Editing Our Music Video

As previously stated in past blogs, we decided to film our music video at the mall in our city. We filmed this over our Thanksgiving vacation and began to edit about a week before the due date. This time, instead of using Pinnacle Studio as our editing software, we used IMovie. We did this because it was a lot more convenient when it came to time and working at home. First, we dumped our footage using an SD card reader. We dumped the footage to my personal computer because it has IMovie and I bring it with me to school. I’m total, we took around 80 shots! We were definitely a lot more confident going into the editing process for this music video rather than the commercial because we learned from our mistakes. After dumping the footage to a folder on my computer, we went through the clips to see how much our storyboard changed and which scenes could be used. This is where it got slightly challenging.

When we finally started to put the clips together in IMovie, we quickly realized that some of our clips in the beginning feature is lip syncing. At first, we were just putting the clips in order and cutting them to what looked right. However, I remembered we had to add music and make our lips line up with the audio. This process took me way longer than I originally thought it would. It was a little bit stressful having to go back and forth. Although we were challenged by this, which happens to be something we didn’t have to deal with in the commercial project, we eventually got it done and looking great. For now, we are done editing. We’ve added transitions and everything and our video comes to a minute and sixteen seconds. We think it may be cool to add some kind of special lighting like in the original video. For example, neon outlines. We will hopefully add these, however we have to learn how to first.

Lastly, after filming and editing, you can tell that our storyboard changed dramatically. Some of the scenes we had on our original storyboard wouldn’t allow us to film. So instead of completely changing it, I made sure to get shots of the store name to show stores. Also, we decided that in the end we wanted the whole thing to be a dream. So we filmed an extra scene where we wake up at the end of the video. Overall, we were very efficient with our filming, since we did it in about 4 hours. I would definitely do it again because of how much fun it was. Beside from the fact that we had to change our storyboard to different stores, I believe that our video turned out for the better. This makes me even more excited to film and edit the next project. Unlike the commercial project, we followed our set schedule and were able to maintain a steady pace to go by. We were definitely more prepared.

Filming Blog At The Mall

Over our Thanksgiving break, which spanned from November 27th to December 1st, we finally filmed our music video. We decided to film at around 5 o’clock on the afternoon on November 27th. This was the perfect day for us to film because of two reasons. The first reason is that it was the day before holiday shopping. Due to this, there weren’t as many people and we were able to film a lot easier. Another reason this day was perfect is because it was right before Thanksgiving which meant the holiday decorations were all up at the mall. We definitely took advantage. We filmed at the mall for about 3 hours. We ran into only one problem and it was that we weren’t allowed to set up our tripod by the crosswalk so one of our scenes became a point of view shot instead of a wide shot. The overall filming process was definitely so much fun.

Another issue we ran into was not being able to film in certain stores. We definitely expected it, but we were prepared. We ended up filming store front names and did a lot more outside and in Target. Due to this, our story board has changed a lot. Instead of filming in Hot Topic, Zumiez, and Foot Locker, we made use of some other stores in the mall. This included Target, the outdoor outlet area, and Forever 21. Also, we didn’t do any lip syncing in the food court. In the outdoor outlet area, we utilized the Christmas decorations. This included a huge ornament made of lights that you could walk through that we definitely filmed a scene in. In Target, we also made use of the Christmas area and filmed some fun scenes. Lastly, in Forever 21 we had our own “fashion show” with some jackets.

Besides the scenes that we had to change, a lot of our scenes actually turned out exactly how we wanted with some being even better. For example, the beginning scenes where we are in the living room and getting ready to go to the mall went very smooth. The only thing I would change about these scenes is to possibly film them earlier in the day so the lightning is better. One of our scenes said that went better than expected was our arcade scene. We were able to film a lot more than we thought. We filmed at at least two different games. These scenes included a three shot and a medium close up of my other group members playing basketball. We only faced one more difficulty which was the fact that I was still on crutches during the filming of our video. However, we were able to get a cart and it actually became a very useful tool in our journey to create this music video for AICE Media Studies. Now it’s editing time!