An amazing day of recording and teamwork

    Originally, I thought that it was going to be raining all day due to the giant raincloud hovering over us for majority of the day, but when my group and I walked out, the weather was perfect for us too film. Clear skies, humid and cool breeze, perfect conditions for filming a commercial.

    My job was to supervise and assist the actors in our commercial on what they have to do and what shots that had to be taken. I also assisted Hadar on recording some shots that needed some advanced camera movement. First, we recorded Alex and Jorge (the runners) stretching and preparing for the race, this was the establishing shot. We then get a close up of both racers, getting into their ready positions and looking competitively at each other.

    We also got a close up shot of both actor's shoes, so while in post we can add details about the shoes they are wearing. We are going have to also blur out the Adidas logo on Alex shoes since if this was a real commercial that would be broadcasted, we could be sued for defamation or have a Seize and Desist order from Adidas.

    We then had both racers to run while we take a Wide-Shot, panning the camera towards the runners as they passed by the camera. We taken the shot with extreme care due to us having to add certain effects in post, as that is a reason why some actions were made by the actor were planned out and spaced away from one another.

    We also did mock and improv shots of the interview as reference for the real recording. We had Hadar and Jorge on a medium long shot as Alex would be far back complaining and crying in the center of the shot. The shots were really rough and pretty funny at times but we managed to pull through and got a proper rough recoding.

    I had an idea to do some shots in slow motion, giving more depth to the commercial. I recorded Alex and Jorge running in slow motion and when they make it to the end of the race where the racer has to touch Hadar's hand first to win. Alex even made his performance more believable by acting like he tripped and fell, which it was too believable and we all thought he got hurt.

    After about an hour of recording, we decided to pack our things, drink water and relax for a bit. We did a little bit of small talk about the project and other assignments and we spent some time re-watching some shots and choosing which ones we like the most. we still have a long way to go until we are fully done but we have high hopes on what the final product could look like. We now have to wait until Monday for us to continue recording and I'm prepared to continue working.

Shots we have to reshoot/create:

• Close-Up Shot of runner's feet taking off.
• Close-Up of the runner's feet running.
• The interview scene.
• Wide-Establishing Shot of Jorge (winner) cheering and Alex (loser) "crying."
• Wide Shot of runners running past the camera.

Storyboard

 

Slide 1: A news broadcast starts and zooms into the track field. The racers, Jorge and Alex, are going to beat the 100-meter sprint world record. Both racers begin to stretch and prepare themselves for the race. Jorge and Alex give each other competitive gestures, both are mentally and physically prepared for this history changing event.

Slide 2: Both racers ready themselves, ready to pace through the wind. Alex, looking as smug as ever, knows he may have a chance of not only beating Jorge in the race, but also beat the world record. Jorge looks determined, he seems like nothing is going to stop him from being beat. The countdown slowly starts at 5.

Slide 3: The two contestants are shown giving each other a stare. It is supposed to give the audience a sense of tension and anticipation for the race. After that the contestants both get in their positions to take off and run. The scene will end with the countdown getting to 0, making them start.

Slide 4: The scene begins with them having just started running. You will see a back view of them taking off before a shift to the sidelines showing a side view of them running. This section is supposed to have Jorge seeming to be struggling. Alex will slightly overtake him to create a sense of the dire situation to the audience.

Slide 5: After Alex overtakes Jorge a few seconds later. Jorge will start to speed up and there will be a cut to his to show the product so the audience can deduce why Jorge is getting faster. The music will get faster or hit a beat drop as Jorge speeds up. Jorge’s shoes will then start to leave a flame trail as he speeds past Alex right before the finish line. Leading Jorge to take first place and do a small celebration.

Slide 6: Hadar will then interview the winner (Jorge). First, she will congratulate Jorge on the win. Then Hadar will ask Jorge how he made the comeback from being behind Alex. Then Jorge will say something along the lines of, “Well it was all because of my Nike shoes, the Pegasus 38’s running shoes. Which makes me feel as fast as a Pegasus.”

Commercial Project: Research

We decided to do a commercial for NIKE, specifically we decided on the Air zoom Pegasus 38 shoes (Mainly because Jorge has a pair). Most NIKE ads show people participating in some form of physical activity like running or playing soccer, really anything they would wear shoes for.

In all the ads we watched the actors wore sporty clothing to further emphasize the activity that this is equipment meant for sport. The actors often appear sweaty and out of breath. Oftentimes their skin is glistening, further emphasizing their participation in the activities. Oftentimes there are fast paced up-beat songs used to convey excitement and energy. It is meant to motivate. The props usually vary between the ads as the actions taking place often vary greatly. Sometimes there might be a  NIKE brand ball or NIKE Clothing, the list goes on and on.

Conventions and Codes: Through the ads the one major thing that remains consistent is the inclusion of the famous NIKE phrase: “Just do it.” The main reason behind the quote is to act as a final motivator to the audience before the ad ends. By using “just do it” in the commercial, it will make the commercial inspirational and inspire people to buy the Nike shoes.

Another thing we found consistent among NIKE ads was that they always tried to make the logo the center of attention. This is usually attempting to further showcase the products.

The last thing we noticed is that the ads usually use famous figures to symbolize that people with high status use Nike products.

Commercial Project: Planning

Cams: Eye level shot of competitors to show how competitive the runners are, Wide shot of runners towards camera to show runners, pan of runners/interviewer to show the how fast the shoes make the runner, zoom in on Nike shoes to show how nice the shoes look.

Sound: Voiceover at the start, middle, and end of the race, soundtrack to energize the scene, and SFX used to create fire sound effects for the trail and the wind blowing off the runner.

Clamps: 

Costume - t-shirt and leggings for interviewing because I will interviewer fast runner with Nike shoes, Competitors (Alex and Jorge) in running clothes to show they are professional runners, 

Lighting - Sunny day for good light of the track, 

Action/Actors - Hadar - interviewer//Alex and Jorge- runners//Rashawn - Commentator

Makeup/hair -Hadar- hair down, with glasses, no makeup// Alex-normal hair no makeup// Jorge- hair up in bun, no glasses, no makeup// Rashawn- cannot see in video

Props - fan to make interviewers hair ripple in the wind, Nike air zoom Pegasus 38 shoes as our product, microphone for interviewer so the ad is more realistic

Setting - track field, if being used then the bus loop will be used

Editing: VFX(fire effect on the shoes while Jorge is running), Cross Cutting between different action shots, Split Screen between shots of competitors, Fade in at the end (screen turns black and the Nike logo appears on screen), and Motion blur ( used on Jorges feet while he is running to make it look fast)

Grouping Up & Upcoming Project Ideas

We were assigned our 30 second commercial project, and I planned to work alone since I am not really good at meeting new people. I thought about it for a second and I figured out, I still need someone to work with on this project due to someone else needing to hold the camera for filming. I decided to join a group of people sitting next to me and they were more than happy to let me in the group. One of the members were absent so it was just two of them sitting next to me at the time.

Their names are Hadar Kotzer and Jorge Lopez, the one who was absent is Alexandros Rapanos. They already seem to be close with each other and seem to be really cooperative. They are all sophmores and I am the only Junior in our group which I have no issue with at all and I think no matter the grade level, anyone can be really helpful. I think if we all put our minds together, we can come up with something great. I really hope we all can work well together in the future and be a really great group.

One of my few ideas for the project was a recreation of a Redbull commercial where two Impala's were spotted by a lion. Both are are visibly concerned but the one two the left drinks a can of Redbull and plans to out run the second Impala so he could get eaten instead.

Another idea I had has to do with Nikes. Two people will be on the track field, one with regular branded shoes (logo's blurred out) and someone in Nike shoes. They will be racing and it will be aired nationally with commentary. The race starts, both are equally matched so far. Then the person in Nike starts to speed up as the shoes are powering him up. They zoom through track and passes the finish line multiple times as their opponent stand there in disbelief. They then stop running and gets interviewed by a news reporter as they promote Nike.

The first idea I had could be pretty funny but not really original. The second idea could be visually impressive, but pretty time consuming, possible, but really time consuming. Hopefully my groupmates came up some great ideas as well, I am interested to see what they came up with.

Introduction Blog

 My name is Rashawn Granderson and I am a Junior at Fort Lauderdale High School. I am usually shy when meeting new people, which I know is an issue when I am forced to work with random people. Despite that, I have a way with getting along with people, even if we don't like the same things at all. I like to produce music, edit videos, make art and writing stories, which I would mix them together to make some giant form of art. I really enjoy the post-production portion of a film, especially processes like color correction and keyframing.

There is a channel on YouTube called Cinecom that focuses on cinematography tricks, vfx, camera tips and more. They have a on-going series called Copycat Friday where they recreate effects from movies and tv shows. For an example: 

I am taking this class to learn how to make different types of films and media and try to understand the work behind it. I also want to make my own films with close friends of mine and share our creative ideas into one big project.

Me and my friends have two ideas for quick and short films. The first one was my idea, which is to make a mockumentary comedy similar to The Office and Parks & Recreation. 

It's about a teen super hero group being recorded & documented by a film school student as they go on strange and comedic adventures. The second idea is somewhat a phycological horror inside a haunted house, as the ghost inside is messing with your perception of reality itself. Since I know how to do pretty some of most of the things we need to do in post-processing, we can get the final product done to near perfection.

I feel like this class will help me understand the film-making process more clearly and sharpen my skills. I really want to improve my editing and vfx skill and take it to the next level. I want to work on huge projects that'll probably start off a career in vfx or post-production in general. My main plan is to just do this as a hobby and for fun but if any opportunity ever opens up, I may take a look at it and see if I'm interested. Since I am also somewhat experienced in music, I could also compose my own scores and tracks for certain scenes. For an example, I could make a song with war drums, trumpets, emotional pianos, etc., to fit a scene of an adventure about to/already begin. I am truly excited to see what this year has in store for me.