Group Blog: Music Video

 For this project, our group made the decision to stick together. My partners are Victoria Newell and Aidan Jones. Working together was simple, and we had a lot of common ground. In the last assignment, Victoria did a fantastic job editing and putting the ad together, and Aidan was a huge help with the directing and editing.

Our duties may probably change in the upcoming project. Either of us will be acting, depending on the music. We'll all probably participate in the video's direction. If I'm not performing in the video, Victoria will probably keep editing. Who does the acting will probably depend on the song we choose.

We need to improve a lot of things because this project will take considerably longer than the previous one. With this new project, I intend to experiment with new edits, new photos, and new places. We must choose a song that conveys it.

Each member of the group is committed to contributing something new. We really enjoyed working together, and we want to carry that over to our most recent project. We're currently thinking about methods to make it happen.

Music Video Intro

 I learned a lot through completing the commercial. Our upcoming project, a music video, calls for a lot more work than our last one did. Although my group hasn't made a decision yet, I'm eager to start working on anything new. I'm going to switch to whole new editing software. This project will be the one where I will probably be featured in most of the acting again but I don't mind. 

    I’m still the same person you met in September. I love sports and cooking. I will continue to do whatever my group asks of me in the upcoming project. The topic of music is something that interests me greatly. Its capacity to weave a tale and unite people is so lovely. One of my objectives for the music video is to achieve that.

    I have several ideas for the next project. I want to film in different locations. Some suggestions being the beach or downtown Miami. Maybe even a holiday song to fit the time of year. We could get some fake snow or use decorations. While I haven’t chosen a song yet, I know I want to branch out from what we did in the last project. I want to include more variety in the shots.

Overall, I’m hopeful for this upcoming project. Many adjustments will be made based on my experience with the commercial. My main goal is to improve the overall quality of my work. Hopefully, the project I present will be much better than the last.

Beats CCR

Our product used social conventions to advertise the beats headphones. Our actor was put in several scenes that were relatable and representative of the targeted audience.  From hanging out and studying with friends to shooting hoops.  To get an idea of which direction we wanted our commercial to go, we watched and reviewed several beats commercials. Many of these had a common theme with the use of urban music and stylized settings. We decided to keep the same vibe and energy. Our product did target specific groups; teenagers and young adults; a group who would the appreciate the technology of the headphones.  We did not believe an older audience would have the same appreciation.

In order to determine how our product would engage with audiences, we need to identify exactly who that audience would be.  In our case, teenagers and young adults were the targeted group.  With the use of current, up tempo music that the audience would identify with, there is an immediate draw to see what the product is all about and grabbing their attention. The target audience has a large social media presence, if not the largest.  They tend to gravitate to social media platforms and can be heavily influenced by them.  Our commercial could be distributed through any of the major platforms.  Online distribution would be better for this product.  This target group may have a low attention span so the commercial cannot be long and even print media could be overlooked. For this to work, the real media text will need to be quick with flashy imagery.  Tiktok, Youtube, Apple Music, etc some of the social media applications where the advertising of the product could be distributed.

 

In the beginning, I knew absolutely nothing about what it took to produce content.  I rarely post on social media and certainly do not edit or produce large clips.  I did not know the different media terms, vocabulary and what their definitions were.  I believe I became better at pin pointing the different elements as the project progressed.  I am not a media expert, but I know that my knowledge has grown due to working on this project.

We did not use any “fancy” cameras or hardware to record our content.  Apple may beg to differ!  Most of the shots were taken using an iPhone.  The Apple technology was sufficient to produce the shots we needed. The flash feature was used to get lighted shots.  For editing purposes, we decided to use Videoleap, an application that is available for both IOS (Apple) and Android products. This app offered editing for both audio and visual effects and was used to complete the editing on the entire project. The song was screen recorded using the “screen record” feature on the iPhone. It was them trimmed down. The audio from the recording was then extracted using Videoleap and then merged into our project. The logo and the font used for the advertising line at the end of the project was found online.

Finished Beats Commercial

 

This is the final version of our Beats commercial. I've learned a lot during the filming and creation process and had a lot of fun doing so. I sincerely hope you enjoy the viewing experience and consider purchasing some Beats.

Editing Blog

When our group discussed the editing the commercial, Victoria said it was more difficult than she thought it would be. My group was determined to produce a commercial that would be creative and would show how hard we worked on it.  We also wanted to make sure we had a high quality project.

We started off by choosing the shots we would use.  The perfect shot was hard to come by because we had so many options. After deciding which takes would be included in the final cut, Victoria trimmed each take to ensure our commercial would be within the 30-second time limit. We agreed to remove some needless still or the start of actions. This allowed the commercial to have a more seamless flow. Once this was done, Victoria merged the shots into one video. It was then easier to add the auditorial and visual elements.

Next up for our group was to work on the sound in the commercial. We had a lot of background noise was captured in our takes while filming. We kept the noise in the shots where I was not wearing my Beats headphones. Victoria muted all the other scenes in order to simulate the noise cancellation feature.  When I turn the Beats on in the second scene, we decided to use a connecting noise to show that they were on. For Victoria to produce this noise she used a small microphone to record the noise from our prop. She recorded the noise as a video first.  Next, she separated the audio from the video using editing software. Once this was done, she was then able to add the sound to the commercial. We believe this helped to give our commercial a more professional outcome. After the sound is played, the song then begins to play. For the song, she used a similar procedure to that used for the noise. She used a screen recording of the audio instead. We chose to have the song play for the remainder of the commercial. The song ties the transitions from scene to scene very well. The song was edited just a bit for a better flow with each scene.  Victoria used both the instrumental version and the clean version of the song to create a clip that was within the time requirement.

Once the audio portion was completed to our satisfaction, Victoria then add the Beats logo and slogan to our commercial. She said this step was less complicated. She found a png of the Beats logo and the text to include the line "up to 48 hours of battery life".  This was to highlight what aspect of the Beats our group were seeking to advertise. This was then converted to a video to overlay over the commercial. The video was then given a fade-in effect so the logo would not have a sudden or harsh introduction. 

Victoria said she had to figure out how to use different editing software and what effects would make the commercial exactly what we needed it to be. Since she did not have much experience with this, it was a matter of playing around with it until she landed on something that would work. I am very pleased with the final outcome of our team’s commercial.