Group: FINALLY, the Saturday Night Crew is Here!

 Rather than seeing this course as a requirement, I've viewed it as a hobby I can do on the side. This makes it so much more enjoyable to complete assignments, it's silly that I need to trick my mind in order to complete any work, but I think being resourceful is one of the most imporant qualities someone could have! Apace with this, I'm using the same group as my last project for this one. The members include Yaneli, Nicole, and Jordyn. At this point, it would feel unnatural to work with anyone else. They're all so creative, I admire this trait greatly and sometimes I feel like I hold them back when developing ideas. Everything I do is just on a whim, while they sit and approach the world with prosperous thoughts. It would be nice to be like that, and my family may argue that I am like that at times, but it would only really be true once I believe it myself. Either way, we now have a direction we'd like our story to flow in. In the film, the dude will mope around doing various tasks, going out to dinner, and just being generally depressed throughout. A twist at the end reveals that the girl he is depressed about has passed away. We give the feel that they have just broken up, but it goes way deeper then that story-wise. We were worried that our music video idea borders the short film project because of how complex we are trying to make this. Nico and Jordyn developed the majority of this idea, with Nico having been the one to find the song we'd end up using. I'm happy with who I'm working with and confident that we can produce a very original piece. One problem i'm a big concerned about is how our filming process may go. We want most of our video to be filmed by Nico's house, but i'm not allowed to sleepover at people's houses and just hang out all day like that. My parents can be strict and I hope it doesn't negatively impact this project is all. Additionally, I am excited to meet our actors, especially since I will be helping backstage and guiding them in accordance with our directors' visions. Nico's going to get a guy-friend to be the boy in this video and nico may be in the video too. For this production, I think we'll all be hanging around behind the camera. Doing things behind the camera is something i'm comfortable with, so I don't mind this one bit. I hope for my group and I to come out on top and make something we can proudly look at, i'm even blasting our song Saturday Night to get in the mood of a winner lately! TEAMWORK TIME!

New Project, New Me!

 I'm looking forward to fully embracing AICE Media and showing what I can do. Our past commercial project really let me dip into my creative side and cooperative side, it was a refreshing feeling. I've had experiences making music videos of sorts for little songs I make as a joke; imagining doing something like that as part of a class sounds fascinating. It's nerve wracking for me because sometimes I fear that I don't contribute enough. But it's all about believing in yourself, right? Making the thing I do for fun with my friends into something to be used to work towards a diploma to better my chances of great things in the future sounds right up my alley. I wasn't originally going to take this class, but my counselor recommended I do, I'll see where this course takes me! On to myself, my name's Julissa, and I'm a brand spanking new junior in the Sunshine State. It doesn't feel as new anymore because we're already a whole quarter into the school year, it's crazy how fast time really goes. Personality-wise, I consider myself to be an unbothered and laid-back individual, especially once you get to know me. My free time is unvaried, if I'm to be wholly honest with you! A day of my life after school consists of eating lunch, watching an episode of Batman Beyond or Cowboy Bepop, and pushing myself to do school work I'm not sure gets finished.  I do my best to at least keep myself afloat, even if it takes rewarding myself with far too many breaks. The highlight of my day is always hearing music, song after song. Having music in my life is a big part of who I am as a person, and I consider it to be even a hobby.  I never found myself to be a good singer, but you'll find me jamming anywhere from tiring passing periods in school to the cold milk section of my neighborhood Publix. It's the one thing that always keeps me going. I never fully understood people felt the exact way I do until I paid closer attention to some of the lyrics of my favorite artists. They're just like me, sometimes, lost in themselves and trying to find themselves afresh. As a student, I felt that way when navigating online school; it was scary and challenging, but I made it through. Doing online school last year proved myself to be a completely different person then I thought I was. That straight-A student turned into a measly D-student and it really hurt my self-image. I no longer believed in myself, all because I was afraid to ask for help. With a music artist called Arlo Parks and some tender support from my teachers, and I found myself all-of-a-sudden feeling vibrant again. Days no longer started blending into eachother and I got closer with the ones I love; this school year feels like a totally new start. Sincerely, I have been down again, but I won't let this stop me from pumping out a quality music video and staying on top of my deadlines. It wasn't as easy as I'm making it sound as we all have our own processes, but it doesn't hurt a fly to work toward a better you. I just purely, want to do better for myself, not just for others. This side tangent may not relate to this subject, but I see so many things I enjoy in this course. I feel it contributes to this new start. Projects like the music video and commercial have me excited to see how people from completely different backgrounds can combine their creativity to make something worthwhile. I want to try and see myself doing well, I just hope I can prove myself to be fruitful with the work I do turn in.

- visual respresentation of me listening to my dear Arlo Parks

Creative Critical Reflection

     My video advert uses common conventions like up-beat music and commonly associated locations. A positive song played while the actors drink Arizonas, giving a positive connotation to the scene. It creates a happy mood change, showing the emotion that our drink can produce in the audience. When you see the drink placed in places you associate with hot temperatures, like the blazing sun over bleachers or the Arizona desert, you will feel thirstier, so it made sense for our commercial. Not only is Arizona cool and delicious, but it also affects social groups by having a consistent affordability. It’s always been kept the same price, 99 cents, and it's a staple in every community. Never being not available, it’s a well known and loved brand to all. Clinking a cold drink with friends brings people together socially, so having an Arizona appear amidst the cheer would be no surprise!

Arizona captivates the audience with a vibrant, saturated aesthetic that holds your attention. We first find a common problem people have, like being thirsty on a hot day and needing to cool down. We present Arizona to our audience in a whimsical way, putting our hands through a portal to gain the refreshing fix to this problem! This would be distributed as real media text most likely as some type of Super Bowl ad. I think it is very appropriate for advertising on a sports channel because you can drink it to refresh yourself.

My analytical skills greatly improved as well. I became much better at paying attention to detail throughout the creation process. Noticing when the can was flipped wrong, the actor had the wrong leg position, and when the drink was not sprayed sufficiently. I was able to communicate effectively with my team and find obtainable solutions to our problems together as well. Our "Arizona" rocks shot had a problem with the sky and field showing. This was fixed by moving away from the can before zooming in to eliminate the background. I also planned my group's schedule in close cooperation with them, and we were very committed to it. Our time management was excellent. My trainability skills were definitely touched on too, I learned to get down and dirty when filming. Doing anything to get the best shots and moving things as my teammates suggested, I feel so much better about handling the camera when asked!

We utilized text group chats to keep everyone in the know. For the most part, our phones were the stars. They were used for editing, communicating, and filming. Two different phones were used in the making, one of them being an 11 pro max. I enjoyed the camera quality we got from our devices. We moved on to edit these clips together with popular softwares like Imovie and Prequel. Communication-wise, we exchanged clips and pointers on how to edit. I sent Jordyn multiple clips for her to analyze and pick from during one of our filming days when she wasn't there! It really saved us to be able to talk about our blogging and project together the way we did, communication is always key. We documented our processes online through blogging, and that was one way we utilized the internet.

We Made It!

 Having run around from baseball fields to towering bleachers, this production was one to remember. I'm proud of our commercial, i've never done somethin like this before. I still have much room to improve. However, this project showed me that when I really put my mind to something, I can make something beyond what I thought I was capable of. One of my personal favorite things we did when creating this was spraying the cans with water to make them look cold. It made me feel so included to be running around behind the scenes fixing the actors' hair and making sure our props were spick and span. Filming the section where Nico grabbed the can in Arizona was enjoyable for me as well. To get the best shots we could, I laid down on the orange earth and dug the props into the sand. Even though it was hot and I was getting irritable, my teammates made it all much more enjoyable to go through. Overrall, I loved working on this commercial, and I hope to work on more projects like this in the near future!

Editing: CLOSE TO THE FINISHLINE

It's our second day editing this week, and I feel confident in what we have in the making. Minor problems may have come up once again, but we managed to get it done! Jordan showed us what we'd already accomplished; the video was mostly complete; I just needed to fix a few things we feared would affect the final product. The song was changed to Pump It by Harder by the Black Eyed Peas which I feel does fit our video better. The next problem was the fact that our sky of one clip was different then the one in the previouspart. Although this wasn't a major problem, we weren't fond of the way it looked and could not control it since clouds tend to move. Regarding our fate, Jordyn noticed a small zoom out that created  an even stranger effect. I had suggested ways to fix this, but there was no way to do so without making multiple cuts, and this was supposed to be one continuous shot. As our main editors continued to arrange the logos, I went searching for the specific font Arizona uses. I found the font Arizona uses in their iconic logo is a mix of the paid Arabic Brushstroke font and a little of their own creative flair. I noted the typeface letters we'd need and sent them to Nico to decide if we should use them or not. My group ended up using Clip Jam to add a logo instead of drawing it ourselves! The website had an animated Arizona logo that was perfect for our cause, this was added near the close of our commercial. In this same application a blur filter was added at the end, and I made a judgement call about which one we should use for the final product. I selected clips with glass filters and clips with classic blur filters, which gave differing looks, but similar effects.  After adding a blurring effect, the last thing to do was make our coloring saturated to match the vivid hues of the well known drink. After one last run-through of our product, the production was a thumbs-up in my book! 

The Commercial Editing Process So Far!

Once attendance was called and we had the computers in hand, we went straight to work. We used imovie for editing because it was the easiest to navigate. Jordyn was our main editor, and the rest of us collected files and offered constructive criticism when needed. I helped to brainstorm ideas on how to make our clips look smoother. Among the ideas I suggested was using a stabilizer feature throughout our footage to fix shaky zooms. For our commercial, the music was a big part, so I was busy looking for some gems in class. I scoured Spotify for summer party playlists because that's the music vibe we were going for in the video. Since it was hot and the actors had cold drinks, a summer-weather feel is given from it. I didn't find much of what I needed on Spotify's pulic playlist, so I started searching my older private playlists. I gave a couple song suggestions from Khalid and Calvin Harris because I felt they were upbeat enough, but nothing seemed to match perfectly. Then, it hit me like a truck. I know this band called Coast Modern that i'm an avid listener of, and their indie-pop/rock music is a perfect fit for a drink ad. I've always been enchanted by their music but have not seen them in commercials. I picked both songs Hollow Life and Guru by Coast modern to show to my group to use. They ended up really liking Hollow Life and the instrumental of it. We had our music! Alongside this, music is something i love to share and exchange with others. Although this wasn't a traditional music exchange, I had a lot of influence on how the ad's music sounded, which I thought was pretty cool. We ended up using some type of splicing program to make Hollow Life by Coast Modern a mere instrumental! Having minimal words is better in the long run, especially because we won't have to try and match up any words with our scenes.  Now having some type of music or Cicada sound effects to overlay, we had to find a way to add these audios on IPhone. As I told my group, it is possible to rip YouTube videos into mp3 format and save them on your phone to add to their own movie. Our class ended with a no-sound commercial and audio files saved for later, but this track looks favorable.

Filming at the Softball Field: A Little TOO Breezy!

 I'd like to consider day two of filming way more of a success then last go around, but the amount of problems we had this time evens the experience out for sure. In my eyes, Jordyn is our director, our main-man, and the captain of our ship when it comes to this commercial. Our only problem was, she wasn't here today! This meant I was to film the scenes we needed this period. It felt like I was taking the reigns of Santa's sleigh, and I was a bit nervous I wouldn't do a good job. Our ending result of our last clip proved me more then wrong though! We had a quicker start today and made our way towards the baseball field. After a quick scale of it, I found we couldn't get in without hopping the fence. Moving to the softball field was a quick fix. Yaneli and Nicole helped me set up the Arizona desert scene with our cardboard "rocks" and we began. One big problem when trying to film the final clip was the constant wind, none of our paper props would stand up. Another little problem we encountered was our background looking smaller then we needed it to be. I shot a text to Jordyn and she gave us spectacular fixes to our background problem. We set up our props again and I moved far back with the camera, after zooming in I couldn't believe how good our backdrop was looking against the sparkling Arizona can. As for the wind, I dug a straight line in the dirt for each paper piece to hold it in place and we were good to go. As filming went on, it got so hot we moved to the dugout to take quick breaks and check that the videos taken were up to the mark. My phone got so hot I had to cool it down if I wanted to keep using it! I filmed many varying clips and sent them to Jordyn for her to pick the best of bunch. After we all agreed we had our golden clip, we were good to go! The beating sun made this event fell like it was going in slow-motion. This could point to why it felt like we finished with so much time to spare!