Weekly Progress

This blog contains my weekly progress for the Component 3, music video project  

Music Video Project Timeline

Week 1 : In this week we were given a brief on what the project is all about and what we will need to create. To me this is exciting but at the same time scared because of my previous project. I was put into teams and I believe my team is good as we are strong with our own advantages. In the first week me and my team decided on what genre we want to do, and in order to decide me and my team did a preliminary research to understand all of the other genre before choosing. 

Problem: In this week the only problem we had was choosing the genre, as we were thinking whether we should do pop which has a very wide artist choice while RnB have limited amount of artist that are girls as we as a group were planning on making one of my team member to be the actor / artist. 
Solution: We decided to not fully research on known artist who are considered in the RnB genre but other artist who made songs in that genre but their popular songs are not RnB. This made the research more easier and we get to have a wider option as different artist have different styles. 
To do: Before the next lesson, I should finish putting all my research into the blog for both the preliminary research and the genre research. 

Week 2 : In this week we started on planning which song we wanted to do, as my team has suggested several songs but we narrow it down into 3 different song. In order to pick the song, we decided to have a discussion on each music video and we would say things that we like from the song and what ideas can make from it. We also added several things that we think from the music video is cool but it was not realistic, as doing this will allow us to find several alternative if we were to implement that idea to create a good but with the budget that we have. We continue the genre research as it was more better to do 6 music video that gives more ideas on what to do and what to follow the convention of an RnB music video. 

Problem: For this week there was no problem at all, as we were just doing our research. Picking the songs as well was narrowed down easily without any disagreement.
Solution: -
To do: To start on research before next week so we can start on figuring out storyboard and everything like ideas for the music video. 

Week 3 : In this week we continued our research as it was not finished from last week, while I was done researching I started looking for ideas on the music video and compile them as a draft of ideas that will be pick and get inspiration from. This researched allowed me and my team to talk and have an understanding of the conventions we need to do and especially understand what kind of feeling we want to create in this music video. I started on creating the storyboard but only with simple paper form writings on simple ideas that we all combine together. 

Problem: This week the problem that I encounter is that I was very busy especially in having several exams that took time out of the class time in which I missed out on a lot of the classroom lesson and even the project lesson time. So I was dragging my team down with a slow progress on the project. 
Solution: I decided to work on it after my exams in which I would not be behind in the project timeline but instead I would match them. Which this week showed how doing that helped and it made my team has a lot of progress on our music video project, especially in planning and starting on storyboard and moodboard. 
To do: Continue making the storyboard 

Week 4 : In this week we started to do our statement of intent as it allows us to brain storm and have the same idea on what kind of aesthetic / feeling that we are going for. With having a statement of intent we were able to have a specific goal. Especially the deadline to finish this statement intent was only for a couple of days in which us as a team had to really finish and make an idea that we all agree to be put to the statement of intent. We also started to talk about our artist and what kind of aesthetic she would be good in. We looked through several artist albums using Spotify as the platform and we have several ideas that we want to do. I also found an application called ShotStager that can help me with my storyboard, this is a new application which I would want to try out and see whether is is useful or not. 

Problem: There were no problems in this week as for group work. Where as for me I was trying out the new application and the software allows drawing but because I didn't have a drawing pen that connects to my laptop it was a challenge
Solution: Because that I needed to draw, I decided to use what I have which is my laptop's touchpad. Turns out it wasn't as bad after all but it will only take time. 
To do: Work on the storyboard again but this time using ShotStager

Week 5 : In this week we learn about persona as it is important for creating our artist personality on and off screen. We also started on our location scout where we started brainstorming on ideas on where the location would be that would match our artist persona. We eliminated places that we think are too far or it doesn't match our aesthetic. 

Problem: There wasn't any major problem other than simple hard to find the specific location that we want but we fixed it easily by asking suggestion from our friend. 
Solution: -
To do: Work on the storyboard again both online ShotStager and hand drawn. 

Week 6 : In this week we started to finish off on our moodboard after having an agreement on what the characters aesthetic would be like, the moodboard was a fun activity and discussion that I did as a team because we get to combine to focus more on the things we needed to finish like the storyboard and location scout. As my team and I were shocked by the deadline being only 1 week to finish off the moodboard, location scout, storyboard and classwork it become a challenge. As I am in charge to do the storyboard I had to finish off my online storyboard and drawing it on paper again in which this become a 2x work, plus I had several activities outside of school that I need to do so I had to juggle everything before the deadline. Especially with the deadline to finish recording was before school start and our artist will not be available during the whole school break we needed to record faster than what we expect to do. So this week as well we did our first scene which was the further location that we planned on recording. This week was a busy week but I manage to handle everything and use my time wisely to finish everything. 

Problem: Both of the actors were late during the shoot and this made us lose precious lighting at the location. Other than that in the place there was not as crowded but there were workers who were cutting the grass in which we can hear the machine in the background of our shoot.
Solution: Our original idea of the park would be bright but because of the timing we decided to make it a sunset aesthetic which still match our moodboard and idea so that problem is fixed. We decided to change the whole plot line for that scene to not have conversation on that scene but instead it would be more lip syncing instead. 
To do: Start scheduling for the filming schedule to shoot again next week and the week after that to finish recording faster. 

Reflection: This weekly progress has been use for several of the others that I have done in which this weekly progress really helped in making sure that the list of things that I needed to do are on track and especially it allows to have a reflection of things that has happen throughout the progress in the making of this project and it reduce the chances of making the same mistakes. Other than that this weekly progress can be forgettable sometimes as for me I was too focused in doing the task that I needed to do, in which I missed out on 3 weeks of weekly progress reflection. It was hard to try to remember everything that I have done but I manage to figure out what I have done in that week because of the group chat with me and my team member where we discuss about our progress often.