Creative Critical Reflection Blog: Finally Time to Give My Music Puns a "Rest"

    Hi there! Now that we've officially wrapped things up for our music video I thought that I should engage in some "introspective interrogation," if you will. 

    Below, I've embedded a video of my creative critical reflection as a PowerPoint to make it a more entertaining walkthrough. I would like to apologize in advance for any large gaps in the timing as the school as a whole was having an issue with the system. Please be sure to pause to read some of my explanations, I am aware that some parts of the video go by fairly quickly, but it was out of my control. I assure you that the transitions were much smoother when you could click through the PowerPoint itself, but besides that, I hope you enjoy it!

I hope you enjoyed this project, stay "tuned" for the next one! And as Montell Jordan would say, "This is how we do it(!)" (Montell Jordan 1995).

Music Video Blog: The Grand Finale

     Hey, welcome back! I can happily announce that my group and I have been able to produce the final version of our music video! I felt as though this project gave us the chance to improve on the areas we struggled in before and find unique ways to go about resolving issues, whether that be as complex as trying a new software program or as simple as positioning our camera at a different angle to make sure that we could hide the extra shadows peeking into our scenes. On the topic of software programs, we were able to use Davinci Resolve 17 and familiarize ourselves with an entirely new platform that possesses a wide range of useful tools that we'll be sure to employ in future endeavors to aid in our insertion of various clips and dynamic transitions. Working on this music video allowed my fellow groupmates and I to hone in on our abilities and specialize in what we're best at so that we could ensure that our final product was representative of our matured filming capabilities. I would like to acknowledge my appreciation of the entire process of initially deconstructing what makes up a music video, particularly those in the indie genre, to allow us to identify areas of similarity amongst said videos before actually executing our own film, being that it gave us the chance to use the ideas of others as a basis for our own creativity and ingenuity. This time around, I believe that we were all especially fond of the fact that, not only could we work with individuals outside of our normal selection of peers, but we could also film off-campus, giving us the opportunity to branch out and become more comfortable with ourselves as (forthcoming) filmmakers in the real world. 

We attend a school, that whilst not heavily focused on the arts, still maintains a genuine respect for the field, whether technical or fine, which means that each of us has likely heard the phrase "An artist is never satisfied with their work." Try as we might, we couldn't completely grasp the meaning of the expression because we'd never really been tasked with creating something that was truly our own. Of course, we were all given school projects where we were told to "Be creative", but were still confined to the strong "suggestions" of a rubric. With this project, although we presented certain guidelines that we needed to follow, I strongly believe that we were given true creative liberty to express ourselves and our message as we so pleased, which isn't something that not many classes can offer. Having said that, with each of the works we've produced so far, I feel like we can now begin to take ownership of our projects and shoulder the weight of not doing as good as we could've because, as with any work, our music video wasn't entirely flawless. That'll then push us to strive to do better the next time around, to shatter the high expectations we have already constructed for ourselves, and to make an even bigger impact once we're given the chance to excel again. This project has taught us all quite a bit about not only music videos and what they are (that'd be far too surface level of a lesson), but also about thinking outside of the box, learning how to take initiative, and developing a greater appreciation for the great amount of work that goes into making a video that may be just over a minute long.

    Enough of this sappy, introspective talk (I need to save some things for my creative critical reflection, you know?), below you'll find our attached music video. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did when looking back on all our hard work! 

(Apologies in advance for the lowered quality, we tried our best to keep the video as clear as possible, but after having sent it across several platforms and applications to create our final product, an inevitable downgrade in quality is to be expected.)

To end off today's blog, I'd love nothing more than to hand the "microphone" off to Rihanna for some parting words. And so I say that we've had our share of fun, "But it's over now...", so we'll "Go on and take a bow..." (Rihanna 2007).

Editing Blog: And "Presto", We're Done!

    Hello! Today we added the final touches to our music video. We began by first muting all of our clips so that we could add in our remaining sound effects. Said audio clips included the sound of a shop doorbell dinging, the swooshing sound of an iPhone message sending, and the distinct ping of receiving a notification, all of which a group member of mine had converted from Youtube video files to MP3 audios, allowing us to easily overlay them onto our video. To ensure that the text found on the phone screen was readable for our audience, I used a video editing application known as “Prequel” to increase the contrast and lower the exposure of our video when the focus was placed on the phone screen of our subject. In doing so, I was then able to add in our official title, i.e., the name of the song and the band who performed it, which we decided would have a glowing effect to capture the attention of our audience. We also added in longer clips, which we had obtained by sticking to our “filming a scene multiple times” method. These shots were able to achieve the same purpose of allowing our audience to fully take in what was being displayed in front of them, especially when it came to displaying information that came from our subject's phone. After having done all of that, we dove in and worked on the main special effect for one of our scenes- blurring. 

    Blurring was much more difficult than we expected it to be, and I’d say that figuring out how to do so effectively was likely one of the most time-consuming parts of our second editing phase. While filming, we ensured to unfocus our background in an attempt to make this part of the editing process easier, but the real problem arose when it came time for the couple to actually walk by our subject. Since both our subject, who we intended to keep unblurred, and the couple who would be walking by were both in the same frame, we needed to find a way to keep a clear focus on our subject. Remember when I mentioned wanting to dabble in the DaVinci Resolve 17 program? Well, my wish came true because the application allowed me to selectively blur certain parts of the video, both the one mentioned above and when showing the subject's phone screen while they were on iMessage, thereby resolving our issue of being unable to change the times at which the text messages were sent. Moreover, using DaVinci Resolve 17 also gave me the opportunity to incorporate a panning shot in the diner and even superimpose the texts that our subject was receiving onto some of our clips to make them more visible to our audience.

    As mentioned in my earlier filming blog, some of my group mates needed to shine their phones’ flashlights to provide better illumination for a few of our shots. Since lighting was another major concern of ours, one of my group members and I worked together to touch up the lighting in the entire video, as to make certain that it remained consistent and allowed us to obtain clear shots. At that point, I enlisted the help of my entire group to perfect the timing of our video and cut-down clips that we found to be too long in order to make our video less choppy. This simultaneously allowed for it to fit within our given time constraints, allowing it to reach a minute and twelve seconds. Overall, I’d say that we did a fantastic job of piecing together two days' worth of filming and integrating both sessions into one entire video.

Below, you’ll find a picture that illustrates the DaVinci Resolve 17 interface and me actively editing what I found to be the hardest scene to work with. It definitely required a lot of effort, but it certainly paid off in the end!

To end things off on a "high note" for today, I'd just like to say that "I'm having a good time, having a good time" (Queen 1979).

Filming Blog: Almost at the Cresc"end"o

    Hi-ya! Yesterday marked our official completion of filming for our music video and we were able to wrap things up quite nicely. Since last night was a school night, we needed to leave directly from campus to head to our group member's house before embarking to the nearby Moonlite Diner, which is why I packed the blue and green straws (and some back-ups) with me. I would like to note that we did contact the diner beforehand to request permission to film at the restaurant in order to ensure that we respected their privacy policies. We were given the all-clear by the restaurant’s owner and set out soon afterward to begin filming.* 

    Once everyone had arrived at our group mate's house, we proceeded to drive over to the Moonlite Diner. Once there we showed the hostess our email of approval and were given the green light to proceed after having been seated at a table in the far corner as to not disturb any of the restaurant's other patrons. Our first order of business was to film the action match cut that would bridge the two locations together. Before we did that, however, we were seated at a table where we waited for things to slow down in the restaurant. As soon as the diner had begun to empty out and fewer customers were walking in, we got up and went to film at the front door. One of my group members then pulled up the car scene video we had shot and I crouched down to film the subject's foot as they stepped up to the diner's front door. Once we had achieved our desired look, we returned back to our table where we ordered the food for our subject, a burger and fries, and our own milkshakes (if Brandon gets to enjoy one after we're done filming then we should too), asking that our subject's milkshake order be held off until the food arrived, as to ensure that nothing melted or that we didn't accidentally make a mess. While we waited for everything to arrive, we went over what the next few scenes would look like, regarding timing as well as their general execution. 

    After we had finished enjoying our milkshakes (yes, Brandon did have to wait until the end to get his), and the food had made its way to our table, I took it upon myself to pull up the video where our subject was seated upright in his bed, being that I had a copy of my own, in order to ensure that the location of our subject in the frame for this scene was the same. We first positioned our subject in the center of the frame and carefully laid the dishes out in front of him so that they did not obstruct the camera’s view. One of my group mates then sat directly across from him at the table and began to record him as he apathetically played with his food (we ensured to have our empty milkshake cups moved out of the frame), whilst another one of my group's members assumed the role of a waitress and placed his milkshake in front of him once more after I had switched out the provided straw with two of our own. We placed the blue straw, which represented our subject, higher than our green straw, which served to symbolize their deceased girlfriend, reflecting this exact fact. To execute the jump cut, my teammates and I slightly shifted our subject's plate over to create the effect that he had just finished "eating," more so picking at his food, during which another member of the group expedited the subject's milkshake melting process by placing their hands around the cup to warm it up. 

    When my groupmate had concluded filming for the rest of the scene, including as the subject stepped away from the table and paid for his meal, we then proceeded to actually pay for our food and exit the premises. Upon leaving the diner, we set up my iPhone to record and began by distancing ourselves from the camera in front of the subject, so that only an empty background and he would be present. During this time, I was in control of the camera whilst also managing the timing of the couple (comprised of one of our very own groupmates and another one of her friends) to ensure that they entered the scene at the appropriate time and that they maintained a good distance from both our subject and the camera so that it would be easier to blur them out when the time came for editing. Whilst filming that scene, I ensured that the lighting was adequate by employing with the help of two of my groupmates who positioned their phones' flashlights in the direction of my recording. After that, we told our subject to move up a bit so that we could position ourselves behind them to obtain an over-the-shoulder shot. 

    At that point, I handed over the camera to another one of my teammates who held it in the correct position as I used my hand to steady their shot. Once that was done we were officially in the home stretch and performed a cutaway shot from the phone screen to the subject's face and back to the phone screen once more. Whilst that was occurring, I had referenced our earlier clips of the scene to keep the subject's hand in the same location after each cut. After that scene, we engaged in well-thought-out and careful discussion in which we decided to switch our plot twist to be that our subject had been texting their girlfriend, who we learn is deceased at the end of the music video, as opposed to being upset with him, which is what we misled our audience to believe. Finally, we had a member of our group text our subject's phone and have the message appear on-screen, using a close-up, zooming-in shot on the phone to refrain from showing the face of our subject entirely. We went a bit over our time limit of one minute and fifteen seconds, clocking in at one minute and seventeen seconds, but with some good old-fashioned editing, we'll have it down in no time!

*Denny’s was another one of our prospective locations; however, after repeated unanswered phone calls we defaulted and chose to contact the Moonlite Diner. Admittedly, this entire contacting process should have been conducted during the planning stage of this project, but we know now better and will follow the necessary procedure when it comes to our final task.

Below, I have attached a picture of the email we sent to the owner of the Moonlite Diner to request permission to film at the restaurant.

We've come so far with our music video already and after having such a successful day with filming, I felt that it called for a celebration because "Woah, we're half way there(!)" (Bon Jovi 1986).

t

Editing Blog: The "Key" to Success

    Welcome! Today we decided to begin working on phase one of the editing process for our music video, which we executed entirely on my laptop for organization's sake. As you may recall, my previous blog mentioned that we had completed filming a little under half of our total scenes, so it may strike you as odd that we've chosen to start editing so early on. However, to me at least, the production process is like cooking, you clean up as you work to save time later on for smaller final touches to be put into place. With regards to our editing session today, I found it to be quite helpful being that we were able to overlay our song onto our video, after having converted it from a Youtube video file to an MP3 of course, allowing us to gain a rough idea of where we fall with our current pacing and look for scenes that we could afford to allocate extra time on once we take on filming again. Prior to doing so, I made sure to mute each of our clips so that our nondiegetic music would be able to play over each scene without interference from external sounds that could distract our audience. Likewise, I was also able to set the stage for future editing by making sure that I could easily superimpose sound effects, such as the slamming of a car door, without having to go through the hassle of arranging the scenes and music in the correct order again. In doing so, we were also able to adjust the timings of each clip so that each cut and blink was on beat. That, in turn, makes our video more aesthetically pleasing as it will simultaneously engage our audience both visually and auditorily. Having said that, I also worked alongside my groupmates to make our transitions smoother by shortening some of our clips to have each scene flow smoothly together. This became especially important when it came to our action match cut and cutaways as we wanted to ensure that we did not confuse our audience, so that they could easily follow along with the plot. During filming, we chose to shoot some scenes multiple times in the case that we ever needed a clip of equal quality to use as a backup when attempting to remain within our tight time constraints. As we edited today, it became apparent that we had made the right decision in choosing to do so. When it came down to the final scene we revised today, the closing of a car door, we needed it to work as an action match cut, meaning that the action within the scene needed to follow through on the previous action of the scene which proceeded it, which in this case was the shutting of our subject's front door. By using a clip in which we quickly slammed the car door shut, we were able to a seamless transition between the two scenes.

For the time being, the editing work we've conducted has been restricted to ClipChamp due to my familiarity with the platform, which is displayed below, but I do plan to branch out and experiment with other online editing applications, such as DaVinci Resolve 17, if time permits.

To end things off for today, I would like to acknowledge the fact that we were able to accomplish a great deal of work today and that our performance on this project thus far has seriously surpassed my expectations. I can admit that there is still room for improvement, but we've certainly come a long way from our commercial and I cannot wait to see what our final product ends up looking like! With that said, I can find no better way to close things off than by saying that I "Always had high, high hopes..." (Panic! At The Disco 2018). 

Filming Blog: Officially on "Track"

     Hey there! Yesterday marked our first day of filming for our music video and I would like to say that it was quite productive! Prior to delving into what my group and I accomplished yesterday, I would first like to apologize for not typing up this blog last night. We were able to get through four of our scenes and wrap up our filming in one location, i.e. a fellow group member's house, entirely, but by the time we got done it was nearly nine o'clock. That may not seem like it's so late, but upon considering the hour-long travel time between my home and theirs (with Floridian traffic factored in of course) and the fact that I had quite the hectic day, having been up since five o'clock in the morning to compete in a physically draining Navy JROTC orienteering competition (in which I placed second for my event), I was completely spent. I am here now though to recount the events of my day and give you an insight into how things went.

    I arrived around four o'clock in the afternoon in order to begin preparation for our scheduled six o'clock filming time, which was optimal considering that the sun sets at around five-thirty. The first order of business, at least for myself, was to get acquainted with the individual who would be starring as the main actor in our music video. For a bit of context, the actor, who I came to learn was named Brandon, was a friend of one of our group members and he was more than happy to agree to be a part of our film. After doing so, we got straight to work. While one of my groupmates, the one portraying the subject's deceased girlfriend, worked together with our actor to take pictures that we would use for the subject's lock screen and for later scenes, I worked with the groupmate, whose home we were using to film in, to artistically and methodically make the room we were using look disorderly. We intended to achieve this look by scattering clothing and shoes across the room, on chairs, and on the ground, as well as placing a myriad of items on the desk, such as a hat and an even empty plastic bag. Once that was done, we continued to work together in order to change the date and time on our subject's phone to create the effect of having the text thread look as though it had been sent the Saturday prior to the events that transpired in our music video, establishing a timeline for what is actively occurring in the recording. However, we were unable to do so, which means that we need to resolve the issue in our editing phase. Before beginning to film, I also suggested that we use dark purple lighting in our video, as it would serve to represent the sadness and frustration experienced by our subject. The rest of my group came to the same consensus, hence why that color lighting is used to establish a sense of continuity between some of our scenes. Moreover, we also decided to send more concerned text messages from the subject's friends, using the names and photographs of other group members in the Weston Estate band. 

    As the photography session came to a close and the light outside grew fainter, I assumed the role of acting director, and the filming actually began. We referenced the storyboard quite a lot and did not deviate much from our original plan, except for a few minor changes when it came to having our subject already be in the iMessage application when sending the text to his girlfriend to save time and when changing the framing we used for our tracking shot. Being that the original concept for the video was my idea, I reviewed all of the shots we took before finalization to ensure that they fit with the overall vision I had going in. 

    As with anything in life, nothing ever goes as smoothly as expected, and there were some hiccups that I helped overcome. For the first half of our filming, we were able to use a device to stabilize our shots; however, the stabilizer eventually ran out of battery, which then allowed me to step in and provide some assistance in keeping the camera steady as we continued. Having said that, I should also mention that I was given the opportunity to film some of the scenes of our music video, during which I ensured to maintain adequate framing and shot clarity, as to allow for our audience to completely understand what is going on. Furthermore, we also had another issue regarding the presence of shadows that did not originate from our subject, but rather our film crew themselves. As previously mentioned, we needed to change the framing for one of our scenes, and the reason why is because we needed to account for the extra shadows we would undoubtedly have in our shot. Despite the shadows not being as noticeable upon doing so, we found that they were still present in the scene. That's when I stepped in and proposed that we not only direct our phone flashlights towards the area we were filming in to reduce the presence of shadows entirely, but also use our stabilizer (which also doubles as a selfie stick) to extend the iPhone we were shooting off of higher up and angle it to point down at our subject. Both of these ideas worked great and we were able to quickly resolve the issue and move on. All in all, this was definitely a great experience and I'm glad to be back into the filming groove!

Pictured below is me, towards the center of the photograph (I am indeed wearing my orienteering outfit as I came straight from the event to film), our main actor to the left, and one of my groupmates (the one portraying the subject's deceased girlfriend) as we discuss how to go about executing the next scene within the necessary time constraints.

After the (lights, camera,) action-packed day I had yesterday and the fact that part of it was military-related, I really think that the song, or jody rather, that I picked for is perfect, especially upon the mention of "Hard work(!)" (The U.S. Army Airborne 2011).