Music video. Check.
WHAT. A. PROCESS. Lemme back up for a sec. This fall quarter I entered my first real Video Production class. All pre-reqs are finally done and out of the way. Now I can start the good stuff. MDIA 240 - Intro to Video Production. This is by no means an easy basic class. The projects in class take work; the projects out of class take work. Our first project was a 1-3 minute short narrative, complete with character conflict and resolution. We thought it was pretty good, but sadly, our professor and some peers did not. You can watch it here. Our second project - a music video. Getting the rights to the song we used was not required, but highly recommended. Again, it had to have a story/conflict, and had to be between 2-4 minutes. The rest was all up to us. And I must say, that certainly sparked some creativity.
We met as a group 2 days after getting the assignment to figure out logistics and come up with a story. We didn't have much time to execute (it was due in 12 days) so we needed some good ideas and fast. I was running a little late to this first meeting...when I finally arrived, I was hit with one big idea....and about 30 million components. They were certainly being ambitious when I was MIA. The few things that I kept hearing were "lots of locations," "lots of people," and "all in reverse." Can I be honest with you? I really wish I could've been on time to this group meeting to STOP all these ideas when they were still forming. Because all those phrases were really coming into my mind as "lots of location releases," "lots of image releases," and "editing's a bitch." I hated it. All of it. I decided to keep my mouth shut though, and see where it went.
Kelly, our producer, and I sat and thought about which bands we could email a request to use their songs. We're both huge fans of Passion Pit, so we shot out an email asking specifically to use one of our three favorite songs..."it won't be used for profit, we'd really appreciate it, blah blah blah." 4 hours later, Passion Pit's GM had approved us and "Little Secrets" was in our hands.
We sent out emails upon emails, to dining halls, club sports, sports centers, equestrian ranches, and PEOPLE. Lots and lots of people. We told people we'd be shooting that following Sunday. And so the setbacks begun.
Setback #1 - No people.
Yeah. 2:30pm, Sunday, October 9th. Then 3. Then 3:30. Thank you to the 9 (?) or so people who showed up that day. You guys rock. We actually shot for about 4 hours that day, went home to eat, then shot for another 2, thanks to Andrew, our sound guy, and his Athens Middle School WyldLife kids and their parents. And more image release forms.
We met as a group 2 days after getting the assignment to figure out logistics and come up with a story. We didn't have much time to execute (it was due in 12 days) so we needed some good ideas and fast. I was running a little late to this first meeting...when I finally arrived, I was hit with one big idea....and about 30 million components. They were certainly being ambitious when I was MIA. The few things that I kept hearing were "lots of locations," "lots of people," and "all in reverse." Can I be honest with you? I really wish I could've been on time to this group meeting to STOP all these ideas when they were still forming. Because all those phrases were really coming into my mind as "lots of location releases," "lots of image releases," and "editing's a bitch." I hated it. All of it. I decided to keep my mouth shut though, and see where it went.
Kelly, our producer, and I sat and thought about which bands we could email a request to use their songs. We're both huge fans of Passion Pit, so we shot out an email asking specifically to use one of our three favorite songs..."it won't be used for profit, we'd really appreciate it, blah blah blah." 4 hours later, Passion Pit's GM had approved us and "Little Secrets" was in our hands.
We sent out emails upon emails, to dining halls, club sports, sports centers, equestrian ranches, and PEOPLE. Lots and lots of people. We told people we'd be shooting that following Sunday. And so the setbacks begun.
Setback #1 - No people.
Yeah. 2:30pm, Sunday, October 9th. Then 3. Then 3:30. Thank you to the 9 (?) or so people who showed up that day. You guys rock. We actually shot for about 4 hours that day, went home to eat, then shot for another 2, thanks to Andrew, our sound guy, and his Athens Middle School WyldLife kids and their parents. And more image release forms.
Setback #2 - Lost footage.
After about 3 straight days of shooting, I came into my scriptwriting class Wednesday morning, only to have bad news broken right over my head. Yeah all that footage? "It's gone," said Alex, our DP/camera guy. "My card reader really sucks." I wanted to scream. My professor, who overheard what was going on, actually encouraged me to. AAALLLLLL that shooting. Gone in a split second. Needless to say I was a little bitter that day. Prayed a lot. I guess it worked, because at about 8pm that night, Kelly texted me saying Alex had somehow gotten it all back. Thanks, Father in Heaven. Much appreciated.
Setback #3 - Where did all our group members go?
A little later in the week, we were really having a hard time getting us all together in one place. When 3 could meet, one was in class, one was sleeping, you get what I'm saying. One guy who was always around whenever we needed him (for the most part) was Sam, our lead actor. He was boss. We need to buy him a steak. Moving on.
Setback #4 - Why the eff do we need to have a story for a music video?
We would've dismissed this aspect of the project if it wasn't worth 35 points on our rubric. We NEEDED to come up with a story within the video. The best thing we came up with didn't match our 4 minute song. We scrapped the song and inserted in it's place "Sleepyhead." Same band, and we still had the rights. And so we began to shoot revolving around this song.
Setback #5 - (A personal one).
Long story short, I was supposed to be editing this, with Alex as my first assistant. It was a busy weekend with OU homecoming and whatnot, so trying to get the footage from him was next to impossible. Saturday night (the 15th) at around 1am, I received an email from him telling me "my backpack was stolen with my phone inside it, and sorry, and blah blah blah, and you can edit it now if you wanna." Well, truth be told, I had already dismissed editing at this point, knowing Alex just wanted to do it...and he can pull all-nighters; I can't. I trusted him. I've seen his work. It was all good. I could finally relax for a second after 12 days of shooting. I saw a rough cut of it the following day and really liked it. This idea I thought was so stupid was actually looking pretty good on the screen.
I will quickly add that on the day our video was due, we were still shooting to fill up some empty time Alex still had in the song. Video due at 5:10, and we wrapped at 4:00. Are we crazy or what. Alex made some quick cuts and exported it.....
Setback #6 - IN THE WRONG DIMENSIONS.
It's now 4:50. Thankfully, Kelly's sister offered to drive us all to class. We squeezed in the backseat with Alex's laptop open and re-exporting into the right dimensions. We arrived to class on time, the project still exporting. Class started and students began to present their projects. We all kept looking at the little blue bar on Alex's computer. After the video finished for the second time, Alex opened it up only to realize he had exported in Standard Definition, not HD. File > Export. Again. This time he got it right.
Our turn. We all got up, named ourselves and our positions, and showcased our video to the class and our professor. She's the one we were really worried about. My heart was actually pounding. Hard. It finished, we returned to our seats, and about 5 hands shot up in the air. I braced myself. Students began to talk....wait, I think that was a compliment? They liked it? Yes to the art design? To the editing? The direction? All good things. Our eyes moved to our professor. "Two things," she said. "And they're really minor." She gave her tiny critiques (really tiny), and finished with, "I loved it. Great job."
PHEW. Suddenly, all the stress of the work, the hours of shooting, the image release forms, the tension in the group, melted away. It was all worth it. Am I really saying this right now? Yes. All. Worth it. Because we created something we are pretty freaking proud of. You can check out our masterpiece here, and feel free to let us know what you think. Passion Pit did! Which leads me to
Setback #7 - Passion Pit's response....
Setback #3 - Where did all our group members go?
A little later in the week, we were really having a hard time getting us all together in one place. When 3 could meet, one was in class, one was sleeping, you get what I'm saying. One guy who was always around whenever we needed him (for the most part) was Sam, our lead actor. He was boss. We need to buy him a steak. Moving on.
Setback #4 - Why the eff do we need to have a story for a music video?
We would've dismissed this aspect of the project if it wasn't worth 35 points on our rubric. We NEEDED to come up with a story within the video. The best thing we came up with didn't match our 4 minute song. We scrapped the song and inserted in it's place "Sleepyhead." Same band, and we still had the rights. And so we began to shoot revolving around this song.
Setback #5 - (A personal one).
Long story short, I was supposed to be editing this, with Alex as my first assistant. It was a busy weekend with OU homecoming and whatnot, so trying to get the footage from him was next to impossible. Saturday night (the 15th) at around 1am, I received an email from him telling me "my backpack was stolen with my phone inside it, and sorry, and blah blah blah, and you can edit it now if you wanna." Well, truth be told, I had already dismissed editing at this point, knowing Alex just wanted to do it...and he can pull all-nighters; I can't. I trusted him. I've seen his work. It was all good. I could finally relax for a second after 12 days of shooting. I saw a rough cut of it the following day and really liked it. This idea I thought was so stupid was actually looking pretty good on the screen.
I will quickly add that on the day our video was due, we were still shooting to fill up some empty time Alex still had in the song. Video due at 5:10, and we wrapped at 4:00. Are we crazy or what. Alex made some quick cuts and exported it.....
Setback #6 - IN THE WRONG DIMENSIONS.
It's now 4:50. Thankfully, Kelly's sister offered to drive us all to class. We squeezed in the backseat with Alex's laptop open and re-exporting into the right dimensions. We arrived to class on time, the project still exporting. Class started and students began to present their projects. We all kept looking at the little blue bar on Alex's computer. After the video finished for the second time, Alex opened it up only to realize he had exported in Standard Definition, not HD. File > Export. Again. This time he got it right.
Our turn. We all got up, named ourselves and our positions, and showcased our video to the class and our professor. She's the one we were really worried about. My heart was actually pounding. Hard. It finished, we returned to our seats, and about 5 hands shot up in the air. I braced myself. Students began to talk....wait, I think that was a compliment? They liked it? Yes to the art design? To the editing? The direction? All good things. Our eyes moved to our professor. "Two things," she said. "And they're really minor." She gave her tiny critiques (really tiny), and finished with, "I loved it. Great job."
PHEW. Suddenly, all the stress of the work, the hours of shooting, the image release forms, the tension in the group, melted away. It was all worth it. Am I really saying this right now? Yes. All. Worth it. Because we created something we are pretty freaking proud of. You can check out our masterpiece here, and feel free to let us know what you think. Passion Pit did! Which leads me to
Setback #7 - Passion Pit's response....
"Good video. Great job."
You can't have everything.
