Filming Blog

     During the filming process I went outside of the class room with my group and went to building 21. I went to building twenty-one in order to get one of my group mates and the product that we were going to use, Pure Life water, so that we can actually start filming. After getting my group mate we went to the second floor of building five to the end by the comm tech class room. We chose that setting first because of the Flying L sign behind it. We were going to have a cheer leader act like she was tired and needed to drink the pure life water. We did not get to do this part because setting up the tripod took such a long time.  The reason the tripod set up took so long was because I had to go back to the class for an SD card. I went back for an SD card because I thought that someone in our group brought it, but it turns out I was wrong. After getting the SD card we tried for about 5 minutes to get the camera on the tripod before realizing that the screw that goes under the camera and into the tripod was missing. I had to go back in the class room to get the piece to connect the tripod and camera.
      We were about to record the scene when we seen that we only had 45 minutes left, so we decided to come back to this scene the next day of filming. We decided to do the establishing shot and the ending shot first.We moved locations to the senior patio in the middle of the flying L. We set up the camera on the bench in front of the flying L and raised it to as high as we could in order to achieve the high angle. I then filled up a big water bottle container and recorded us splashing the water on the L. It took forever to get the bottle filled because it wouldn’t fit in the bathroom sink. I had to take the cap off the bottle and fill that with water and then pour it into the water bottle container. We tried to get the shot of us splashing the water on the L without our bodies in it, which caused us to take record multiple times because our bodies kept getting caught up in the recording.About 3 or 4 recordings and bottle fill ups later we finally got the shot right. We knew we got the shot right by checking the footage on the camera.
     We then moved on to the establishing shot. The establishing shot did not take as much time as the last shot did. One of my group mates zoomed the camera into the sun and then went from the sun to the top of the building with the words that said “strong and true, white and blue”, then down into the actual senior patio, where you could see students working, and then finally to the Flying L symbol in the middle of the senior patio. We did not plan for the students to be in the senior patio while we were filming, but I told my group mates that it would be a good idea to incorporate them into the shot because it shows a normal school setting with kids instead of something that was planned. They agreed with this because we want our commercial to look as real as possible when it comes to the scenes and to not look like it was shot with a green screen behind it. By the time we finished the establishing shot it was time for us to go. So I packed up everything while my group mates checked to make sure all of the footage was right and on the way walking back to the class one of my group mates deleted a video of us splashing the water off the camera. I didn’t think that it was the one that took us ages to get right and neither did my group mate, but when we got to the class we could not find the video while dumping. We did have another video of water being splashed on the L without our bodies in it, but the one we chose originally was way better and did not too much care for that one. We decided as a group that we will try to film it again the next day of filming after getting the rest of our scenes done, but if not we could just use the scene we already have or put pure-life water bottles into the L and record it that way.

Storyboard Blog

My group has decided for the commercial to start off with an FLHS, Fort Lauderdale High, cheer leader. The cheer leader will look sad, “dead”, and will then drink the pure life water and be “brought back to life”. This cheer leader will then give the water to an FLHS student looking “dead” and will take a sip of the pure life water and be “brought back to life” as well. This process will be repeated two more times with the cheer leader giving the water bottle to a “dead” looking FLHS guidance counselor and administrator. When they get the pure life water bottle they will the be “brought back to life as well. For the final scene we will splash the Flying L sign on our senior patio with pure life water and say “Pure life brings life to Fort Lauderdale High”. For the first scene with the cheer leader drinking the water we will use a hand held and medium shot. For the second, third and fourth scene we will use a hand-held shot, wide shot and a two-shot. For the last scene we will use a high angle and a wide shot to show the whole Flying L symbol and the water being thrown. All scenes except for the last one will have a score sound track to enhance the commercial and engage the audience, while the last scene will have dialogue. 

Editing Lesson Blog

What I have learned (Processes, Procedures and etc.)

How to check out a Camera

• Go over to the cuby, grab a form and fill out. EVERY TIME Check out camera.

Tripods

• Unlatch them to open.
• Turn knobs to make camera tighter on tripod.
• Screw on tripod go with screw part on camera and twist it to tighten it.
• To take camera off you open latch.

Editing

• Look for pinnacle studios when you turn on computer. Either 16, 17, or 19 and they are all the same.
• Need to open up folder before clicking on pinnacle studios and name it whatever you want. You do this because you must use the same computer every time you go to edit. The footage is on the login that you logged in on the computer with. Pinnacle studios ONLY recognizes what’s on the commercial. You can save your work on Pinnacle Studios.
• Put the SD card in SD card reader and then put it into the computer. A screen will pop up. You will look for footage in DCIM. It will be in dates and times. If you can’t find footage in DCIM you can go to private, then AVCHD, and then click on the next folder and then you will go to stream. On stream is everything on SD card.
• Highlight the videos you have and drag it to folder that was made on the desktop. Then you remove the SD card reader out of computer. Doesn’t need to be ejected properly.
• You then double click to pinnacle studios. The first time you log on pinnacle studios ads are going to pop up and just press don’t show again.
• Dumping means getting footage off of camera onto the computer.
• Import means putting footage from computer onto pinnacle studios.
• You can’t click on desk top, you have to click on “+” sign. When you do that all footage should pop up.
• Every time you film import ALL of footage. Check marks on footage means you are importing that footage.
• Once footage checked press import and it is imported.
• Click edit and then anything that is up in the box is raw footage.
• Leave track 1 open for titles because the titles have to be on track 1 for it to be put in the video.
• Track 2 is footage and Track 3 is sound.
• Wait for pinnacle studios to load everything and you know that it is loaded when the orange bar is there and you have to wait for the green to disappear.
• When dragging play bar (red bar) to show video. Double tap video to blow it up.
• Hit razor blade once to cut. It splits that part into 2 and highlight the part you don’t want and then delete it. You can go to edit and press undo to undo the cut.
• You make sure the orange box is around the part of the footage you want. You right click and then detach audio. When you do that the audio will go to the bottom and you delete it.
• To put in transitions you right click on the clip and go to open effects editor and you will be able to do transitions then. You press "ok" after done and then let it load.
• To put titles in you hit the “T” . A screen is going to pop up and you will type in the title and then you can change the color. You will press the apply button and then press "ok". Then the title will pop up in the middle of the screen.
• You can take the title clip and move it to where you want. Then when you have it there you can click on it and move the title anywhere. Press ok after.
• Green bar on top of clip means you enhanced it some way.
• Can save this on desktop by going to file then click on save as and then click on folder.
• When completely done with project you will export project. A screen will pop up and you have to make sure it says MPEG4,(MP4) and that it says full size. You will then go to save as and save it as your commercial name. When we pops up you exit it. Don’t close out of pinnacle studios, you minimize it until you see that the film looks good.
• To get music you go to gmail and then click on the 9 bars at the top. Click on YouTube and then find the actual song and convert it to a MP3.

Planning Blog

Props 

• Pure life water because it is the brand of water for the commercial. That is the only prop that we need for this commercial to work. 

Costumes 

• One of my team mates, Shania, will wear their cheer uniform because they are going to be apart of the commercial. 
• Me and the other team mate, Kaliyah, will wear Fort Lauderdale High School gear in order to represent the school in the commercial. 
• While the other people in the video will wear their typical school clothes. That will create a more realistic scene than having everyone wearing the same clothes, making it look rehearsed.

Schedule

• This class was a period to create our plans such as: costumes, props and the ideas of what we are going to do for the commercial. 
• Next class period we make storyboards
• After that we go through the filming process
• Then Finally we go through the editing phase

Location 

• Start:  the senior patio to display the water on the Flying L
• next: the hall way which is the exchange of water from students 
• next : the guidance office the exchange of water to a guidance counselor 
• next : the class room which is the exchange of water between teacher and student

Back up plan 

• if it begins  raining we will move the picture of the water to the stairway in front of the media center 
• if the guidance arent willing to participate well ask other administration 
• if students are missing well just replace them with other students 

Research Blog: Commercial Conventions

My group and I have decided to do a commercial on pure life water . we began research by searching up similarities in water commercials . We noticed that every commercial included water and mostly people. However most commercials only featured the condensation from the water bottle or even just a display of the water bottle. An example would be the Fiji commercial . The Fiji commercial only included the bottle with features of the Fiji island. Instead of Fiji we decided on pure life because we wanted to create a main idea that water brings life to Fort Lauderdale High School.

We also noticed that many commercials included people quenching their thirst . In many videos Water is used as a source of energy to people working out or even just normal day to day life . In some videos water is just represented as droplets . However water is mostly thought to be thirst quencher that satisfies people thirst.

Introductory

Hello, my name is Chad and I am 16 years old, in the 11th grade. My birthday is on June 21st and I was born in 2003. I have been living in Florida my entire life, but I am part Jamaican from my dad's side and I am 6'1 with dreads. I attend Fort Lauderdale High School in Broward County, Florida. At my school I am partaking in AICE classes which are college level classes from the U.K. I am doing these classes because if I pass seven of them I get a full ride scholarship to any college in Florida and I want to be a debt free college student. I want to go to either FSU, Florida State University, or FAMU, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. I want to go to these two colleges because they are some of the best colleges in Florida for law and I want to be a Criminal Justice Lawyer, then judge, then one day a Supreme Court judge.
Enough of my future aspirations, let me tell you about what I do now. In school I participate in the BSU, Black Student Union. This is the first year that there is a Black Student Union at my school and I wanted to be part of that. Not only because its part of my culture, but also because of the great opportunities that comes with being in the club such as scholarship information. I am also apart of the club called FCCLA. In this club we make events within certain categories such as: creative writing, culinary, advocacy and etc. We get a chance to take our events so far as to a national competition where we represent our entire county. This is my first year in FCCLA and I am the new Historian/Photographer for the club.
I also do activities outside of school. One of them is called Lamp Lighters, which is a teenage fraternity of Omega Psi Phi. This club guarantees that everyone in the club gets into the fraternity when in college and they also give scholarships. I am also the president of Lamp Lighters. I am also apart of a mentoring group for young black people called Lead Nation. This group also gives out scholarships and talks about things affecting the black community locally and globally. These groups are not the only things I do outside of school, I also have a job. I work at Target, which is a supermarket that sells food, clothes, cleaning supplies, toys, games, etc. At my job I stock things, help guests, and cashier.