Radio Commercial I did a project in my Video Production class last week. We had to make a Radio Commercial, and put a picture with it. To prepare we listened to radio commercials to try to get an idea of what we wanted to do. The guidelines we had to go by were: The video had to be 30 seconds. The product had to be mentioned at least three times. It had to have a attention grabber at the beginning. It then had to have the benefits of the product. After the benefits of the product, there had to be an offer. Then at the end, there needed to be a call to action to get someone to buy the project soon. You should be able to notice these things in the video, now. It was very fun to make. I must say the subject I had my radio commercial about, was the first thing that popped into my head, so I went with it. I know my subject is a bit boring, but it did turn out to be a good radio commercial. I had a few things that were hard to do. First off, I had to make my audio match and not do a little jump. I think I was the only one who had that problem, but I figured it out. I also was not too enthused at how my voice sounds in the video. It did not sound excited at all. Overall, it was a good project and turned out pretty good. Of course, I am going to try to sound better if we do it again.
TV Commercial In my video class, we did a new project that was a TV commercial. Basically, we had the same rules as the radio commercial, but we had to put video with it. So the first thing I did, just as we did with the radio commercial, we watched commercials to get ideas. I had trouble figuring out what to do, mostly because some of the ideas I had I would have to do them at home, or I didn’t have the resources, or skill to do them. Finally, I settled on playing off my indecision; I was going to do my TV Commercial on a fake website called creativeideas.com that gave you ideas for projects. After I figured out what I was going to do my TV Commercial on, I started on my storyboard. For those of you who don’t know what it is, a storyboard is what people use to write out what shots they are going to do. For example, maybe you want to video someone talking in a close up shot. You would then draw that out, (the best you can) and put beneath it, “Close up shot of character 1 talking.” Therefore, I had to figure out what shots I wanted. It was easy, at first. I had visualized in my head some of the shots I wanted. However, once I got those down, I had to think if something to fill in between that would be different. I eventually figured it out and I had the 15 shots on my storyboard that I needed, (we needed 12-15 shots for the project). I showed my storyboard to my teacher to get his OK, and found out that because I was videoing two people talking, that I needed a mike. We had not gone over mikes yet, so I didn’t know how to work one. Thankfully, he had one that all I had to do was attach it to the camera and turn it on, so that I didn’t have to worry about it. Now, finally it was time to shoot. I asked two people in my class to be the actors for my TV Commercial and we heading to the school library to do it. The storyboard, which is to help me remember what shots I need to do, was put off to the side after a little bit into it, because I had forgotten to bring the items needed for some of my shots. Some of my shots stayed the same as my storyboard, but a few were combined and others, (as I already said), were completely flung to the side. So after I was done shooting, I only had 12 shots. To my dismay, when I started editing them, I realized that I cut one of my classmates head off in the beginning, the mike had gotten in the picture at times, and at the end of shots I had bumped against the mike, trying to turn the camera off and it made a horrible sound. I also was under the assumption that my audio was bad. Thankfully, when I talked to my teacher, he didn’t think my audio was bad, just that I needed to put music to it, and I could cut out the parts where I bumped against the camera. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about cutting off my classmates head at the beginning and the mike getting in the picture, other than re shooting it, but I didn’t have time to do that, because the deadline for this project was coming up. Once I got all the bumps cut out and put music to it, I was feeling a little better about my project. If I were to do this again, I would do several things differently. First off, I would make sure I have several ideas I can pick from that I can do here at school and with my experience and resources. Next, I would remember to bring the things I need for my commercial. Then, I would let the video run a little bit at the end and beginning of the shot so I could cut those sounds of me turning on the audio easier. Lastly, I would make sure I didn’t cut anyone’s head off, and that the mike didn’t get in the shot when I did it. While doing it I had some things that were good about it. First is the simple fact that I came up with an idea for my TV Commercial at all. There was a time that I thought I wouldn’t. It was a good thing that my setting for my video was to be flexible. I was going to do it outside, but when it was snowing outside, I thought it would be better to do it indoors.
Clean Water PSA My PSA commercial was on clean water. People all over the world do not have clean water and it inspired me to do a PSA on it. My PSA was embarrassingly simple. All I did was took three shots,(one with the help of one of my classmates), used two pictures from the internet and a lot of typing. The worst thing I must admit, was that it took longer for me to plan it, than shoot and edit it. For its simplicity, it turned out well. With the music playing beneath it I think it could actually have touched someone. If I were to do something differently, I would probably make a PSA that had more shots in it. The hardest thing for me to do in this project was probably the storyboard. The storyboard is where you draw out the shots you want so that you remember what you wanted. First off, I am not a good artist. Secondly, I changed what I wanted to do so much, that I had to redo my storyboard several times. Some of the things that I had wanted to do would have had to been done out of class or I didn’t have what I needed to do it. Other times, I wanted to add in a shot in between two others, meaning I had to rearrange the whole storyboard. Thank goodness I only had 12 shots. One thing I thought would take a while for me to do was to find music. I am very picky about what music I pick and it has to be just right. To my surprise, it didn’t take me long to find a song that would work. The music is mostly what made my video touching, in my option. Look at my PSA in the video section.
Refresher Hello, again! This is the first blog for 2020. When we got back from Christmas break, our teacher had us play around in Premier Pro and Adobe Audition to refresh our memory on what we have learned. So I recorded a short ten second commercial to play around with. I cut out the parts where I had stammered, to make it sound better. Then I pulled the audio gain up, so you could hear my voice. I then put it to music, and cut the music so it would cut off with the audio. But I didn’t like that, so I pulled the music so that you could hear it playing after my voice was done talking. I pulled the volume up on the music after my voice was done talking so you could hear it better. Then I messed around with the effects, to see if there was anything I wanted to add to it. I didn’t end up adding too much, just a couple of minor effects that no one could notice, but the result was good, no matter. I really was just messing, so for a not really good commercial, it turned out fine. The commercial was about the first thing that came to mind; a community celebration to celebrate Christmas and the new year together. Well that is all for today!
Anti Bullying PSA In class, we had to do another PSA. It needed to be between 30-60 seconds long. For my PSA I decided, after watching several PSA videos, to do mine on Anti Bullying. I then figured out that I wanted my shots to be of someone reacting to words someone said. So, I did a voice over with the words and edited it, adding an echo effect to the audio. I then went to get my shots. My original idea was to have someone else do it for me, but then I decided they might not understand what I want them to do for the shots. So I decided to do it all myself. My first problem was the room I did it in; I couldn’t get the angle I wanted without moving the chairs in the room. That was solved by getting permission to move them from my teacher. I then had to figure out my angle. With the help of my teacher, I made it so I could do matched action, and that turned out well. For those of you who don't know, matched action is when you have two shots from different angles of someone doing something. When you switch angles, you want that person in the exact same position they were in the other shot. My other problem was that I am not a good actor at all. The first time I tried to get what I wanted, it was not working. I had no idea what to do. So, when I went home from school, I told my mom about my predicament and she helped me figure out what to do. w\When I went to school the next day, I was a lot more confident. I got the shots that day and they turned out great. A few things I wish I had done was have the phone in the same place as my earlier shot. I had to go back and redo a shot, and I had automatically put my phone in my back pocket, and I forgot to get it out during the shot. If I did have it out, I would have dropped the phone as I walked out of the frame. Overall, though, I think it went well. Please go and watch my Anti Bullying PSA in Videos.
Ideas Short Story We had to do a video in class that had no dialogue and told a story. The only other rule we had was it had to be longer than 30 seconds and that it had to be done by the end of the week. The first day, as usual, we watched videos to get ideas. I went away from class with many ideas that would not work. I either didn’t have the time, didn’t have the experience, or didn’t have the resources to do any of my ideas. I took the next day to look at videos and get ideas. I suddenly thought that I was thinking too complicated and decided to try to think about something I could do that was simple. I came away with one vague idea; to have someone getting frustrated at writing a paper. I wanted to leave it do I could just shoot the angles I wanted to, so I didn’t spend too much time on my storyboard and made my storyboard very vague. I went to the library and almost got all of my shots, but unfortunately, the bell rang when I only had one shot left to do. Therefore, the next day I brought the shirt I wore yesterday and put it over the shirt I wore that day, to make it seem like I had done it in one day. I had one of my classmates help me get the last shot and then loaded them on the computer so I could edit them. My shots turned out fine, though in one shot, I wished my head was in the middle of the frame instead of the side. I put my shots together and added transitions so they would flow from one shot to the next. I then went to find some music, which, being rushed to get it done by the end of the hour, I went with the fifth one I found. It worked out surprisingly well, making my video a lot more fun and putting on the finishing touch. I had to make the music longer to cover the whole video, because it was a little shorter than my video was. After I was done with that, I had to export it. This was easier said than done, because Premier Pro just had a new update and I had no idea how to export. Fortunately, my teacher came back the next day and helped export my video. You can watch my video in the Video Tab. Enjoy! Horror Film In our Digital Media class, we got to put together a horror film. Someone else shot the film and they let others use the raw videos free, as long as we gave them credit. So our teacher got the raw shots and had us edit and put together the horror film, following a script he gave us. When I first looked at the shots and got them into Premier Pro, I was a little overwhelmed at how many scenes I would have to sort through to get the shots I wanted. However, once I started putting together, while it was difficult, it started to not seem so overwhelming. To put the film together, I found shots that I wanted and cut and edited them to how I wanted them. I had to find shots that would keep it feel like it was real. I think I was successful in this aspect. Our original due date was Friday of that week, but our teacher, seeing that some of us were not done yet, gave us a couple of extra days to finish. I was one of the one’s who needed those extra days. By that point, all I needed to do was to find music and make the credits to give credit to the people who shot the film. Finding the right music was difficult for me. If you have read my blogs for my other projects, you would have read that I was surprised how quickly I found good music. For this project, it was different. I spend more than an hour just listening to music. With the due date coming up, I started panicking, scared that I wouldn’t find the right music in time. I decided to settle on something, (which I usually do not like to do), and the music went with the film a little better than I expected, but I still don’t think it was quite right for the story the film tells. The credits, (after finding a script to do them with), were easy. All I had to do was to type text into a graphic and then it they were done. I did have a bit of trouble fitting everything into the graphic, but I figured it out pretty quick. Go watch my Horror Film in my videos today!
Chase Scene In class, our next assignment was to make a chase scene. It had to be at least 30 seconds long. And that was all the rules we had. I spent three days trying to figure out what I was going to do. I started to think I was going to do a scene with a pickpocket, but I wanted to do something else that nobody would think of. So, with my mom’s help, I came up with the idea that someone is out running and drops something. Someone is standing by, sees them drop it, picks it up, and runs after them. Finally, they catch them and give them back what they dropped. After I had my idea, I asked two people to help me. Well, they were shooting their own chase scenes so I didn’t get to shoot until the next day. It was embarrassingly simple. I had no idea what shots I wanted, I just played by ear. And it worked out nicely. We did have some trouble with dropping the wallet, but we got it to work eventually. I went to edit it, and I was afraid that I didn’t have enough shots to make it last 30 seconds, but thankfully, I did. I put them together and after that, I thought my audio was bad so I asked my teacher to come listen to it. I had also been scared that my idea wasn’t good too, but he really liked it. Please go and watch Wallet Chase in my videos. Enjoy!