Storyboard Blog

For our story board, it is more of a guideline then strictly what we are going to do. But, we do have an idea of what we want. We have thought about the aesthetic we are going for, and we are all happily and smoothly moving forward with the project. We plan to get all of the filming done on the weekend, hopefully that is all we will need.

The storyboard starts out with a shot of the sunrise, preferably still on the monopod. We will need to remember where we are when we take this shot, as we plan to make a parallel shot during the daytime for later in the video. There is the same line for both of these shots: “so slowly a sunlit dream pulls me out of sleep.”

The second shot is of blinds, from the inside during the morning. The light breaking through, maybe we can catch some dust particles. The same place for the parallel shot later in the video, only during the day. The reason we are focusing on the blinds is because of the lyric: “feel the morning through the blinds.”

The third shot will be of a flower. We don’t have a specific flower in mind, but we will find a flower in the morning, do some takes and shoot the same flower during the day for later in the video. The lyric for these shots are: “I turn my head to meet/I get to thinking ‘bout your sun-kissed face.” None of us really wanted to finalize what the face the artist is singing about, as we wanted a more abstract feel. We had the idea of a sunflower, and settled on just finding a flower to shoot.

The lyric for the fourth and the last shot is “In this/And a quite place where I can give you all my time.” There was some debating what we should use as symbolism, and we decided that a palm tree would fit, from the beach. We would shoot it twice, in the morning and daytime.

Then we switch it up a little, we want to get graffiti into this video, and this would be when we would put the first one in. For the fifth shot the lyric is “You know I want to be your rock, my love.” If we don’t find a graffiti we like for this we will probably take some takes of a boulder. These shots don’t need to have a parallel later in the song, so this will be during the day.

The sixth shot will be something of a cliche, but we like it for this lyric: “You know I want to be your light.” The shot will be a sort of tilt, where the sun hides behind a persons shoulder for a second, but ultimately silhouettes the person as the sun ends up above their shoulder. We don’t want to have any focus on the face of the person, so it will be of their back. We aren’t sure where we are going to shoot this, but the background won’t matter so much as it being during the morning. This makes the previous shot almost out of place, so we might need to tweak the plan a little, but we will make it work.

The seventh shots lyric is: “In darkness how you find me just in time.” We want to have a cloud pass by, where the shot starts shadowed and ends up in the light, so everything brightening. We know we will probably not have the perfect cloud pass at the perfect time, so we are prepared to edit and add effects. Maybe just changing the brightness? We will work it out when we get there. The thing we will be filming will be a wall, with graffiti. Or it will be the door to the C&I cafe, one of our locations.

The next few boxes on the storyboard(the eighth, ninth and tenth), are all of the same shot. The camera will tilt up, focusing on the foreground first(a coffee cup), then the middle ground(a book) and finally end up focusing on the background(train tracks). This will be done in the C&I cafe. We wanted to have some sort of focal shot in the video and this will be it. The lyrics for this is, “To tell me what I needed to hear, So if you don’t know what you need, You can leave it all to me.”

The next takes will take place outside(daytime) in FatVillage(another location). The actress in this shot(who is carrying a coffee cup) will be calmly walking down the graffitied street. The shot after this will be a shot directed at one of the graffitis from the street. The lyrics for these shots are “Don’t want you worried about a thing, I know you’d do the same for me.” Maybe in the shot directed at the graffiti the actress will be walking through or off screen.

Now, here comes the chorus. The first two lines in the chorus will be of two different graffiti(“‘Cause you’re so lovely, you’re so lovely.”). The next part will be of the coffee cup the actress is carrying. It will be open and we will request the barista to create a heart of froth on top of the drink. There will be two shots of this, one from the side and one from the top(“I can’t help but fall for you my love/when you love me.”)

The next lyric(“It’s so lovely loving you.”) will be of the actress spinning carelessly far away, down the street. We will change the shot to be slow motion to make it seem for weightless.

The next lyric is a simple “uh-oh” that the artist sings. Each part of this will be a different shot of the same graffiti. For example a little closer or from a different angle.

The next line, “So lovely loving you,” will be of the actress spinning again, only the camera will be close enough to be a medium shot. Again, slow motion.

There is another “uh-oh,” and it will be almost the same as the “uh-oh” before it. It will be two different shots of the same plant, like from a different angle, etc.

The chorus ends there. The next lyrics are the same as the first. These will be the parallel shots that are during the day, instead of during sunrise(as explained earlier).

We are super excited to execute our plan and hope we can find everything we need.

Planning Blog

For our music video, we have chosen several locations: the beach, FAT Village, The Alchemist, The Top Hat Deli and Wynwood. Most of these locations are public, we won't have to ask permission before filming there. However, some places within these public spaces, such as the C&I cafe in FAT Village, will require us to ask permission. I am not worried about this, as the cafe is very art friendly. We will have to film at the beach twice, to get shots in the morning and daytime. This might be a problem as there will be more people at the beach during the day, making it harder to get the shot we need. Similarly, timing the shots of the sunrise on the beach might be difficult, as if we end up taking a timelapse we would only get one chance. Moreover, going to Wynwood might not be necessary, as we can get plenty of graffiti shots from other places like The Alchemist. This would simplify our schedule, as the drive to Wynwood is quite long.

Safety is an important aspect of our music video, as there is a lot of traveling involved. Seatbelts, as always, are a must. Sunscreen and hats for sun protection are to be used as we will be filming outside for the majority of the music video. This is especially necessary for filming at the beach later in the day, as nobody wants to get a sunburn. Winter is approaching, and even here it is starting to get cold. Packing a jacket to keep warm is a good precaution in case the tempurature drops. Of course, throughout the entire filming process, we will have adult supervision. They will drive us to each location, and stay with us until we need to leave.

The chosen costumes and props are relatively simple, thankfully. To keep with our established aesthetic, sweaters and jackets will be used. Preferably, they should be autumn themed, in colors of orange and red. A sweater that fits this description has been obtained, so no panic over costumes is necessary. Props might be a different story, however. In the storyboard, there are books and a cup of hot chocolate that are used in some shots. While they are not hard to come by, it's the aesthetic that might be harder to match. Fortunately, the hot chocolate can be easily purchased from one of the locations we’re filming at, so it’s aesthetic will match. A wide variety of books could be used for the shot, so this is really the only problem we could face while filming.

Our teachers offered each group to check out the provided equipment, but we chose not to. This is because we will use our own! We will use our own tripod, camera and SD card. This might be a slight problem as any technical difficulties with the camera’s won't be excused by the teachers. The choice to use our own equipment is a good one, though, as the last time we lost some footage when dumping it on the provided SD card. Lastly, we might get the chance to use a professional editing program that’s not Pinnacle studios, which would be a very interesting experience. One last concern is that our story board might be a bit vague. Most of our shots could easily change, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this would complicate the editing process. If we end up taking a lot of unplanned shots, we could spend a great deal of time sorting through them when we could be editing.

Introduction to Music Video

We have finished the commercial project! I think we did a good job, though I think we should definitely use more the tripod for our next projects. Everything went smoothly, besides our minor mishaps due to technology and IMovie. Our strongest point is the filming, as we are quick and efficient, and hopefully we can keep that up for our new project. Our weakest point was probably the editing, mostly because IMovie wasn’t agreeing with us. I’m sure for our next projects we will not use IMovie, best possible scenario would be for us being able to use Pinnacle Studios. Besides that, I think our group is a good one!

We are all staying in the same group for our new project: A Music Video. I’m excited for this, as I’ve made a few before in Middle School. We were forewarned of the music video project so we’ve been looking for songs. We found one that we all like and think will work for our vision! I had the idea of doing more of a chill song, slower and more quiet, and I imagined us recording in FatVillage and on the beach. FatVillage is a tiny art community in Ft. Lauderdale, and after some thought we might also venture out to Winwood, Miami’s art district.

The song is Sunkissed by Khai Dreams, it’s a pop song. I’m not a big music person, but when I heard the song  I didn’t really think ‘pop,’ but oh well. It’s exactly what we were looking for. It’s about 2 minutes long but we found a round about way to trim it down to fit the time limits for the project. We searched up other pop song music videos, more indie pop than anything else, as we wanted to get an idea of what kind of video we were going to make. They were all down to earth, very colorful and dramatically lit, and they were also funny. I think we can manage the first three things, but the song we chose isn’t the ‘funny’ type, so I’m sure it will be okay if we exclude any humor. Along with those things there were quick cuts/shot, and panning.

We plan to apply those techniques that we observed. The close and far shots, the slight movement, and to edit to make the colors pop, adding tints and the like. For Mis en sen, we have an acronym for that!

C - Costumes. If we include ourselves or others in the video(I don’t think people will be the main focus), we will try to have a natural artsy look/indie look. If anything big jackets, tank tops, rolled-up jeans, and flat shoes.

L - Lighting. We want it to be bright and colorful, so we will have to come up with a way to apply that. Maybe a flashlight? We could put colored plastic to change the the color or something.

A - Acting. As said before, people won’t be the main focus, but if we do have people I suppose acting happy or calm will be the best thing.

M - Makeup. We want to have more of a natural look, but we want people to be themselves so if they are a person who uses dramatic makeup, they will keep their look. We want everyone to look natural and comfortable.

P - Props. For props, perhaps a mini  purse or backpack? Or some circle glasses? I definitely think there should be a form of coffee cup, like the to-go kind, but we will see.

S - Setting. We plan to mostly record the buildings and surroundings, especially the graffiti in the places like FatVillage and Winwood. Lots of plant shots too, so maybe a park?

All in all, I’m excited for this project! We have lots of people willing to help with transportation and the camera we hope to use. We even have some lighting equipment! Can’t wait to plan some more, and actually get to filming. We might have some trouble having the video make sense, so we need to work on that, make a visual story to go along with the song. We still have a way to go, but we have a great start!