal level. This approach may allow corporate to sell more chicken nuggets, much to our joy. All in all, it was a fantastic project that I will love doing again. It taught me a lot about the filming process, how the storyboard interacts with the filmers and how important camera placement is and angles. To spice up our commercial, ha ha, it took a lot of thought. But in the end, it was worth it because when we dumped our footage, we strung it together and it looked really good without editing so I can only imagine what it will look like with all the special effects and zooms. I am very excited to see the final product.

Storyboard

Today we storyboarded our commercial. It is so far my favorite part of the project we are doing. Our commercial is half comedic half informative. I predict that it would completely shake the Wendy’s chicken nugget community if we were to release it to the public. The commercial will use many different types of angles but the main ones will be medium shot and wide shot, as they are able to portray the most information in the least amount of time, and time is critical in a commercial because of the limitations put in place by being on television.

Story boarding is a critical part of any visual or in reality any creative endeavour. It allows everyone involved to have a rough idea of how the final product is going to look and at least gives a sekeleton do the design process. It allows for quick changes at a glance and is like a ball of paste to the writers. These aspects of a storyboard make it one of the most important parts of movie making.

We decided to go with a robbery plot with comedic undertones to sell our product. Our commercial will be engaging to connect with our main audience, millennials. The quick nature will allow information to be presented in an efficient and timely manner. Our storyboard allows for changes quickly. Story boarding is a funnway to see the future of the project.

Editing lesson blog

The main program for editing is pinnacle studios. We will only be editing after we film next week. Before we start editing, we need to get the camera from our aice media studies teacher by filling out a form with the number of the camera we are taking out. We use the sd card that it comes with and  plug it in to an sd card reader. We are going to dump the footage onto a folder our group will make for this specific project. After we dump our footages there are many things to do, such as adjusting the audio, cutting the footage and adding text to the movie. But the main focus is to string the raw footage together in a way that makes sense; I.e., making a movie.

To edit in pinnacle studios, you must first input the folder of footage. You have to find your footage in the folder browser and click. Make sure to wait between clicks, as pinnacle studios is slow and handles multiple clicks at the same time poorly. When you finally find your footage, you will be brought to the editing screen where you will see three things, the timeline, the pallet and the preview. The timeline is where you will do the bulk of your work, as it is where you cut, add text and drag footage, among other things. When you do these things, you will be able to view the changes In the preview. When you are finally finished, make sure to export at last. Always save if you cannot get your work done in one sitting.

Planning Blog

Our commercial is going to be on Wendy's new legendary spicy nuggets. Today we are making a blog about our planning stage in our commercial where we will list out the props, costumes, schedule and our backup plan, as well as explain why we chose to do those ideas. The props will bring life to the scene we are trying to set. The costumes will also help set the scene. Making sure our schedule is organized imperative to our project, so all of our group members know when we are brainstorming, filming, and editing. The background plan will be used as a last resort if any of our group members are absent.

Props - 

• chicken nugget container - to give to boring man
• hot sauce - to be used by boring man and still be bored
• gross food - to be eaten by boring man
• lunch plate - used by boring man
• chair - for the boring man to sit in
• table - to be eaten on

Costumes- 

• Regular school-wear- to portray a sense of blandness
• cool wear - when the cool dude with the spicy nuggets walks in
• other cool wear - when the bland guy bites into a nugget

Schedule 

• October 10th/day one - brainstorming
• October 14th/day two - film
• October 16th/day three - editing

Location

• inner cafeteria (if not available - use outside table)

back up plan

• we only have two main characters and one extra, so we can leave out the extra and just have one boring man.
• if the cafeteria is not open, we can just use the outside tables or any other table.

Commercial Conventions

Many commercials use the same tactics and styles to sell their product. We are going to write a Wendy's commercial. We have an idea to do an advertisement about the new Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets because it is the hottest and most hip chicken nugget on the market. We feel very strongly for this new nugget and it made us cry tears of joy when it came back into our lives. Collectively, our group loves Wendy’s chicken nuggets and are excited about the prospect of making a fake commercial.

We will advertise many things in our commercial, such as Wendy’s baconator and their fantastic 4 for 5 deal where you get a burger, fries, a drink and chicken nuggets for only five dollars. But the main focus of the commercial is the delicious spicy chicken nuggets. The commercial will have a hot theme to further prove that Wendy’s spicy chicken nuggets are not to be messed with. We will probably throw the spice onto them in slow motion with rock music on the background. It’s gonna be great.

Some will say that McDonald’s is better. But we will say something along the lines of “not like those other chicken nuggets” or “a kick you won’t get anywhere else!” To go against our main competitor in the spicy chicken buissness, Popeyes, we will show a box of their color (orange) getting smashed by our bigger, better red box of nuggets.

Introductory

Hello! It's very nice to meet you. I am going to be writing on this blog for the next few months. My name is Trent. I really, really like talking. it's basically all I do on a daily basis. But you know what's funny? I can't talk in front of a crowd! insane, right? I know! Its been my weakness ever since I could talk. I remember when I first had to give a presentation in 6th grade. It was about the president I

 was assigned, Eisenhower. I just froze up! I couldn't speak another word!

I am currently in 9th grade. I take lots of classes, and my favorite is chemistry. chemistry is my favorite because I just feel that it is fascinating that everything boils down into the periodic table. another one of my favorite classes in English. one of my most favorite things in the world is to look over a completely proofread essay. I do think school is fun, and putting in hard work is a good feeling.

In my free time, I prefer to either read or play videogames. one of my favorite books is Dr. Jekl and Mr. Hyde. I used to read a ton, but because of schoolwork I have been reading less and less. My favorite drink is Coke. I could drink coke for the rest of my life and be happy.