Editing

          We were supposed to start editing on Friday, but the computers weren’t working. So now it’s Tuesday and the computers still aren’t working. But it’s fine because I decided to edit our video at home. First, I airdropped the footage from Jacks computer to my phone. Then I deleted the footage that I didn’t think I would need. Then, when I got home, I was able to airdrop the footage from my phone to my laptop. Now, I moved the footage to my external hard drive, and from here I was ready to start editing. I uploaded the clips I wanted to use to Final Cut Pro X. Then I moved the clips into the order I wanted them onto the the timeline. Now, I cut out any extra footage that was taking up space. Now, I sped up parts that seemed too slow to me, monthly the scenes of me walking. Now I was ready to make closer changes. I edited the transition from hallway to field by cutting the scene in the hallway right when I caught the bag and then I cut the scene of me on the field right when I caught the bag and then put them together. From here the music would start playing. I also took out the sound from the original clips to make for zero surrounding sounds. I then edited all the other scenes to make it look clean as possible. When I flick the hall over jack’s head, I added a heart which admittedly doesn’t add anything which is why I’ll probably take it out. But I’ll still explain how I did it. First, I downloaded a green screen overlay pack, and then added the video to my library. I added it into the desired footage and then added the keyer effect to it. What this does is remove the green screen from the background. Now, I transformed the heart and moved it to the desired spot. Again, I’ll probably take it out. Now all that was left was the ending where I added a Nike swoosh and a just do it slogan. I downloaded images from google that had a black background and then uploaded them to the library. From here I was able to add them into the timeline for the desired amount of time. I added the luma keyer effect to take out the black background. Then I transformed it to the desired size. Now I used the luma dissolve to black to end the commercial. From here I exported the final product to the hard drive, under the AICE Media folder. Now, I texted the commercial to my phone. I could always go back to change anything I want to, but for now I think I’m the only one done with the commercial.

Filming Blog

        In the Nike commercial, I am the soccer player, so I had a lot to do. Starting off the commercial, we had a scene of me walking down a hallway and having a bag thrown to me, and then I would catch the bag. To capture the shot I had to set up the tripod, I screwed in the camera and let the legs extend. After setting up, I did the scene and then we moved over to the soccer field. I walked around the bleachers in the next shot then sat on the bleachers and took my cleats out of the bag. Then, I used a POV of my putting on my cleats. I had my cleats already on and just ended up tying them. After this, I got up and walked onto the field. From here, we started a new scene and jack played me a ball and I took a touch and shot. This was challenging because u had to shoot and then point the camera up and catch the goal. It probably took ten tries but I think it ended up looking good. I was focusing on the camera too much so all my shots were bad. The ones that were good weren’t captured because u forgot to point the camera up. But we needed up getting a good one. The ball was also wet and sandy so it was hard to shoot well with it.

        To elaborate, after we finally filmed the shot of jack playing me a ball and me shooting, we went onto a shot with a defender and a goalie. It was supposed to represent a real game situation. I set up the tripod behind the goal so the goalie, defender, and I could be seen. After, I would click record and run over to my spot. The part where I am running over to my spot can be edited out later l. I then too the ball and rain bowed the defender, and then shot. A rainbow is a soccer trick where you flick the ball behind you over your head and over the defender. Then, I ran around him and shot. This shot took probably around 10 tries too. I was t able to do the rainbow well the first couple times seeing as the ball was sandy and kept slipping from my feet. In some of the other ones I rainbowed the ball too far and didn’t get a chance to shoot. This only happened because we had to be so close to the goal so everyone could fit in frame.

The last shot consisted of me starting at the point where I ended in the second to last scene and walking away from the camera. This will integrate into the ending of our commercial. As I am walking away I will edit it to fade to black and then have the Nike swoosh and slogan pop up. One challenging parts of the filming process was catching the bag in the first scene and keeping the same distance of catching the same bag in the second scene. I had to redo the scene about 19 times catching the bag in all different distances. I did this because now I just take the two that are closest together in distance away front eh camera when the bag is caught and make the transition. Another challenging part of the filming was walking up to the bleachers. As stupid as it sounds, it took probably 7 tries to get it right. First I wasn’t moving fast enough. Also I kept sitting on the first bleachers when I was supposed to sit on the second. But after a couple more tries I finally got it.

Storyboard

In todays class, we got a lecture on how the final exam day will go. We learned about the creative critical reflection today and how important it is to our final grade. We learned about the four essential questions we have to answer to make the essay as best as it can be. In the opening, we are going to be walking down a hallway. Here, our character is walking down a hallway in normal school clothes and they are going to catch a Nike bag. From here, we are going to cut away to the identical shot where he catches a bag in an eye level shot. In this scene. He will be in a medium long shot walking out on the track to the field. This will allow the reader to understand he is going from the class room to the fields to play. We would utilize a long shot to show him moving to the benches. 

          The next scene would be him taking the ball in POV with an dutch shot. This would give the illusion that he is filming his own view. We would then start the music, to allow the reader to feel the positive pressure building. The next shot will be Alex lacing up his shoes. He will take the shoes out of the bag that was thrown to him in the beginning, this will be POV. Alex will dribble, and then take a shot. There would be no diegetic sound, just the music of the scene. From here, it will cut from that to a wide angle shot of the ball going into the goal. It'll now look like he is playing in a game. Someone will be a goalie, and someone will be defending. Alex will shoot, score, and celebrate. Then, he will walk off the field and the screen fades to black. We will ten add in a nike logo, and a "Just Do It" slogan. We put a pan in when Alex shoots his initial goal.

Editing

          First, let me talk about how to operate the camera. It is delicate so you need to use it with care, there are many different parts that I am going to cover. Turning on the camera is easy, all you have to do is open the screen and it automatically turns on. If you’re looking for the and card, it’s in a slot once you open the camera screen. To put in a SD card just push it in, and to take out the se card you push it and it will pop out a little bit and then take it out. Push the silver button with a red line to start filming. Now, let’s talk about the equipment that will be used with the camera. First, the tripod. To set up the tripod, simply loosen the clamps and extend the legs of the tripod, and then tighten the clamps again when the legs are extended. If you want the camera to be higher you can turn the crank to elevate the camera higher. There is a handle that can be used to control where the camera is pointing, you can use it to film tilt shots. Charging the camera is as easy as plugging in the charger to the U shape home in the side of the camera. It takes a long time to charge, almost a full night, but after fully charged it doesn’t die for hours. Now I will talk about attaching the camera to the tripod. First, locate the screw on the top of the tripod and the bottom of the camera. Screw the camera into the tripod and twist the knob on the side until it is tight and the camera doesn’t move. We do this so the camera does t shake while on the tripod and doesn’t look like a handheld shot. Attach the “bouncy thing” and make sure u hear the click, this means you set up correctly and are ready to film. 

          Now, I will explain how to edit using Pinnacle Studios. First, you want to make sure you have your footage secure on a SD card. You can use the SD card reader to plug in the se card to the computer, or you can use the cable provided to directly plug in the camera. Once you do this, you want to “dump” all your footage. This means to move everything onto the computer, and the person who’s logged into the computer will have all the footage. You want to move everything from the SD card onto the desktop of the person logged in. Now when you come back later and log in, it will still be there. Importing means to get the footage from the desktop onto the editing software. You make a new movie, and then click where it says import. This should bring up a window with all your footage on it. You can select, or unselect what you want to use in your project. You drag the footage onto the track and now you can start editing it. If you want to add effects, open the effect window and choose what you want to do to the clip. You can decrease the brightness of the light areas, or even set someone on fire. If you want to do a voiceover, first you must detach the audio from the video you want to voiceover. You do this by right clicking and choosing detach audio. Now, delete the audio you just detached. Next what you want to do is film someone saying what you want the voiceover to be. Now, import the video and add it to the track. From here, detach the audio and delete the footage but keep the audio. Now put the audio underneath the video you want to voiceover and you’re done.

Planning Blog

Planning:

The people in my group are Jack and Aitan. We are planning on doing a Nike commercial, that revolves around soccer. We will start by having me putting on the Nike cleats. Then we will use clips of me shooting goals and doing tricks. I have Nike shorts shirt socks and cleats so we can get in as much branding as possible. We will have first person clips of my playing soccer; for this I can take the phone to my chest and play soccer. Jack can be the goalie, and Aitan will be the camera man and a fan in the stands. We will use camera angles such as wide shots, medium shots, and first person shots.









Backup Plan:

Our back up plan will be used if it starts to rain. Since our idea is Nike, we don’t need to use the whole soccer idea, we can make it revolve more around training instead. We can go to the covered stairs that lead to the library and have someone running up and down the stairs as if they were training. We could also have someone do sprints in the outside hallway by building 17. We can use the running at the stairs and the sprints as footage for the training commercial, instead of having it revolve around soccer. We could bring a jump rope and take videos of that for the whole training theme.



Props:


A soccer goal and Nike ball. For our backup plan, we would need a jump rope to show us training.


Costumes:


Since we will be soccer players, our costumes would be relatively simple, Nike cleats, Nike socks, Nike soccer shorts, Nike soccer jersey, and a Nike headband. For our backup plan, we would need Nike shoes, Nike socks, Nike shorts, and a Nike shirt. The difference between our backup and main would be that we do not need strictly Nike soccer gear for our backup commercial.


Schedule:


First we did the conventions blog for the Nike commercial on 10/8, today we are doing the planning blog for the Nike commercial, On the 10/15 we are going to do the storyboarding blog for the Nike commercial, We are then going to do the filming and the filming blog on 10/22 for the Nike commercial, Finally on 10/24 we are going to do the editing and the editing blog for the Nike commercial.


Location List:


We are going to be filming at the school soccer field as well as the bleachers and other spaces around it like the sidewalk.

Research Conventions and Codes

When we first got our group, we were already pretty set on our idea. They gave us the choice of filming a commercial on things like our school, several fast food places like McDonalds and Wendy's, and several big businesses like Nike or Converse. Right away we had decided on Nike. It is a well established brand, many people know about it, and it is a brand we all trust and believe in. We all thought this would outweigh the other brand, converse because we were an all boy group and none of us grew up wearing converse, we all wore nike. We though we could follow an Nike commercial best because we all grew up seeing the commercials and watching the brand, so we collectively thought we could do the best commercial on the brand because of our previous knowledge. Our first thing we did to research was to simply watch Nike commercials to try and see what elements we could use in our filming to come as close to a nike commercial as possible.

         In our research, we looked at many commercials, and we saw one commercial using a point of view camera angle and we thought of using this in our commercial on the soccer field. We are going to wear Nike's clothes that they sell. For the commercial, we will be doing sports while wearing Nike apparel to fully endorse the product and try to sell the audience on the need of their products. In the commercial we also saw that they used very upbeat and happy sounds, music and movements. We also realized that there were repeating themes in the commercial like them using the same film at the start and end. The lighting used is bright and happy when it is outdoors, but when it is indoors, it is dark with a few really bright lights here and there. Finally, we realized that at the end of every Nike commercial there is wording such as just do it as well as their logo.

        After the filming, we will edit the videos to make the commercial. We will color grade the film to make it look more professional, and change the lighting in different scenes. In the commercial we viewed, there were a lot of slide transitions, we will make sure to implement these into the commercial. We can make the colors more washed or clear depending on if the film is taking place in the past or the present. We can pre record sounds we want to come out louder and put them over the film. We can also add in any images, and/or titles in the editing process. This includes the nike swoosh and the slogan at the end of the commercial. If there are any specific products we want to endorse we can add images into the video. We might use commentary like in a soccer match that we can record and voice over.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Alex. I am a 10th grader attending FLHS. The blog I will be writing over the next year is for a class called AICE Media. For this class you learn about filming, this includes camera angles, sound effects, the film making process, etc. Then, we have to put these skills top use by making a commercial, music video, and a two minute video for the end of the year. I make edits of me skateboarding on FinalCutproX, so I'm excited to make the projects. I think this class will improve the quality of my edits, because I have the editing part down its just the filming before hand that has room for improvement.

Some of my hobbies are soccer, and reselling. I play for a travel team in 1st devision, and I play for my schools varsity team. Last year we made state finals even though we had a really young team, so this year I'm expecting to win states. Its becoming a lot because I have school soccer five times a week and travel soccer three times a week with games on the weekends, I play left back so that means a lot of running.  I had a game today, we tied 3-3 but I'm satisfied with the result because we had to comeback from 2-0. I had an assist for out second goal and the final goal was scored off a free kick.

For all of you who may be reading this that don't know what reselling is, allow me to explain. Basically, it is taking an item with high demand, buying it for its retail price, and then reselling it on either a website or locally. Selling locally is a lot better because if you sell on a website there are usually fees that you have to pay to the website. It's all about stock and demand, if there is less stock than demand, the resell value will be a lot better. Hope you enjoyed reading this weeks blog, stay tuned for upcoming updates.