Filming “My Girl”

     Yesterday, Saturday Roscoe and I did our filming. We did the filming at Harbour Islands Park. We had many people in the commercial. We had a total of 5 people with 5 different dogs. This wide variety will make our video look more professional. I was the lead character in the music video. The story is about a girl, me, who lost her dog. Once the girl finds her dog we show shots of people with their dogs. For this part I filmed most of the shots. Roscoe filmed the most because I was an actress in many of the scenes. 

     All of our filming was done on my cell phone. We had an implication with the camera, which is why we filmed on my phone. The phone also has a better ability to adjust in different lightings. So it was helpful for outdoor filming. One issue we ran into with using the phone is we filmed our first few scenes vertically before remembering it must be horizontal. We filmed the rest of the scenes both horizontal and vertical. We also filmed most of the scenes shot vertically again horizontally. We ended up with a large assortment of shots so we will have a lot to choose from when we edit. We also filmed early so we still have a lot of time to film any shots that may have been timed wrong or filmed incorrectly again. We also choose a close spot to film so it will be easy to film again if we need.

     The filming took about two hours and thirty minutes. The hardest part about filming was getting the dogs to cooperate. The most difficult shot to film was the shot where the main dog, Evie was wandering the park. We had to make sure she didn’t run too far but didn’t stand still. We also had to make sure we were not in the shot. This was hard because in order to get the dog to go where we wanted her to go we had to call her without letting her get to close so we are not in the shot. Despite small difficulties with the dogs and filming everything else went smoothly. All of the actors followed well to directions and were very helpful. We timed all of our shots so that they went well with the music and made sense. Our filming experience went very well and I am excited to edit and see our shots play with the music. 

Music Video Storyboard

Our commercial will include:

1. Long Shots
2. Pans
3. Eye Level Shots
4. An Over the Shoulder Shot
5. Two-shots
6. Wide shots
7. An Establishing Shot
8. Tilts
9. A Low Angle
10. A High Angle
11. A Score with the song "My Girl"
12. A dog leash 
13. A Missing Dog Flyer
14. Tape
15. A Bench

Storyboard:

 

Planning the Music Video Blog

     For our music video we will be filming at Harbour Islands Park. This is the ideal location because it has a dog-friendly atmosphere and is close to our houses. The close proximity is helpful so we can go back and forth to our houses to see the footage easily. Also if their is rain or too many people in the park it is easy to go back the next day to film more. When filming we will make sure to keep safety in mind. We are working with well trained dogs that are familiar with the person they are working with so there will be no issues with the dog harming the actors. We will also be cautious of the other people in the park and their dogs. We will wait until they pass to film so that the dogs don't run at each other. We also have many people helping us hold the dogs that are not being filmed so they do not get out of control.

     The props we will use are dog leashes, a missing dog flyer, tape and other things for dogs like toys and treats. The dog leashes are important because the plot of our story is that their is a missing dog. When the dog is found we show the dog's leash get put on to show that she is now found. The missing dog flyer and tape is important for setting up the video by telling the audience that the dog is missing. The costumes will be somewhat athletic. It will be what people wear to walk there dogs, shorts and a shirt. This is because there is running scenes so the actors aren't wearing jeans or something else hard to run in. Our costumes will not be any school apparel or obvious brand because this music video is not sponsored and must look professional.We will make sure we wear close-toed shoes so their is not safety issues while running. Overall, our props and costume are very minimal.

    

     Our schedule begins today, 11/18 we will plan our storyboard and create our planning blog today in class. Tomorrow, 11/19 is a white day so we will not work on our music video. 11/20 we will be in class and will create our story board and publish it in a blog. We have no class on 11/21 and have no plans for 11/22 yet. 11/23 is a Saturday, we will begin filming this day. If it was raining or we did not finish we will film more on 11/24. On 11/25 we will individually make our first filming blog, reflecting on the filming done over the weekend. On 11/26 we will work on our project in class. 11/27-12/1 we have thanksgiving break and will not be working on the project. 12/3 is our next class where we will edit. We will continue editing in class on 12/5 and on our last day 12/9 we will add finishing touches and submit the video. On 12/11 in class we will do our individual CCR PowerPoints and will turn them in.

Music Video Research

     Now that the commercial project has been finished and submitted, we can begin our next project, the music video. This time Roscoe and I decided to separate from our old group. We did this because it is easier for us to film because we live close and we think that we work more than Zeke and Elijah. For this project we have to film a minute and 15 seconds to a song of our choice. We could either do a story line where the song is background music, actions that go with the song or lip syncing to the song. We chose to do actions that go with the song. For this project we have to film outside of school. We think filming in a park would be the best setting for the music video we are trying to create. This project is much larger then the last one because it must be longer and we must do it outside of school. Overall, I am excited to start this project because there is more room for creativity.
   
     For our music video we chose the song, My Girl by The Temptations. For our music video we plan to use dogs as the subject. This will be a different way to represent the song because the song is not perceived as a song about dogs. The dogs will represent 'my girl'. We will use many different dogs so the video is not to repetitive. We will include different shots and angles to show the dogs and owners. For example, when we show running scenes of the dogs it will be either a pan, tilt or a tracking shot. We will also have high, low and eye-level angles so every shot looks different. We will show a shot of one dog every time the song says 'my girl'. This will give the video structure that follows along with the music.

     Our songs genre is 60's pop. This era is were pop over took rock as the most popular genre.
There is no real conventions in 60's pop camera angles, movements and types of shots because
music videos were not invented yet. Although there is no music videos for 60's pop, we are going to break conventions by making the music video modern, while keeping the 60's pop ascetic in mind.

1.Costumes: The costumes that the actors are going to where are going to be casual park clothes, but not wearing any long sleeves or pants, just shorts, and tee-shirts.

2.Lighting: We will use natural lighting from the sun for our lighting. We will preferably film at a time were you can not see the shadows of the camera man in the shots, like midday were the sun is directly above

3.Actors: The actors we will be using are going to be humans and dogs. We have a good selection of dogs for this project, that are all girls, which fit with the song.

4.Music: There will be no sounds other than the actual song playing in our music video.

5.Props: The props we will be using are leashes, headphones, and other casual dog walking things.

6.Setting: The setting will be in a park. The park that we chose to film in is Harbor Island, because it is very close to were we live.

Editing Blog

      This week we got laptops so we could edit our commercials. We had two days in class to work on it. The first day, my group and I put all of the film in the commercial. I did most of the editing. My job included, importing all of the footage, placing it on the av track in the correct order and cutting footage. Together Elijah and I detached and deleted the unwanted audio connected to the footage. Our commercial is only voice-overs with no ambient sound. This is why we had to delete all of the sound that went with our visual footage. In order to add the voice overs we had to film nothing while recording the sound. Once you have the recordings you move them to pinnacle studios, the editing software we use, to delete the visual portion of the footage. 

      However, we did not have time to add the sound on the first day so we left it for our second day. Our second editing day was a early release so we had less time then usual. When we went to class to finish the commercial we found that some of the video had been corrupted. Luckily, Elijah was able to recover it, but it took a long time because the old editing system and school laptops were very slow. Once all the footage had been fixed we had to put the audio into the commercial. I imported the sound recordings to pinnacle studios. Shortly after the class ended and we did not have enough time to finish adding the sound. We had a substitute in class so we could not ask the teacher to help us during class. Elijah emailed the teacher to let her know about the issues we encountered on our editing day. He told her how we were unable to finish editing. 

      My group and I later found out that we were not the only group that had issues. In fact, many other groups had similar technical difficulties to us. Because of this our teacher gave everyone an extension. One reason why the extension was so needed was because pinnacle studios is only on the school computers. This means we cannot work on the project anywhere but the media studies classroom. Hopefully we will soon get better desktops. This way we will have enough working ones and not have to deal with laptops that cannot sustain the large system very well. Overall, the editing process that we went through went smoothly. Our commercial is about 30 seconds long, which is what we were aiming for. Hopefully next class we will be able to finish up the project.