Editing Blog for Music Video

When editing for the music video, I wanted to take it a step further than the commercial. I wanted to try different Fx and even try some VFX to really expand my editing capabilities. I went into editing knowing that it would take a long time but that didn't really bother me. I knew if I paced myself I would be able to complete the editing process sooner than later. When starting my edits, I had to get all the clips together. My partner Quincy sent me all the clips but he didn't listen to me when I told him to not shoot in 4k 60fps. Due to this, when  I tried to insert the video clips into my timeline I crashed my laptop. It was impossible to edit and I was frustrated. So I just uploaded the videos to Google drive because I knew it would lower the resolution and re-download them on my computer. I had to move from my laptop to my computer because I felt that it would be easier this way. I finally got all the videos in. For some reason, some of the videos wouldn't work but in due time I figured it out. After that, I finally started editing. The huge issue was syncing the lips to the song. This was close to impossible because the editing software was very slow and it was annoying. I tried my best to sync the videos but it wasn't working. So I had to compromise. If I couldn't sync anything up perfectly then I would just have to make the scenes look as pretty as possible. It was hard because the editing software I was using had a lot of limitations. I'm not done with editing yet and I'm still working on it. I wont give up at the sync issue im having and I'm going to change editing softwares to actually make a respectable music video.

Filming Process

The music video is more challenging than the commercial. A lot of organization and planning had to go into this project in order to execute it. It was difficult and tedious and stressful but we tried our best. For filming it was all about meeting up. As simple as that sound it was far from it. All three of us had to meet up in one location to film the video this was a challenge for us. We first planned on meeting up on Saturday. This was the plan but it didn’t go too well. Since we didn’t have a specific time for us to meet we just winged it and called each other to meet each other whenever. It was around 5 when I got the call to meet up. I was caught out of the blue but I tried my hardest to get there. Since my mom is as out of the house I had to find another way to get to the location. Doing this took 30 minutes and the sun was going down. I finally decided to get a Lyft and I got to the location. Right as I was pulling, I was told that it was too late to film as the sun had fully set. It was dark but that didn’t stop me. I wanted to get at least  something done and I thought it would be cool if it transition from night to day so forced my team to record something. When that was done we left and decided to meet up the next day at 3 P.M but this time we were fully prepared. I got there pretty early and didn’t waste a second. We started filming way before the sun set and we got all our shots. We did have some hiccups but it turned out great in the long run.

Commercial Story Board

When it came to my storyboarding I tried my best to keep the drawings consistent but it was hard putting all the detail in it. I kept the detail to a minimal but it still got my point across. There are going to be many different shots in this music video compared to the commercial that we did. I've implemented many unique camera angles, transitions, shots and edits o really widen my experience when doing commercials. I have a couple of close shots and one extreme close shot outlined in my storyboard. It will be fun to execute these shots and give me more experience with the camera. I also implemented many different angles and zoom into my music video. Some angles will be straight forward others will be high and low and Dutch etc. I will play a lot with the angles in this project.  Mis en Scene isn't necessarily a big issue in this project. The shots are trying to portray being in a neighborhood of some sort. The background will 100% make up for that. The houses, buildings, people and cars passing by will give it a real-world feeling that these characters are in a neighborhood.

Characters in the music video will be wearing casual clothes. This will add to the illusion of "just another day in the neighborhood." When it comes to editing I will edit myself. I'll try to use different transitions from the ones I used in the previous project and really make it pop. I plan on inserting videos over one anther and implementing some sort of split-screen element. On top of that, I will obviously add te music to the video. The music will be playing over the whole commercial so that will be easy to accomplish when doing the commercial. I will then maybe lower the volume at certain parts to really convey certain sounds in some scenes.

Planing Blog

During this project we have many locations in mind. 2/3 of us want to go to Quincy house but he acting weird about it. I guess he's scared that we are going to embarrass him in front of his mom. So we may go to a park around his house. Maybe go to a park next to my house. We are not sure but were are going to figure it out one day. When it comes to health and safety we aren't going to do anything dangerous so that's not a concern. We might need to be careful when were going places but that's it. We wont be reckless and go anywhere without permission or supervision. There wont be any props really just the things we find around. We might use a car and maybe use a basketball but that's it. We won't the music video to be realistic so we wont use random props just to use props. The costumes will be regular clothes or casual clothes. Anything that a regular rapper would wear.  We have till December 9th to finish this and November 18-20 I have been trying to think of ideas for the video.

Intro to New Project

We just finished up the commercial project. It was extremely fun to make. I had a fun time editing, filming and working with my group. The fact is i'm really excited to start the music video. I really like music and I can already picture what we are going to do. The music video is up next and a number of ideas were going through my mind. When it comes to the project we are going to use the song that has to do with rap. Coming up with the music choice is going to be hard because even though all of us like rap we like different sub genres. Ballin' by Roddy Ricch. I chose this song because it really resonated with me and I really enjoy listening to it. I has an uplifting melody and lyrics and it will really emphasize the story that we are trying to convey in the video. The conventions in this genre differ from song to song. They do keep the same sort of idea. The rapper would be singing the song as he does something extravagant. There would be foreign cars, a group of his friends, expensive clothes, and sometimes firearms. The mise-en-scene in this music consists of 1.Costume 2. Lighting 3. Acting 4. Make-up 5. Props 6. Settings. For 1. we will have traditional street wear that most rappers wear. For 2. The lighting will be outside, under the sun. 3. The acting wont be too over the top. We will be having normal everyday conversations. 4. We won't have any make-up. 5. The props will be a car and money. 6. In the streets.  The camera angles and movements will be standard. The sounds will be mostly of the song but if need be we will insert sounds from some of the video. Editing will be flashy and full of transitions, I want the audience to really notice what's happening.

Editing part 2

The previous time we had to edit for this commercial went horribly wrong. So I took it upon myself to edit myself. I didn't want to waste time relying on computers that wouldn't work. Nor did I want to use the editing software that was given to us. It was slow, buggy and I just wasn't familiar with it. Pinnacle Studios sucks. So what to do now? I made the decision to not use what was given to everybody. With this decision, I think it was very beneficial. There are too many variables to using the computers at schools and I didn't want to be subjugated to that. Most importantly the work environment. I wouldn't be able to focus at all. My friends would be distracting. The classroom might be too loud and the list goes on. Knowing myself I just decided the best option would be to take responsibility and edit myself. I honestly didn't think any of my groupmates would do it, so I had no other choice. When it came to editing it was actually extremely easy.

I'm familiar with editing so I know the basics of it. I put in the previous snippet that I worked on a few weeks before and continued from there. I didn't think we would have enough footage to reach 30 seconds but I was completely wrong. It was extremely easy and I'm proud of the final product. Thought the commercial I kept an uplifting song and I really liked the song choice. I used a lot of blur transitions to emphasize the movements. As we were doing a Nike commercial I wanted the audience to really understand the speed that comes with wearing Nike. I think I did a good job doing this and it turned out great. My favorite part was the running sections. I used 3 different running shots and used the blur transitions and never let the audience fully see what was going on in the scene. That really emphasized the speed of the actor (me). I really enjoyed editing and it doesn't really bother me that my groupmates didn't do anything. It really let me be creative without someone telling me it's bad. It was reassuring knowing if they didn't like my editing they would have to sit down and edit a whole new commercial on their own.

Editing

We didn’t edit because pinnacle was not working. We tried to open this app but it didn’t open. It was anticlimactic. It was boring. It was sad. It was just horrible. Wait I’m over exaggerating. After we got into the class we went on the computers. We sat on the computers. After we are sat we waited for the instructions to commence editing that what I thought. But we were told that pinnacle studios didn’t work. How tragic. So we had to put all our videos onto google drive and saved it. We already did that though the week prior. With this in mind over the weekend I took it onto myself to start editing. The editing was not that hard. I have prior experience with editing and I did it really easily. I added the videos to the editing software and did my thing. I never finished because I didn’t have any ideas. I asked my teammates but hey were useless.
Back to the classroom. We had to do a blog. Most of the time we were procrastinating but we actually started to do it. My teammates were arguing most of the time about who will use the computer so I just decided to do it on my phone and not bother with that. That’s beside the point. Pertaining to the editing or lack their of. I’m really concerned about the ability of the editing software we are provided. I think I’ll be more comfortable using my own editing software rather than that. It’s a shame that the school can’t provide us with computers that aren’t made out of rocks. I think for this commercial I’m going to go back home and edit it myself. It’ll will be for the best. Even though my teammates are lazy and don’t provide anything to better the project I think I should sacrifice my time to edit it at home while they watch anime.