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!