Week Six - Day Three

 Today was a short editing day. We, my sister and I, edited the last transitions before exporting. We decided to add all the transitions in adobe premiere because the clips were still separated. After we export the project will be just a long clip, making it harder to sport the right timing for a transition. 

Nonetheless, the sequence and transitions are done. This week coming up will include the last bit of editing using after effects, album cover art, and more posts to social media. 

 So much to be done in such little time. 

Week Six - Day Two

 Editing will forever be my OP...

Today I opened the project and sat myself down until all the clips were in order.  After watching the sequence of clips without FX I noticed that it may turn out as well as I hope. I just have to trust the process of editing. I then review the video with my sister who is an editor as well. She specifies in after effects however, which I plan to use to add effects in my video. 

Today was a successful day, a productive day. I plan to finish editing by tomorrow. This upcoming week will be free to post on social media and complete the key art for the song cover. I'm excited but anxious as always. 

For those whom appreciate photogenic explanation of the editing process, this is it. Just a lot of contemplating and staring at a screen. 

Week Six - Day One

 Editing demons got hands...

Editing is when the projects either makes or brakes. At this point, I'm usually sitting like a nervous duck. I began the project file on adobe premiere pro and put some clips in before I realized that I hated it. This project wasn't turning out how I wanted it to and I'll forever be an idealist whom cannot create something that I'll actually like.  I actually wrote a short poem about it. 

red paint flows through my veins and on to my hands 

the traces left on the white canvas

words tip over my head and leave their mark on the paper

my own creations, I'm an avid hater.

the words of my soul, i pour them out

for me to never recite aloud

the blood on my hands, cut by the strings

a melody i created that makes my heart sting

and as i try to sing the words i have spilled

my confidence crumbles with embarrassment

for sharing my inventions are far too personal 

and i'm far from arrogant. 

At last I read over this creation

I am not proud, i could do better

i think this with every occasion

i guess, i'm just a creative beggar.  

 

Anyways at this point, I decided to give myself some space away from the project. The whole project felt really overwhelming and I couldn't handle it.  I gave it a few days before I thought about it again and opened the project. 

Portfolio Week Five - Day Three

 Last Filming Day...

This last day of production,  all I had left to do was very little. I woke up this morning and packed for the roadtrip. I drove three hours to Orlando, spent the day with my family and later as the sun came down, I began to film. 

I need two clips of myself in the car contemplating life. Which I used my brothers car and a tripod. Then I took some shots of myself going into the apartment complex, then knocking on the door and waiting outside it. I also took a sort of POV shot because it occurred to me the its always good to have extra shots if I need them. 

This conclude my filming process, until editing, if I notice I'm missing some clips, which is next week. 

Portfolio Week Five - Day Two

 Second to last filming day...

Today I filmed one of the last scenes I needed. It was more of a flashback scene that goes along with the music and gives context to the story. The scene included User139 and User603, originally supposed to filmed in my room but I had to switch it to my car as we had no other place to film at the time. 

I'm excited to be close to finishing the filming process, I have one tiny part left that I'll be filming in Orlando tomorrow. 

Portfolio week five - day one

 Filming Day Three - 

Today I filmed a lot. I filmed three entire scenes. I made a DIY club using strobe lights a speaker and two of my friends. It was fun but short lived as they were busy and needed to go. 

I also stuck my head out the car window which was also fun except for the slight rain coming down onto my face. Overall filming was fun, stressful but fun. I have very little left which I have planned for tomorrow and the next day. Come Monday, editing will by the pool will consume my days. 

Today I also posted on social media, quite a lot. because I realized I lacked posts.

Portfolio Week Four - Day Two

 Filming Day one Part two

As you can see I meant to post the last post yesterday, but alas life got in the way. I apologize for the late update so here's two on the same day! 

In my process of filming I have some non-G rated themes (as per Florida law requires) in my video; such as drinking, drug use, and nudity(shower scene), I had to find my way around including those themes without actually including them. So I implied them instead. 

In my video,  I have to portray a girl hung up on her ex, and how do humans usually deal with issues like that, getting f*cked up and sending the "u up?" message. In a scene where my character is supposedly drunk, she actually just has the bottle in hand. 

Another scene, my character is in the shower, I ended up putting on a bathing suit and filming the shot in shower, thinking of it as another costume. The shot mostly focuses on her putting her head down thus making it a close up of her side profile.  So in reality, though it may look like I'm doing all these things, I'm not. I'm just awesome at 'acting' hung up on someone. 

Portfolio Week Four - Day One

 So it begins...

Storyboarding is now finished. Filming begins today. I'm starting off with the set. I have my tripod, a stabilizer, led lights, and my costumes.

I'm filming the scenes I can do from my room by myself.  For the camera, I used my phone and a tripod and set it where I want the angle to be from. When it came to colored lighting, I had a four-hour youtube video of blue lighting playing on my tv, a blue neon sign, my led lamp, and led strobe lights. Because I wanted a little definition of subject in my clips I used a mini spotlight. I'm really happy with how the lighting came out. 

Due to my music video having two storylines, I have to use color to help the audience distinguish the two. After a while of debating on whether I should use light or editing color overlays, I chose lighting because I figured it would look better and/or more professional. I was going in blind slightly, I didn't have a clue on what I was going to do but I wanted to at least try.

In this scene, I couldn't exactly cry so I decided to use eyedrops. I ended up using half the bottle with how many takes I had to do.

Print Component Research

 We talkin vinyls right now...

I, myself, am a vinyl collector. I have many many albums and singles. I have the entire Arctic Monkeys discography in vinyl. However, I wont be talking about my personal collection. I reviewing some of my personal favorite album covers.  

First is Joji's Ballads 1 album his first LP. I actually have this one in my collection. I remember pre-ordering it back 2018 like it was yesterday. 

  

The front of the album is Joji himself. It was a good tactic to continue his humor from his previous career on youtube, many were not happy when he announced his retirement.  However, many of the same fans stuck around or came back after realizing that his personality is still the same. His content was always rather off-putting. Having such cover art justifies his brand even more. 

The art on the vinyl itself is probably only an exclusive or just for newer copies, as mine does not have it. Nonetheless, it goes well with the album as Joji's single, Slow Dancing In The Dark, released before the album also had blood on the cover art.

On the back there the title and the production credits. The small card was not included in my copy but most likely a little gift from Joji's distribution company. 

I absolutely adore this cover art because it captures Joji's brand and album theme. 

Next we have another of my all time favorites, Yeat's Aftërlyfe. 

I love this album cover sooooooooooooo much. On his instagram and on Spotify theres a slight animation of the smoke and him moving his head. Yeat's album covers have always been abstract. And I love it. On the back of the vinyl cover is the title, a slight picture of Yeat himself in the bottom left corner, a list of songs and the credits to them. 

There's not a special aspect of the digipack like a message or lyrics but the cover itself is unique and stands out. 

I am goingt to try my best to make my digipack unique to the artist but also with the theme of the song.

portfolio week three - day three

 Almost done with the story board...

From the heading, you can tell I'm almost done. I've run into a sort of directors block of sorts. I've watched so more music videos but none have given me inspiration. Nonetheless I'm not worried. I have class tomorrow so I can ask for help from others on what I should include in my video. 

For now I intend on posting something to my social media. @sevenmusic.of on Instagram...go check it out.;) 

portfolio week three - day two

 Storyboarding...

I like using notion to storyboard. It keeps it organized and i can go into much detail as I want and I don't have to draw. (blessup!) After writing the lyrics down and what shots I want, I travel the online site of Pinterest for inspo pics of what I want my shots to look like.

 

I also had to create my sort of online prop. It supposed to look like a website the the singer uses to check up on her "user." I used Canva to do this.

Portfolio Week Three - Day One

 Group Meeting - 

    In class, we were organized into groups and tasked with speaking of our projects. If I were asked before, I would've cowered away before sharing anything about my project. Now, however, I learned that it wasn't a bad experience, I started the activity with my very real comedic personality (I result to making jokes to keep people away, a bad habit I'm trying to break). I began the conversation by speaking about the process of picking my song and the challenges I had to face.  

    The conversation led on about their projects and plots. I ended up showing them notion, an organizing application and website I use to organize my thoughts and Ideas about the project. I also gave them advice with casting and plot issues. At the end When I told them my own plot, they didn't really give me pointers anything but I don't have an issue with that because I'm not having any plot issues. They understood my idea and that means more to me, because if they didn't I'd have to change it. 

Portfolio Week Two - Day Four

 I finally chose a song!!!!!!!!!! Yipppeeeee! The song is called User139. It's about how the singer is watching this girl, User 139, that she's in love with be hurt by a guy called User 603.  What I hope to do with the music video is to add a little postmodernism and start the story from the singers pov. The singer is watching User 139's life via a screen. And from the screen the camera can zoom in and the scene turns into what looks like the real world. (I'm having trouble to explain it, but trust the process and let me cook.) 

I hope to tell the story of User 139 instead of the singer's narration.   I'm super excited about using this song.  User139

my excitement - it looks menacing, but im harmless i swear.

Portfolio Week Two - Day Three

 Music Video Research

Two years ago, I was in the Film three honors course. In said course, I made a music video to one of my favorite artists, Joji.  After the video was done, I was upset, It didn't turn out how I wanted it. So I redid the storyline, went back to my research of camera angles and lighting. After that I went to re-film and I got pretty far into the production but I never finished it. 

Nonetheless, I also made a presentation for this class, analyzing Joji's music videos, what story are they telling and how they do it. Specifically, Gimme Love; due to the fact that I was speaking about it my technical notes aren't on the slides. Besides that, Gimme Love's music video follows a storyline portrayed in an editing technique of tiny snippets of clips that make no sense on their own but put together create a story. 

I really admire this technique and may use it my project. The video is embedded in the presentation for viewing. 

Joji