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).