Music Video CCR

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

    I believe that our product challenges a stigma that teens can't work themselves into exhaustion. Though I don't see most of that stigma around my generation much, I can see people born before my generation seeing it. Each generation changes drastically, and each person has their own problems that people before them may not fully comprehend. Assuming that, our product represents the social issue of being in a repeating exhaust and tense scenario every day. Many people, ranging from any age, I feel, have gone through some type of intense stress since the pandemic has started (and before, possibly) and because of the repeated lockdowns, we are confined to our homes stuck following a routine. I feel that many students understand the feeling of exhaustion due to the immense workload they may be receiving and having no variety in their life due to the pandemic. I am experiencing this, and I know some of my friends are experiencing this as well. When you look at social media, there are many posts containing these stressful feelings. We are being worked into exhaustion, with no time for ourselves and return to normalcy. Our product begins with my group members and I living and doing our daily tasks with no energy as if it was drained from us. Throughout the duration of the video, we slowly find time for ourselves and we have one moment of peace in a continuous cycle of stress. Our video represents this.

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?

    Our product would mostly engage with audiences born during my generation as I can see our music video relating to the problems that many people might have. As a real media text, I see this music video appearing on social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and FaceBook. These social media platforms have features where you can post a minute-long video (or longer). More so, a video on these social media apps would be accessible to many people, as opposed to cable TV or commercials on television, where it might not have great accessibility. I do not see this video appearing on cable TV or streaming sites as it is not appropriate if it was there. Its duration is too long for a commercial and too short for something you'd see on streaming sites such as Netflix or Hulu. 

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

    My production skills improved greatly since my commercial project. I learned how to use camera angles better so our project's message can be conveyed in a more adept way. I believe I mostly improved on my pre-production and production skills. My group and I created a plan that best fit our schedules and after brainstorming our ideas, I created the storyboard. During production, through trial and error, since I redid my scenes, I learned how to make my shots make sense and how to meticulously plan and place objects and myself for maximum efficiency and to make it look well in the video. I learned how to place my phone as I was using it to record in different areas for different angles As for my post-production skills, I believe that I have improved a little, but not as much as I would hope. As mentioned in my previous blog, we could not do 2 shots that we planned due to miscommunication. I was hoping to do those scenes but had to replace them with a black background and text. If I had done those scenes, I feel it would be safe to assume my editing skills have improved, but since I had it, I cannot with confidence say that they have. Editing for our project was greatly done by group members, Nikaliyah and Perla, and I had to piece it all together and make it look nice. If I had to take away a skill I learned during post-production, I would say it is coloring. I feel I did a nice job on that.

4. How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project?

    For our convenience and efficiency, my group members and I felt it would be better to use Video Star (which is an iOS app) to edit rather than a computer program as one of our group members did not always have access to a computer, and since we recorded our shots on mobile devices, it would be easier to import and export through said mobile devices. We all had access to Video Star and enough of its features to create, piece together, and export a video of our liking. Video Star comes with many features and accessibilities that made editing our music video easier. We taught each other how to import videos into the project, put them together to make it look like what we planned, and export the video and send it to the group chat we made for this project. We even tried to do transitions, but through experimenting, none fit for our project and we left it alone as it looked best. On my part, I made a coloring different from the commercial I did, as that one yielded a creepy and dark vibe. We envisioned a calm video, so I tried my best at creating a warm coloring. I did this using Video Star's transform and custom coloring feature. I felt that adding coloring was not enough on my part, so I added the lyrics to try and add dynamism to our video. I also did this with Video Star's multilayer and custom text feature. 

Music Video Project

    I am proud of how this music video came out. My group was efficient to collaborate with and I would definitely choose them for a different project again. Our music video came out well even if some aspects we planned did not work out. I'm sure my group members are as proud of our video as I am. I feel we did an excellent job at this 1-minute music video project.

    The concept of our video was to show stressed and exhausted teens wanting to find some escape and peace. The song captures the feeling of anxiety and loneliness. We wanted to show that but instead of leaving off on a negative note, we wanted something a little more positive. Towards the end of the music video, my groupmates find peace in a moment of routine boredness and stress. As mentioned in previous blogs, we wanted to capture this in our music video, as we know that many teens and other age demographics feel this way as well. 

    If I could change anything about this project, I would have urged my group mates to dress up in another outfit to make shots 8 and 17. I feel that it would have made the video more natural as opposed to the black screens with text. If we followed the storyboard, I feel the video would have suited our concept more. We originally wanted to show the day passing by with what we were doing and then shot 8 would be us in different clothing indicating that the day has started again. Another thing that I wanted to change was that Perla looks a bit pixelated at the end. I couldn't find any solution to this and when I exported it, it looked fine. But nonetheless, she is still visible.

    What I really enjoyed about this video is the allusion from shot 7 to 16. In shot 7, Perla is going to sleep looking distressed. Alluding to that, in shot 16, Perla is sleeping more peacefully after finding something that gave her peace. I also enjoyed learning a tiny part of this song for shot 4. If I had more time and was not busy with other work, I would have definitely attempted to learn this song fully and have that shot done less hastily. I am really proud of the product we created.

    If this video is not available here, this is the link to the music video.

Editing Blog for the Music Video Project

     After waiting for Nikaliyah and Perla to finish their parts of editing, it was my turn. We all decided it would be best to use Video Star to edit this project as we all had it and it was the most efficient way to edit this project. One of us did not have access to a computer and editing on a computer on software such as OpenShot would be too much of a hassle for our group. We didn't feel this video would need much editing, as it is basically putting all our scenes together in a format that would best fit the video. We felt that big transitions were not necessary for this project, as it is a calm song and scene. Nikaliyah put together scenes 1-7, Perla put together scenes 9-16, and Nikaliyah's scenes and I finished the video with finishing touches. 

    I tried my best to follow the format we had planned in the storyboard, where it would be all three of us for scene 8 and 17. But since it is not a video, it looked displaced on our video. I tried many formats for all three of us to fit as well as just using pictures from our last scenes, and none of it felt natural. The last that I could do was put text over a black screen, which although was my last option, looked the best for the music video. 

    Just putting together all the scenes and adding these black screens with text was not enough for me. They did work putting together our scenes and I felt I didn't do as much as them and that it was not fair. To make our video look better, I decided to add the lyrics to the song. I researched many translations to find the one most accurately correct to the Korean version. I wanted to add both the Korean and English lyrics, so I decided to go with this translation of the lyrics. Even though Google translate may be incorrect when translating, I made sure to put each Korean lyric through so I knew that I was matching the right Korean lyric with English.

    Yet, our video still seemed lackluster to me. I decided to add coloring to the video. Referring to my commercial video, I messed around with the coloring feature of Video Star again for this video. I produced two different versions At first glance, they all may look the same, but each coloring provides a contrasting brilliance to the music video. The first coloring I feel is a very soft coloring that adds a nice touch to the music video. The second coloring is a more dramatized version of the second coloring, something that I feel is more vintage-looking. I had Nikaliyah and Perla vote on which one they preferred.

Second Filming Blog for the Music Video Project

     I filmed again on 3 December. My group and I had a zoom meeting prior and I realized my scenes did not fit and I did them wrong without noticing. I realized then it was weird that I was on the floor doing homework and there was no sense in that. Since my scenes didn't make sense, I redid my scenes after school today. Though it was another tedious process, filming this time was easier as I had multiple objects around me to prop my phone up.

    I replaced surrounding myself with work with me having work on my desk. Instead of me looking at my work stressed, I am writing on papers with a disappointed look. My brother didn't record my shots except for one. I had a difficult time propping my phone up to where it can see myself and what I was doing. My phone kept falling and I had to keep finding objects that could set my phone up and I can still see what I'm doing. During these times, I really wish I had my brother record. But it would be physically impossible for him to do that without moving the desk as my desk is next to the wall and he could not fit there to record.

    My brother recorded me grabbing my guitar with a high angle because he is pretty tall. That was the only scene I had him shoot for me. After that, I proceeded to record myself strumming the guitar for scene 14 where I am making time for myself rather than being surrounded and stressed by work. I also recorded a short clip of me attempting to play along with the song for scene 4 which I had forgotten to do on my previous recording day. It was really short and I had rushed it tremendously because it would have taken me so long to learn and it and daytime would have been over by then.

    I kept the same scene of me going through my phone. My group and I decided on the shot that I contemplated in my last editing blog. The one we chose was the one in the picture of the last blog. I preferred how these shots looked rather than the last ones I did. I think what changed this time is that I knew exactly what my group and I wanted and I had more time to set things up. They make more sense this time (I'm not on the floor anymore).