Filming: The Beginning

   So today we started our video shooting process. This was different for us as we had to do it out of  school. This meant we could go anywhere to film the video. We started off with the preconceived idea that we should take pictures. These would be several different pictures from the different places. One example of this was when we went to the park. We decided that the park would be perfect for making memories. I brought my film camera to the park. This would be great help as we could use the photos in the picture book. However, we couldn’t see how the pictures came out immediately. This is leaving us with a lot of anxiousness and anxiety.
    At the park I took a few pictures of different actions. They started off playing soccer at the park. I first started taking pictures of them passing it around and shooting. We then had the idea to start taking making bicycle kicks. I believe that these pictures will come out so nicely because it was truly the golden hour. I took several photos of them taking these kicks. I had also brought an American football, this also led to several good picture opportunities. Such as us just passing it around, this showed our unity and friendship. Then a few of the members started doing Oklahoma drills. This is where one person with the ball has to try to make it to the finish line, and in his way is one other person that has to try to prevent him from passing.
  After shooting at the park we went to the beach. Before the beach we ate at Burgerfi. There were some good pictures taken, but the lighting made it hard to take good pictures. We then proceeded to the beach, where they were hosting an event with a DJ and old people dancing. One of my group mates went and danced with the ladies, this served as a very good memory for the book. Finally, we made it to the actual beach. We first took some pictures together we realized that the film camera was now useless under such dark lighting, so we switched to the digital. Some of us decided to jump into the water and jump off some stuff, these made for some very good pictures. On the way back to my friend’s house we blasted music and took a video of us singing to it, I think that we probably won’t use this.

Storyboard for Music video

At the beginning of our storyboard it starts off with a adult man on the beach with a book of memories. This will be the establishing shot and it will also be a wide angle. Then, on the next box there is a shot of the book, held by the adult. On this book there is a picture of him and his friends. This is an insert of the book, with the pictures in the book, including pictures at a basketball court or a restaurant. This next step is very crucial to our editing process, as this will probably be the hardest part of the music video. We will lock onto on of the pictures, which will be the friends locking arms. We will then zoom into the picture and zoom out into the actual beach. This will be hard because the smooth transition will be crucial for the flow of the video. We are thinking of doing a fade transition and a color transition.

The next box is a tracking shot from behind the car that we are driving in. This is the first shot of our general flash back scene. We then proceed to meet up with the girls at the beach and begin the main part of our video. We then begin to walk the beach together in the night, this could be adjusted for filming purposes. Then we begin the real fun, the pyrotechnics. The very next square is where we have the pairs playing with sparklers on the beach. This will paint a beautiful picture as the contrast from the sparks and the nights will created that tone. After we have a few visuals of the sparklers, we will have some sort of fireworks like some Roman candles. This will be accompanied by the dancing of the friends. This will be perfect for the music as it is more of an upbeat and party song.

Next, we move into the third phase of the video, which is the relative ending. The first box of this phase is where we will have one of the friends separate form the rest and sit. They will just be watching the moonlight in the calm of the night. We will then fade to the friends coming together to take a picture. This will be a picture that we started of with in the book. It will zoom out and the picture with be in the book. Next we will cut to a wide angle of the adult version of the subject sitting at a table in the beach. He is then approached by the adult version of his date, they are now married and living happily. Then, we will fade to an image of the couple sitting on the beach watching the sunset. Finally, we will have a drone shot of the sunset from high in the sky. Thus concluding our music video.

Planning music video

In our music video we will have many different locations. Our music video will be based on past memories of a person, so we will have to film in a variety of places. We will first start filming at the person’s house which will be Camilo’s house since he live close to the beach. After we do our filming there, we will be going downstairs to the pool and film there too. After we film in the pool we will go to the beach and do most of our filming their since we have a really big space. When filming in the pool we have to make sure that we are safe before everything. We will make sure we don’t do risky jumps and running around the pool to make sure we are safe. We have to be even more careful when we film at the beach. We will make sure we ask permission to the lifeguard since we want to film a shot there. Our group will make sure we are safe and not doing anything that could harm or interfere with someones routine.

In our music video we will be using many different types of props. At the beach we will use sparkles to shoot one of our scenes. We will use a soccer ball as well since everyone in our group loves to play soccer. Our group is also taking shots in a car. When we film the shots in the house our idea is to show the person that is watching what we like to do with our friends, so we will be using a PS4 to represent that because we are always playing video games together. When we film at the pool we will be using a beach ball and a volleyball. At the beach we will also use soccer goals to recreate a game. We will try our best to make the memories as realistic as we can.

Since we are doing many different memories in our music video we will use many different costumes. When we film at the beach we will mainly be using swim shorts and some of us will be using shirts. Some of us might even be wearing something beach related costumes like a necklace or sandals. When we film at the pool we will be wearing almost the same outfits but with some small differences on the details of the clothes. When we film indoors at the house we will just dress up using normal comfortable clothes that we usually wear at school. If we film at the park we will be dressing up using soccer clothes because our idea is to play a game there too. This project will be really fun and I’m really excited to start filming since we will be filming outside school. We have almost everything planned out and we will try to start filming as soon as possible.

Codes and conventions 2

We are now beginning a new project in which we will be making a music video. I am personally very excited to work on this this project, I have been looking forward to this since the fist day. I also like the song that we are using. We can improve on some things that we did wrong before. We will also most likely use my film camera for those pictures, so we can tape them onto the book.

As a group we chose to do a music video on a song called rocketeer, by ‘Far East movement’. In this music video it begins with him and a girl, then it cuts to him hanging out with his friends. This shows that he is enjoying life and having fun. It also has a few visuals of him riding his skateboard. This is played especially when the first beat drops in the song. The video just displays a regular day, him skating, and another man hanging with his pals and their cars.



1. In our music video we will be on the beach, so we would be wearing bathing suits. There will be other times, however, were we will be on a basketball court for a picture, in which we will be wearing  clothes for basketball. There will also be a picture that we will be in a restaurant and laughing, so we will be wearing regular attire, maybe jeans and a t-shirt.
 2. In most of the pictures in the book, it will be daytime. This is except for the picture that we will zoom into, which will be set at night. We might use a flash for some shots though.
3. In our music video we will have an adult hat is later in life, maybe a father, that will grab the book an open it. Then the pictures will be of us at the beach or in a restaurant. Once it zooms into the main picture, we will have a few teenagers acting naturally. We will be at the beach playing volleyball or playing with sparklers.
4. We will not be using make-up in our video, as we want to put out a natural and relaxed mood. There might be somebody wearing make-up, but it would be coincidental.
5.  Throughout the video we will be using a hefty amount of props. This could include the sparklers that we are using at the beach. It would also include the book of pictures that will be used at the beginning of the video. There also might be some other props like a basketball at the court, or some food at the restaurant.
6. The video will start off inside of a house, in a room, where the subject will grab the book. Then we will have different settings in all the pictures in the book, like a park or a basketball court. The main setting; however, will be at the beach.

Editing part 2

    Today we were finally able to begin the editing process on our commercials. The schools gave us laptops with the software on them. I was lucky because my teacher told me the day before to get to class early so I could get a laptop. We had a system in which half the class would go for half the class and the other would go for the rest. This meant we were under a large time crunch. We were chosen as one of the first groups to edit. However, we filmed the commercial on an phone. So we had to download it onto a USB drive. We have had problems on the desktops with downloading. We were very fortunate that it downloaded flawlessly.
     When we got on to the laptops it took a long time to start up. This put us on a tighter time schedule. After about 3 minutes it finally started up and I opened pinnacle studio. Sadly, this program took even longer to startup. So we decided to work on iMovie and find music for the film. Yet, we still kept the computer running and the program opening. Once pinnacle studio finally opened we transferred the video onto the software. It functioned like a regular editing software but it was a little more complicated. We were able to upload a few of our clips and detach the audio from them. When out of nowhere pinnacle studios crashed and with it my hopes in the software.
    Due to this, we decided to go full on iMovie, but first we had to choose a song. The song had a few requirements for our specific commercial. It had to be royalty free and it had to be an upbeat song to pump up the audience. We went through a few EDM songs, when we found a very good song that was previously used on a FIFA advertisement. It was the perfect style, but it didn’t fit the plot of our ad. The song had to be low tempo at the beginning and then quickly drop the beat right when he scored or when the ball was controlled. We were also not sure if it was royalty free. Another large component of our commercial was a small sound byte that we would use when our subject scored. We contemplated using a clip of the commentator during Sergio Aguero’s title winning goal, but we decided to use a player much closer to our group-mate’s heart, Philippe Coutinho. We used a clip of the reporting done when he scored a free kick for Liverpool. Our final result ended up being near perfection as the music was perfectly timed with our subject’s steps, the beat dropped right when the subject controlled the ball, and the clip of the commentator was parallel to when they scored the free kick.

Editing the Commercial

      Today, we attempted to edit our commercial. When we came to class the computers quickly filled up. It was kind of a race to the last computers. When we got to our computer we were not able to sign in. So me and my group each got to another computer. We each turned them on at the same time. The main problem was the editing software. When my computer turned on, there was no editing software on it, 0 for 1. Then my partner Mario’s turned on, and there was no editing software either. 0 for 2. 

       Finally, my other partner’s computer turned on, and his actually had the software! 1 for 3. So we got the USB - that had our videos on it- and plugged it in. Unlike the phone dumping, this one actually downloaded fully. Yet, we still couldn’t go through. For some reason we couldn’t open the video, it must have been save as the wrong file. Whenever we attempted to open it it said that the file was wrong. So, we just tried to open the editing software, Pinnacle Studio. When we opened the software it asked for an admin username and password. We tried a lot of different possibilities, but no dice.

      So, as a last resort, we tried a last computer. When we opened it, it said it couldn’t find our domain. So we restarted the computer. When we tried again we could actually sign in to my account. We got in and... get here was no software. As a result, we just gave up, we tried so many computers that we had no hope left, so we started on our blog. Overall, I believe that today was extremely counterproductive, except for the fact that we started our blogs. We had no computers to work on, and the few that were left they had no software. At least we learned from our experiences of today.  Now we know which computers have no software or don’t work all together.

The filming process

   Today we started filming our commercials. We did a commercial based on the company Nike. My partner Mario brought all his gear so that we could film a soccer commercial. Earlier that day it was raining, which would have posed a large obstacle for us.  Luckily, it was a short storm and it left the field at a perfect state for the commercial. The rain also led to a great idea by my partner Camilo, he spotted a large puddle that made the perfect reflection, so we took a very cool shot using the puddle. When we went out to the track/ field I served as an idea man and equipment carrier. Sadly, we did not use the camera provided, we used Camilo’s iPhone 11. We took a tracking shot in the beginning of the commercial, as Mario- our subject- ‘ walked to practice’. We also used a low angle when we had our subject take the perfect free kick into the top bin.
   After that low angle shot we had an idea hat would make it a little more of a Nike commercial. Usually in a Nike soccer commercial you would have a player practicing with the ball or a POV in a game. Somewhere in the commercial they would sometimes have somebody break the fourth-wall. They would do this by maybe hitting the camera or the subject would say something to you, the viewer. To match this, after Mario hit the perfect free kick, we had him turn around and hit the camera and say “no recording bro.” After this we would cut to the shit in which Mario controlled the ball under his foot right in front of the puddle. This is where, like any other Nike commercial, we would say, “ Just Do It.” After we finished filming our shots, we went back to the classroom to dump our film onto the computer. Since we did it on a phone we had some trouble. Which would make a large problem.
     First, we had to try to find a cable, which for some reason, almost nobody had one. Next we would have to access the phone through the computer, which was a relatively easy task. However, when we tried to download the videos onto the computer, we had a lot of trouble. It would begin to download it  perfectly. Yet, a short way into the downloading process it would stop downloading and say that it couldn’t reach the phone. We tried multiple computers and multiple different cables, but the same thing happened. We even went as far as to stay about 10 minutes after class to try to download it to the computer, but we were still hit with that message. So, Camilo took it home and downloaded it into an SD card. Overall, I would say it was an okay experience, as we were effectively and efficiently filming, finishing relatively early. It began to get worse when it came to the computer downloading time, as we hit a major roadblock. I believe it was a good opportunity to gain experience on film production.