Production- Afterschool Filming Blog

Today I needed to stay after school to film with my groupmates. We needed to film the first couple of shots either today or tomorrow. The reasoning for the dates is because of our schedules. All of us are busy and even do things outside of or after school, so our schedules needed to match up. The shots we needed to film are the first few in the beginning, which show both actors on a street. These shots establish the characters in the story we are trying to tell. They also establish a parallel that we are trying to communicate through this music video, following two students who have similar experiences. This will hopefully show how the experiences in the music video are the norm and not the exception.

 I was extremely worried about the weather, because I wasn't sure what our back up plan would be if it rained. Luckily, the weather seemed fine, so we started to film the first shot. The first challenge we had to face was not filming the school for this wide shot. I wanted to stick to the storyboard, but I didn't want to stray to far off school property since we were filming right outside of the grounds. After some discussion, we decided that we could move a little farther and just crop the shot if needed. 

During this filming experience, I was able to advance my filming skills. I was able to hold the camera steady for long periods of time and learned more about focusing a lens. I should mention that this camera was a phone, but I think that phone cameras are more sensitive because of how light they can be and how they seemed to feel the tiniest movement in my arms or hands. Fortunately, I was able to get my hands to steady and the shot came out successfully. I had my groupmates take a quick look at it and see if they had any suggestions. It turns out they didn't, so we all decided to head home. Overall, I would consider the day successful and productive. 

Pictured- A street similar to the one we filmed on 



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