Pitch Perfect

The process of coming up with 3 pitches was much harder than we expected. Since we were not at school at the same time, there was some confusion. One of was out sick the first day, while the other was out of town the second. We managed to work this out by calling each other on FaceTime to discuss our ideas. For at least 30 minutes, we sat on the phone trying to figure out what these pitches would be. The main issue arose in developing an idea that was not too cliché. This was caused by the absence of the  “creative juices” within our persons. After a period of deliberation and brainstorming we finally came up with 3 pitches. The first pitch was “A man subject to trauma from his past relationships ‘meets’ the woman of his dreams; however, she is merely a figment of his imagination manifested by the pain he endured”. The second pitch was “Considering his current state, a wanted felon is forced to take matters into his own hands when his daughter goes missing.” The final pitch was “After dying in a fatal car accident, a man encounters an angel who offers him a second chance at life under one condition.” After coming up with these pitches we decided to narrow them town to our best two: A  man subject to trauma from his past relationships ‘meets’ the woman of his dreams; however, she is merely a figment of his imagination manifested by the pain he endured. After dying in a fatal car accident, a man encounters an angel who offers him a second chance at life under one condition.

We chose the first pitch, a man subject to trauma from his past relationships ‘meets’ the woman of his dreams; however, she is merely a figment of his imagination manifested by the pain he endured, as one of our potential options for several reasons. First and foremost, this idea was one of the most original on the list. In comparison, to what we came up with and the films that are you out today, at least from our knowledge, there was none like quite like it.  As stated previously, we wanted a pitch that’s was not cliché so the originality was favorable. Though, one thing that can be said about this pitch. It stemmed from the concept of a love story, but of course we put a twist to it. There is also the fact that this pitch could be executed quite easily.  After deciding on this pitch, we immediately began to think about different scenes that we could shoot. We were already had a head start with this pitch alone. We almost decided on using this pitch from the get go; however, we still had to consider our other two options.

We chose the third pitch, after dying in a fatal car accident, a man encounters an angel who offers him a second chance at life under one condition, as our other potential pitch. Like our first pitch, it was also an idea not quite many of the films that we knew it about. This made deciding on which pitch we would use much harder. Though, one thing we did consider is how we would execute this idea. Regardless of the fact we would ultimately be able to find a solution to work passed it.

As one can conclude from this blog, we finally decided on doing our first pitch. We saw this pitch as the best option for our final task.

Countdown to the Final

So the first time I wrote about myself I listed the general things about me. In this blog, I wanna show how much has happened between the first blog and now. As you guys know my name is Autumn and I am a senior at Fort Lauderdale High School. Since my first blog, I have entered a beauty pageant where I will be competing for the Miss Florida Teen USA. The competition is from January 16th to the 19th, and I must say, I’m excited but also nervous. Another thing that has changed from the first blog is my plans for the future. Because it's my senior year, it is time to start thinking about what I want to do with my life after I graduate. I have applied to 12 schools already and I got accepted into 6 of them. I made the decision that I wanted to stay in state for college so I narrowed down my list down and now I have my top three schools I want to go to. In terms of things that have changed in this class, the group that I have chosen for this project has changed. Victoria, one of the group members in the past projects, decided to leave the group.This means that only Jeffrey and I are in a group now.
I have learned a lot since I joined this class. This class has taught me a lot from pre-production, to filming,and editing. On top of teaching me the basics for this class, it has also taught me valuable life skills. Such as time management, responsibility, and having self-awareness. One thing that I was known for in past projects was coming up with ideas and methods to do things. So as I walk into this new project, I want to use my strengths to make a great film. I want to bring new I ideas to the group, however I want to work more on my time management skills. When I was working on the last project, I had many things going on like college applications, other classes, work, and my responsibility from my title. I never knew how to compartmentalize my different activities so I could do all of them. This time to help me out I cut back on some of my activities so it should be easier to handle my schedule.........

A pitch is a Hollywood term to describe an idea where a film is encapsulated into 25 words or less, usually within one sentence.

The three pitches we came up with are:
- A man subject to trauma from his past relationships meets the woman of his dreams; however, she was merely a  figment of his imagination manifested by the pain he endured.
- Considering his current state, a wanted felon is forced to take matters into his own hands when his daughter goes missing.
- After dying in a car accident, a man encounters an angel who offers him a second chance at life under one condition.

We were working over video chat to discuss our pitches.

What's Editing?

So our plan that we originally had ended up working up. We were able to film the scenes on Wednesday at the mall as well as the apartment. However, we had to make two big changes to the process. The first big change that was made was taking me out of the actual acting of the scenes. We decided that it would be harder to fit me into the music video this far into the project. It mostly had to do with my schedule and how I might be able to film on some days but not others. That meant that if I was in a scene but not able to be back for the next scene, the editing process would be harder. Since the music video is directed around Victoria and Jefferey it wasn't difficult to take me out of the acting process. So what ended up happening on Wednesday was that I was the director of the video as well as actually filming them. It was just easier for me to do that and it moved the project along faster to the point where we were able to finish filming that day. Another change that was made was that instead of using the park to play basketball, we changed it to playing ping pong in the apartment. We did this because by the time our schedule opened up to film it was too dark and for safety reasons we did not want to go film in the cold and in the dark.
Even though we finished the filming on Wednesday we did not finish the editing process today. We got into class to edit and the first thing we had to figure out was how to get the mp3 playing of our song onto the software. That took a while because some of the music that played either wasn't the way we wanted it, or it couldn't be used because it was considered Copywrite. After finding the song the editing process became easier. Our next plan was for Victoria to finish editing in our class period, and because I had study hall the next period, I would come back and edit the rest of the music video. When I asked my teacher if I could stay for the next period, she told that it couldn't happen because her next class needed the computers. Then she came back and stated that we could stay in her 6th-period class however the kids in her class have dibs on the computer so if the computer we were using was taken, we would have to wait until the person was done to use it. I wanted to take the chance so I stayed for the next class, but some group ended up using the computers. Since I was already there I just decided to do work from other classes. Then the teacher came up again and said that because it was due on Monday we could come back in the morning to edit, or during her class 2nd period, or during the lunches.
After talking with my group we decided that it would be best to edit in the morning before classes started as well as during our lunches. Victoria has study hall 2nd period so she said she would check if our computer was going to be available to use during that time. But we knew that it wouldn't be the plan to just go during study hall. We also came up with a backup plan in case our original plan doesn't work. If we don't finish editing tomorrow, we will have to come back on Monday. We would have to edit in the morning before class starts and then once class starts to use as much time to edit the video. Hopefully, we can get it done and finished tomorrow because I don't want to cut the process too close to the deadline. Mostly because if we wait till the last minute and something happens with the computers, we would be stuck in a pickle that day.

Filming blog... not again

My journey in this filming process has been interesting. It has had its up and for the most part downs because of how things happened. So far in this process, I have yet to actually do any filming. This is due to my schedule and a miscommunication. As stated in my previous blogs the plan was for Jeffrey, Emilio, and Victoria to go filming last Wednesday, because I had to work that day, then we were all going to film on Saturday. However, when Saturday came around it looked as if only Jeffrey and I remembered or knew that there was a plan to film that day. Jefferey asked what time we were going to film and Victoria responded saying she was free after 1 on Sunday. Then Jefferey and I asked if we were still filming that day and Victoria didn't remember we were filming. Then on Sunday Victoria suggested that we film but because I thought that we were filming on Saturday I took off Saturday and worked the Sunday. So no filming ended up happening on Saturday or Sunday. Due to this, it puts us back more on our schedule to have the video finished.
Even though I did not get to film I asked each of my group members how the process went to see how the process overall was going and I got some significant feedback. From what I heard the process was difficult. What happened was that Jefferey took a camera from the class without making sure that it was charged up. So when they reach Emilio's apartment the camera was dead. Because the camera takes so long to charge they left it to charge for a little while then they decided to film while the camera was charging. The definitely put a hamper on the different shots, scenes, and movements that we wanted to make but they had to work around the situation. They ended up filming two scenes. One scene was Victoria calling Jefferey while he was playing video games with Emilio. The other scene was when Jeffrey was playing ping pong and Victoria ran up to him to try and talk to him. Since the camera wasn't charged, they weren't' able to get any takes in the mall or the park. However, I think given the circumstances that they were given, the footage that they got was good.
Even though I did not film I still got to see the footage that they took, and from the many shots that they took there were a couple shots that were good.  We want to turn in the video before December 9th. So the new plan is to finish filming on Wednesday and then Edit on Thursday, then go over last looks on the day it's due. In case we are thrown off schedule, we created a backup plan. The plan will be to film on Thursday instead of Wednesday. After that someone will download the editing software on their computer, then we all get together over the weekend to edit and do last looks on the day it's due. Even though we are behind I have faith we will follow our current schedule. As for how this experience has been for me. It is definitely not what I expected. I expected it to be easier because we had the experience with the commercial but when we aren't' in a controlled area in terms of what we do, we have to take ore into consideration the different challenges we now face. I think this is a harder project than the commercial but I am excited for the end product of this project.

Film Blog

Since we can film off of campus it gives us more creative room to make the video come together. We, however, have not started to film yet. Our plan is for Victoria, Jeffrey and Emilio to film at the mall and at Emilio apartment on Tuesday. Then on Sunday, we would all get together to fill the remaining scenes. The plan ended up changing because of our individual schedules. We were all going to meet up in class then film afterschool. I, however, have a volunteering opportunity so I won't be in school. Victoria has a function for her church and Emilio got sick. This means that only Jefferey was going to be at school. Then he told us that he had a shift to cover at his job, so he couldn't film in the afternoon. Because he is the star of the music video, if he can't be there, no film can be taken. So they rescheduled it for Wednesday. I work from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. so I won't be able to film again but I have taken time out for Sunday.
The process so far has been more challenging compared to the commercial project. As I have stated many times, dealing with the individual schedules makes getting the project done much more complicated. Because we filmed in class it wasn't much of a problem because we were always in class. However, I think getting to film off campus is much better because it gives us more room for creativity. Another challenge in this project is working with the amount of time for the video. We were told that the video has to be 1 minute and 15 seconds. This means that our storyboarding is longer, the editing process will be more difficult, and we will need many more takes to capture the video in the way that we want to. At the starting of this project, I stated that I think this project was going to be more fun than the commercial, and I look back at it now and I have changed my opinion.  I did not take into consideration how much more work the music video was going to be, so it was definitely a surprise. I do hope that once we start filming my views will change about this project though.
My role in this project is also bigger than in the last project. For the blogs that had to be the same for everyone, we implemented a system. We would find the information together but each person would take turns writing the blog and then send it to each other. I worked on one blog by myself and one with the group, the conventions blog. Another thing that I did was reach out to the locations to ensure that it was okay to film in that area. We still have a long way to go in this process, but it feels good to know that I am having bigger roles in the project than the last time. I also plan to be the director this time.

Storyboarding blog

Today our group worked on the storyboard for the music video that we will be filming. After countless deliberation, brainstorming, and replaying, we managed to finish our storyboard, laying down the framework for the filming process. For our music video, we decided that we will be doing the song “Kiss Me Through The Phone” by Soulja Boy Tell’Em featuring Sammie. This song was a perfect choice as it lacked profanity and would be easy to recreate with the resources we each have access to. We would detach all audio and let the song tell a story itself. Since we were given a minimum of a minute and five seconds and a maximum of a minute and 15 seconds, our plan was to cut various parts of the song given that it is a total of three minutes long. We chose to use the introduction, a phrase towards the middle of the song, and the ending. From there, we divided the song by increments of five seconds, establishing what exactly would be taking place within the said time frame. We knew that it was essential that the audio not only fell between the specified range but also still flowed together. This would help us avoid any inconveniences that could potentially offset our productivity during the filming and editing processes. Since the goal of this project was not to create an imitation of the original music, the creative juices had no choice, but to be activated. Our vision for the project took a sharp detour in regards to the general direction of the original music video. The overall plot of our music video goes as follows: A young teen’s love at first sight quickly evolves into a mesmeric obsession, resulting in the pursuit of a connection to an oblivious boy by all means necessary. Initially, one of the ideas presented was a love story in which the guy pursued the girl with good intentions and romantic interests. We ultimately decided to stray from the norm and go with a more “stalker story” as it was more original.

Within our storyboard, we divided the music video amongst 15 boxes. The first six take place in the mall. During these scenes, we anticipate there to be bright, white lights as it is a shopping center. There are four actors, all which are members of the group, Autumn, Emilio, Victoria, and Jeffrey. The actors will all be dressed in casual clothing and will be carrying shopping bags. The next 4 take place at a park. Lighting will depend on how the weather is looking that day, though, we intend to film on a sunny day. Emilio and Jeffrey will be dressed in sports apparel, playing basketball, while Victoria and Autumn will be in casual clothing. The final 5 take place in an apartment. During these scenes, Jeffrey and Emilio will be dressed in light clothing such as pajamas. Victoria will once again be dressed in casual clothing. We will likely use dark lighting in order to build the suspense of being stalked. We intend to use jump cuts, inserts, establishing shots, point of view, and various other cinematographic elements in order to not only transition between the scenes (boxes) but also effectively portray our vision. For example, the first box, marked the 0:03 seconds to 0:8 seconds of the actual song, displays a wide shot in which Victoria and Autumn find Jeffrey and Emilio at the mall and Victoria becomes infatuated with Jeffrey. This will jump to the second box, marked 0:8 to
0:13, a close up in which Victoria and Autumn look at each other and notice that Emilio and Jeffrey are gone.

If everything goes as planned, we intend to stick to our story board and end the music video with a minute and fifteen seconds.

Planning Blog

The first day of our planning process was November 18th. The teacher gave us instructions on what to do and we began. The first thing we discussed is what we wanted to do for the music video. We know we didn’t want to follow the normal convention of the music video. The original video shows a couple who is dating and even though they can’t see each other they call and text each other. We decided to change the theme and now instead of it being a couple, a girl has a crush on a guy and she’s delusional thinking that they are together. For this project, things were a little harder because the concept was more complicated than the commercial. The biggest problem for us was figuring out when we were actually going to be able to film. We wanted to start filming this week, but we couldn’t figure out a day when we were all free. Some of us had to work and others had after school activities that conflicted with each other. We talked about our schedule for about 20 minutes before I suggested a solution.  Since not everyone was going to be in all of the scenes, the people who were free a specific day could go filming and film the scenes that they can get, then another day the other people in the group could go filming.
By the time we figured out our individual schedules and the plan it, the class had ended so we got on group call at night to discuss the video in more detail. We discussed the health and safety issues, the props we were going to use, the costumes and the schedule we were going to be following.

Location
To create our vision, we figured that the best place to film would be the mall because the mall is a crowded area where people can easily be followed without being spotted. So when the female is stalking the male interest, he wouldn’t be able to spot her in a crowd. The next location that we chose was someone’s house. In one of our scenes, we have the female looking into the window of the male interest’s house trying to see if he’s home while calling him. A one-story house or an apartment with windows on the first floor would be the perfect place to film the scene. The last location that we chose was the park. The male interest is going to be hanging out with his friend playing basketball and the female and her friend are watching him. Once again when stalking someone, the person stalking normally does it in a crowded area. In the scene, you would see the female fawning over the male interest while he is up and active. An important task we had to do was make sure that we were allowed to film in all of the locations that we chose. Autumn was in charge of getting the approval of the people in charge. At first, she called the Galleria Mall, the mall we wanted to filmstrip.  and the manager stated that it was fine as long as we gained permission to film the people in the mall. The next part was getting the house. Our new member of the group offered to use his house so he asked his mom and she said yes. We figured that since the park was a public area as long as we had permission from the people playing on the court, filming shouldn’t be a problem there.

Health & safety
Because we are filming outside of school campus, we have to make sure that our group, the equipment and everyone around us isn’t put in harm's way. We will have to drive to the locations so everyone in the car will use the seatbelts. Another safety issue is the weather. The weather forecast says there will be days of thunderstorms. To protect ourselves we will stay inside and shoot all of our inside scenes. If we happen to get caught in the rain, we will bring umbrellas to protect the equipment and raincoats to protect us from the rain.

Props
The props we will be using
1.Phones
2.Basketball
3.Shopping bags
4.The room in the house


Costumes
1.Basketball shorts with a t-shirt
2.Jeans and a hoodie
3.Pajamas


Schedule 11/18-12/9
11/18- Discussed the theme of the music video
11/20- Plan the props, location, and costumes
11/22- We are going to storyboard, our video, write the script and figure out the kinks with our individual schedule.
11/26- We begin filming. We will start off at the mall, then make our way to the house to shoot our opening scenes.
11/30- Film the scenes at the park and go back to the mall because we need a shot with all of the actors/actresses in it.
12/2- Begin the editing process, figure out the scenes and takes we want to keep and what we want to get rid of, adding the music, and doing the voiceovers needed
 12/4- Double check to make sure that the music video looks put together, add any last-minute details that we might have missed and play it back.
12/06- Turn in the final music video