And...Voila

 1. My commercial utilizes conventions pretty well. In typical hand sanitizer commercials, their main focus is usually demonstrating how to combat germs with hand sanitizer. Therefore, my use of conventions was standard, as I used the hand sanitizer as my main prop and showed the audience how to use it. My commercial represents social groups/issues by mentioning the ongoing pandemic caused by COVID-19 and showing a student in the commercial. It brings up a current issue faced by anyone who goes to school, but focuses on students.

2. My product engages with the audience by using comical effect and relevance. Throughout the commercial, the narration provides jokes which adds a comical effect to keep the audience interested. It also uses relevance by showing what many people are going through in a pandemic and highlighting the importance of staying safe with hand sanitizer. This would be distributed as a real media text through YouTube or Instagram, I think these would be two good options because many real-life students, especially high school students, use social media and are more likely to see this commercial on there.

3. My  production skills developed in many different ways with this project. Being this is my first ever project like this, I've learned a lot since we began including many new terms. I think the skill that developed the most with this project was my story-boarding skill, having to meticulously plan my storyboard taught me a lot and makes me feel more ready to do it again in my next project.However, I think I still have a lot more to learn but doing this project gave me experience and a good idea of what to expect for next time.

4. For this project I mainly used my iPhone and Google Chromebook. I filmed all of my clips on my iPhone and edited them with iMovie on my phone. I have the blogger app on my phone so sometimes my blog posts would be typed through there or my media would be added on with my phone. Other times, I would save the media on my Chromebook and drag and drop the file. For my actual commercial upload I had to figure out embedding and I simply did this by sending myself my commercial via email and dragging and dropping it onto my blog.

Roll the Tape

Today was the final day for my very first commercial project! It has been such a journey. Although I was afraid of many things, I overcame them all. Working independently was not as much as a struggle as I initially thought it would be. However,for future projects I will probably opt to work with at least one other person. I overcame my fear of story boarding and actually understand the importance of it now that I have done it. Having everything mapped out was really helpful and forces you to think about planning in a deeper way. Editing was still my favorite part, but I'm sure as time goes on I'll improve even more! This turned out to be a pretty fun project. I feel like I learned so much from this, and I still have more to learn. I can't wait to do an even better job on my next project!

 

Editing with Ease

Today was our second day of editing.The editing went pretty well again. I’ve made a lot of progress since my last blog. I shortened all of my clips and only kept what was vital to the video.  I also ended up also muting the original videos completely. This was mainly because there was background noise. Muting the original video worked out pretty well since I wanted to do a voiceover anyways. Speaking of voiceovers, I finally  figured out how to do mine! iMovie actually just had a add media feature, where there’s a voiceover option.  I recorded all the voiceover that I need for my commercial.

The voiceover  wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be.  However ,I did have to redo it a couple of times due to minor mistakes.

I’m still working on transitions and figuring out how to properly lay music over the voiceover, if that’s possible.  iMovie also has a filters option, but I think i’m going to opt out of it. I’m not completely sure yet since I do want to enhance the look of my commercial. But, I just don’t know if any of the filters available are going to match the commercial itself. I think this editing process was definitely the easiest part of the project.I just feel really comfortable with editing now.

Everything that I didn’t know before was easily learned, or I pressed a button and it was just available. It was just a really easy learning experience.

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Today was our first editing day. This is most exciting part of this project for me, especially since it means it’s almost over. After facing all the “scary” parts of this project, such as the storyboard and actual filming, I really enjoy the more relaxed speed of editing. I was actually really excited to edit and put everything together. I choose to use iMovie for editing since I have some experience with it. Although I shot all my clips in order, I had to actually properly put them together. This meant I had to move my clips from my camera roll to the app itself and arrange it correctly. I had roughly a minute of footage so I had to think about how I would cut it down a bit. I decided I would shave down on the scene where I walked down the stairs. However I'm unsure on exactly how to shave it down because I want to ensure the transitions are seamless. I feel like the most difficult part of this editing process will just be making sure everything transitions and flows smoothly. I also need to figure out how to make a voice over, and record it since this is a main aspect of my video. I am focused on just enhancing the commercial in general during editing. I think a lot can be improved during editing, but I also have a lot of choices to make. For example, there is some awkwardness in my scenes and I can either cut it out completely or make it work. I can make it work by using the voice over to kind of make it seem natural or comical. I also have to decide if I want to leave the visuals as is or if I want to tweak it with filters or transition effects. The 'hardest' part of editing is gonna be making these important decisions since I am a bit indecisive. This has been the least stressful part of my commercial so far, I'm actually having fun correcting and enhancing my commercial.I still have a lot left to do, and will keep you updated!

And..Action!

 Today was the second official day of filming, and I actually did! Since I don't have a group for this project, I was a little skeptical about whether I'd successfully finish today. I recruited the girl who sits next to me to actually film while I was the actual 'actress'. I was going to shoot my clips out of  the planned storyboard order, however due to other people being there my plan changed.  I went in sequence order of my storyboard. I started by shooting my first scene outside of the media center, then shot the scene of me walking downstairs, and finished off with my scene at the bottom of the stairs. While I did all the actual. actions my friend actually recorded me. I have to admit it was a bit awkward just being on camera, I feel like my body language in the clips reflected that. Moving forward with future projects I think it'll be easier and less awkward. When the awkwardness fades with experience I think the future project would
look more natural and better. It wasn't that long and I did pretty good on time. I was really scared it wouldn't all get done which would be a HUGE issue because today was the last filming day we had. I had multiple copies of the same shot done just in case I preferred one over the rest. I'll go in editing and make it look like it all flows.It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be at all! I definitely think that editing is gonna be a crucial part of this commercial. The clips are okay but i believe with some good editing, everything will really tie the overall commercial together. Actually filming today was pretty exciting! I can't wait to see how this commercial turns out.