Last Day Filming

 We began by completing the remaining few clips we required, which were the bridge and the opening scene. We were moving along at a rather swift pace and we were able to complete the work within less than an hour, so it felt extremely gratifying to be finished shooting.

The car scene was actually one of the best of the day to film. It was a bit hectic but, at the same time, very entertaining as one of us had to remain out of frame all the time. We continued to test angles in such a small space and it even compelled us to be more creative with our shots. I believe that when all the editing is put together it will come out really good.

We were also much better equipped with props this time around and this helped to get the idea going. The point was to demonstrate how she was tearing everything to pieces and forgetting the negativity of the relationships of the past. I printed a bucket list, a vision board and some festival tickets, and my partner came with a box of things such as cards, bracelets and pictures. All this really worked well on camera and made the scenes appear more meaningful.

CR Planning

 My brainstorming on my CR has begun, and it has been effective to review my music video project. As I had a partner, we shared some parts of the project and it was easier to concentrate on very specific areas and actually consider our creative decisions.

So far, I've been reflecting on:

The impact of research on our project - When we were planning our scenes, we used editing techniques, camera angles, and storytelling examples that we looked at during our research. Every section, whether it was the camera work, the editing or costumes, was informed by that research, and made everything look smooth and deliberate.

Engagement of the audience - We tried to make the video touch and feel real. Choosing small details such as costumes, props, and setting of the scenes were used to reach out to the audience. We had editing and planning scenes and costumes, which was why my partner specialized in editing, and we both took part in the planning.

Elements operating as a team - Costume, props, editing, sound, and all elements needed to come up with a coherent style and feel. Collaborating as a team also implied that we could work on our areas of strength and it becomes easier to see the manner in which all the pieces fall into place.

Representation and themes - In our video we tried to make the story realistic and depict the daily life. I will discuss the ways our decisions acted as characters and situations in my CR essay.

I have also begun to draft the way my essay will go: an introduction on our project and objectives, body paragraphs answering each of the CR questions and providing examples on my own work and that of my partner and a conclusion on what we have learnt and how our collaboration influenced the process.

Although we are in the initial stages of the project, critical thinking about the project and our decisions is enabling me to realize the rationale behind each choice we have made. I am eager to continue working on those ideas and make them a solid CR essay.

This is a little funny picture of transporting some of our props from location to another.

Mis-En-Scene Costumes

In this project, there were a total of six outfits since the video occurs over a time span, and not a single day. We had a great idea of what each costume had to be in the story but we gave our actress full creative freedom to make them come to life-and she hit it out of the park.

We decided to have a range of outfits that suited every setting; a cute date outfit, a skating outfit, a baking outfit, a cozy outfit to knit in, and a comfortable everyday outfit. Every dress not only fitted the picture but also her character and made the scenes natural.

The most prominent thing I liked was that the outfits provided a visual story-telling. Though there is no dialogue, you can tell what the mood and what sort of activity is going on just by the way she is dressed. The date outfit is flirtatious, the skating outfit is playful and the knitting outfit is comfortable and relaxed. It actually gave her character more depth and made the video more lively and life-like.

One of the most suitable choices was to give her freedom in her creativity, as now every glance looked only one way or another in her eyes, and the outfits became a real part of the story and not a necessity to be worn by her. Costume design can be considered a minor issue, but in this project, costumes became one of the most important aspects of our time, mood, and personality expression during the video.

Looking back we must of forgot to take a picture of the date outfit but you will see it in the music video!

Filming

Our music video is really doing well in filming. We have already recorded both the verses and all the three choruses that was also a big portion of the project. The coordination of those scenes was extensive, however, everything worked out to our favor.

My partner has also already begun editing and this has assisted us in the visualization of how things are building up. Watching the clips in action makes the video seem more realistic and demonstrates what is yet to be done.

Among the best behind-the-scene moments occurred when we were shooting a scene in which our actress was sad in the shower. We were about to switch on the water so it could look more natural, but we were not entirely confident about how it would look like. Eventually, only her legs were wet, which actually relieved me and my partner somewhat because we did not fully wet her in the project. Nonetheless, the scene turned out quite well and contributed to a greater amount of emotion that we were hoping to create. 

We only have to shoot the bridge at this stage. The larger portion of the video is complete, and as a result, we know very well what we would like in that last part. After shooting the bridge we will be able to concentrate completely on editing and assembling everything.

All in all, we have accomplished a lot and the project is in good shape.

 

Mis-En-Scene Part 2

Now the thoughts we had for the use of the journal, we wanted this journal to be used to write songs within it. My partner and I had the idea to write a song that Annie has written in the same album, as it would be a little easter egg. Once we actually had the journal in our hands we thought that we couldn't start writing in the first page of the journal and we couldn't just skip over those pages cause it would then just be weird. So we talked on the ride home on what exactly did we want the prior use of this journal to be. She thought maybe like a diary where she used to write her thoughts but stopped. And I was thinking more of like poetry so it would make a little more sense on how she knew how to write songs.

While talking about what to write in it we had to think how much we were going to need to write and we settled on a place where it seemed good. We settled that we would do a mix of both diary and poetry, so it would be a brief explanation of her day and then make it into a poem. Which seemed like a nice and simple idea. Now since my partner was leaving over break, we decided that I would take it and write in it. So I went through the days and wrote some nice nonsense. I made sure to write dates, and titles, basically making sure I was using all the correct rules to write these things. Here is an example:

Social Media

My partner created an official Instagram account and then gave me the credentials for it. We then talked about how we wanted the first post to be like. As an intro post we both had the idea to be a simple "hey i'm and i do..." kind of thing. So i got to thinking what could this be that is easy to read and attracts people to read it and follow. Most people on social media don't really want to read a long caption under a post so I had to think of something short and simple. As well, I wanted her to have a little catch phrase that was sweet and made people feel related to. So after lots and lots of thinking i came up with: "hey i'm annie lemasters, i'm a pop singer and i write songs about things i can't always say out loud." As the closing phrase it was "welcome to my little world". My partner thought that it would be good idea to add that to the bio of the account which i think was a great idea cause it matches with the vibe so perfectly. 

For the actual image of the post we wanted it to be a simple selfie picture to be sweet and welcoming. We created a rough of image that we wanted the image to look like and sent it over to her to see if she could try to take it for us to be able to use it as the post. She was able to do it and we used it as the image for our first post on instagram. Also this picture has the colors orange and blue which really represent what we are trying to show within our music video so it was a really great introductory way of full circling the picture to the video. We also of course had to choose an emoji, which with her orange hair we just had to choose an orange heart because it perfectly depicts what we want to convey. 

Mis-En-Scene

Within the music video, the girl is essentially going through heartbreak and trying to find herself without him. She will be going through a series of hobbies to find what she likes to do but in the end none of it works out for her. SOO i had this brilliant idea to put a scene in her room where there isn't much color but there is a BRIGHT journal standing out. The girl will open this journal and start to write songs, she begins to find herself and heal. Specifically in this part of the 2nd verse i knew it would work perfectly: 

Leave behind red for maroon 

But I remember breathing easier 

When I was up in blue

Me and my partner were thinking for this journal to be maybe red, maroon, or blue but there is already a lot of reds going on throughout the video. So ultimately we decided on blue for the journal. That meant the search for the perfect bright blue journal.

We originally went out looking for a plain blue journal. We only wanted it to be bright. We found one and we clung to it as we searched the rest of the store. But then, we found something better. We found a journal the perfect shade of bright blue that we imagined, but it also had a wave pattern on the cover. And Gaby and I knew that it was the one for this project. It had a sense of foreshadowing, as it connects to the finale of the video. This also uses the input I got from my group meeting, which was to connect the beach. throughout the video and not just make a jump cut into it. Here is the picture of me and my partner as soon as we found it. 

 

Finalized Shot List

Truthfully, this shot list is written here because we do not want to be looking at each other mid way down the day and see that we do not know what we are going to do next. We are only two people and our friend, we cannot afford to lose time out to play with the camera or even have to remember that there was that really good shot we thought we had last week. This list keeps us moving. It is similar to a cheat sheet that enables us to tick the things off a list so that we could in fact complete this project on time and not be stressed throughout the entire period of time we are filming.

The primary aim is to ensure that we are successfully getting approximately sufficient footage to produce our vision and actually make it look good to send to our artist. Nothing like making it home and working on an edit and realizing we forgot a close-up or a particular transition that allows the story to actually cohere. Having such a list ensures that we are first after the things that we really need. In that manner, were we begin to get time-starved or our actress makes the call, we already have the key stuff in the bag and we are not scurrying at the last minute.



Production Day #1

Last week we went out to the coast because we finally got the bridge and the final chorus of the music video on film. We were after that particular afterglow, the sun had already gone down behind us, but the sky over the water was changing these crazy colors of pink, orange and deep violet.

I had an idea that I would put the name of this song in the sand as one of the shots. I thought at first of going out and finding some seashells and make the letters out of those, but as I stared at the light as it went down, I saw that we would spend all the night finding shells enough to make it look right.

Therefore I glanced down to the earth. These enormous expanses of dark and tangled brown algae had been left all over the sand by the high tide. It struck me just then why I was seeking shells, when here was the very thing I wanted, the ink.

I simply mentioned it to my teamate and we sank on our knees and began picking up handfuls of the soft seaweed. There I began moulding and twisting the little brown strands into the letters of the title. It was, in fact, a great deal more enjoyable than the shell idea would have been, making my hands dirty and literally constructing the name of the song of the very beach. It was much more real, and the dark brown in contrast to the damp sand was much better than I had imagined.

We improvised with the remaining light as we did not have any strict plan. That freedom is more of the entire mood of the song in the first place, that sense of being able to finally get away and do whatever you like. It was a disorganized, off the cuff day but truthfully, it was a massive success. I am glad I got those photos of me assembling it all together.

Vinyl Research

 A vinyl release needs to visualize itself as a big artist to people to become prominent in the current age when people cannot overlook a large visual in social media or in shops. To an artist such as Taylor Swift, the best approach is to build a film world. Apply huge gatefolds and use professional photos of a high contrast which occupy the entire interior spread. The vinyl then appears in the style of a poster of the movie of that album of that time. This macro perspective causes individuals to believe it is an occasion and it gives the artist the image of an international star, thus fans perceive the record as a tangible structure rather than merely a computer file.

In the case of an artist such as Gracie Abrams, a personal, intimate brand comes into the limelight. The print must reach out to her as a personal invitation to her world. Incidentals, such as soft-touch matte laminate on the outer sleeve, or hand-written lyric notes on hefty cream paper. The information makes the record look and feel like a better, higher-end product, which the fanbase would want to display as an accolade of their lifestyle. This true style serves to make the artist a household name as he or she draws attention with style alone.

With bold text, the best textures, and massive images, we ensure that the vinyl is not just a thing to stream. It becomes impossible to pass over. This makes music a powerful branding tool which informs all people of how significant the artist is to the industry.

Vertigo Vinyl. (n.d.). Taylor Swift. Retrieved March 15, 2026, from https://vertigovinyl.com/taylor-swift?srsltid=AfmBOopGyJtRxG94sy_R3ajXk0eP8xVMw5Wap4u6KSAycgWqfztFA83g

Mills Record Company. (n.d.). Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department [Indie Exclusive Limited Edition Amber Vinyl]. Retrieved March 15, 2026, from https://millsrecordcompany.com/UPC/602465931266

Scheduling Shooting

 We have now begun to transition into the planning stages into actually shooting the portions of our music video, which is very exciting. At this moment we are almost complete with the list of shots we are going to use in the project and we have already shot one significant part of the video.

The initial scene shot was the last chorus of the song I will call you when I have made it. We had initially planned to wait when more of the video was well organized but we chose to shoot it earlier since it was during sunset at the beach. The time change had occurred this weekend, which meant that the sunset would begin to occur much later, and we wanted to have that kind of lighting that would fit our schedule. We have not been able to establish a definite schedule with spring break in our near future. However, we are going to shoot when we have an opportunity.

Thus far we have been able to complete the March 6 th beach shoot which was a great success. The lighting of the sunset was excellent and produced the atmosphere that we wanted in the last scene. It would have been ideal to film the west coast and get the entire sunset shot of the ocean but we used the location we had and still managed to get some really nice shots.

Group Meeting 1

 In our recent group meeting, each of us provided updates regarding our final film projects and got feedback on the same by the class. It was also useful to listen to the various ideas being formulated by people and the issues that they are grappling with.

Aneesa is collaborating with Zach, Nico, and Quinn on a dark meta-comedy. Their idea is centered on the breaking of the fourth wall in which the camera itself is a part of the narrative. The topic in the film will always attempt to draw the attention of the camera and this encounter becomes more pronounced as the story unfolds. The group has just altered their concept thus they are still in the heavy planning phase. Clarity and simplicity of the idea are one of their primary considerations. They intend to do their script over the weekend so that they can develop the plot to the fullest extent and how the camera will act as a character of its own. Other ideas proposed by the group were the possibility of shooting in a studio and setting the plot as a casting session where the protagonist is playing with the camera.

Mariana is collaborating with Audrey in a short drama based on grief. The novel is about a boy who is deprived of his sister and cannot cope with the fact. The movie will probably be told by the boy in his initial therapy session that will lead the viewer through flashbacks of the happenings that resulted in the tragedy. The group deliberated on various ways in which the sister can die and it was agreed that it should be an accident rather than a prolonged sickness to ensure the story concentrates more on the emotional aspect of the situation. The other recommendation was that the sister must be younger than the main character so as to enhance the sense of guilt and responsibility he feels.=

Fabiana is developing a psychological thriller whereby a rich man appears to have a flawless life but has been involved in a fatal accident several years ago. He later on gets a mysterious package that makes him face the past and slowly lose his sanity. Fabiana raised the issue of shooting some of the scenes, particularly those that involved a police station. The group recommended that the filming should take place outside the building rather than inside so that production becomes easier. The casting was also discussed and it was advised that the protagonist should be changed to a teenager to get an actor easily. The other interesting concept proposed was the presence of several personalities in the lead character such that one personality will commit a crime and the other will be unaware of it.

Adriana is collaborating with David to produce a comedy short movie concerning a character that has the ability to teleport through a penny. Whenever he attempts to do something good, things always go astray. In the film, David will perform and Adriana will concentrate on shooting and directing. She was a little worried about the editing aspect of the film as the teleportation effect will need very specific cuts in order to make the transition realistic. Another problem has been scheduling since David is busy doing his theater and spring break is on the verge.

Vicky is collaborating with Kenna and Renn on a coming-of-age narrative that is about personal development. The main idea they put across is that human beings keep on growing despite fear and stressful situations. The plot of the story is based on a girl who gets a plant as a gift given by one of her friends and cares about it, yet as life becomes more demanding the plant starts to wither. Her emotional state is a metaphor of the plant. However, the eventual growth of the story culminates in a friendship breakup, yet the plant grows on, an element of personal growth against all odds. The team proposed the use of variable size of the plants or artificial plants to demonstrate growth more conveniently than attempting to grow a real plant with time. The other recommendation was to make a voiceover at the end which clarifies the metaphor.

Emi is collaborating with Joaquin and Andrew on dark comedy film concerning a character who enters into a deal with the devil so that he can acquire power. As the story progresses, the character engages in activities to attain such power but loses his humanity. They are already done with their script, yet they worry about locating the right shooting places. The crew proposed to make the film less complicated and have just one death rather than a few and to shoot in the Markham Park. The other recommendation was that they should come up with their symbol rather than pentagram to make the film seem original.

Towards the end of the meeting, I presented my own project. I am producing a narrative music video, which is based on the style of such artists as Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo. The song that I am working with is I’ll Call You When I have Made It by Annie DiRusso. The video is based on the storyline of a breakup in which the relationship is happy, but it becomes more toxic as the song unfolds. Among the challenges that we discussed is that the chorus is repeated a number of times, and I would like each of the choruses to demonstrate something different rather than the same visual images. I also discussed the discussion of shooting a scene at the beach, where the conclusion would be the main character running and having the relationship off her back. According to the group, the beach scene was supposed to lead to that emotional release of freedom. Another suggestion they gave was to take pictures on the beach as part of the vinyl package part of the project. On the whole, the feedback enabled me to consider more how the final scenes are going to visually portray the character as a moving on.

Here is us in our group!

Social Media Research

Media text: Olivia Rodrigo

Social media tool: Instagram

Description of types of posts:

• The posts in the form of personal Instagram (a blurry photo, a mirror, snacks, friends).
• So much purple--purple cakes and purple clothes and purple lights.
• The short videos of her playing a new song on a piano in a bedroom.
• Out of date handwritten notes or typed out lyrics on a typewriter.
• High intensity tour shots in which she appears to be a rockstar.
• Tapes of her screaming or pretending to be overdramatic in line with her music.

Description of how branding is developed (or not): Her brand appears as teenage angst and 90s grunge. Everything was purple in the case of the GUTS album.She has a habit of mentioning something purple even in a random photo of what she is eating. It combines the atmosphere of a serious rockstar and a girl who is simply living in her dorm. It is unified yet unintentional.

Analysis of how you will use this to develop your own social media presence: I prefer the untidy yet well organized appearance. It makes her seem friendly. I would also like to experience the Photo Dump concept to give people the ordinary aspect of making music. I also noticed that she highlights one color to indicate a time frame, which makes the feed to be ordered but not too formal.

Media text: Ariana Grande

Social media tool: Instagram

Description of types of posts:

• Light pink, gray, and cream are soft and dreamy colours.
• Closer shots of her face with obvious make-up and hair styling.
• Backstage shots of her at the recording booth with an old-fashioned filter.
• Brief ads of her beauty brand (r.e.m. beauty) which incorporate her songs.
• Short video loops, which are nearly silent and adding mystery.

Description of how branding is developed (or not): Her branding is extremely high standards. In the case of Eternal Sunshine, the colors were always pink and cream. Her page resembles an art gallery unlike Olivia. It all fits perfectly and you can notice that each of the posts was designed several weeks earlier to fit in with her music videos.

Analysis of how you will use this to develop your own social media presence: I was able to observe that social media can be art. I would like to apply a single filter or color adjustment to all my promo videos that when a person scrolls Reels, he or she believes that they are a part of the same story. It involves an additional amount of work, but it makes the artist appear very professional.

Media text: Tate McRae

Social media tool: Instagram 

Description of types of posts: 

• Many “Sporty‑Glam” pictures. She puts on hockey jerseys, full make-up and high heeled shoes.
• She uploads videos of hard-core dancing training to tour. 
• The tour schedule is put on a scoreboard or other sports design.
• The music videos have be-hind the scenes views of ice rinks and lockers.
• There are reels in which she is singing with the backup dancers.
• She collaborates with such brands as Adidas or SKIMS.
• She shares photos during sporting activities including the NHL All-Star game.

Description of how branding is developed (or not): The name of her brand is The Athlete Popstar. She began as a dancer hence takes advantage of it. The appearance remains quite sporty- numerous jerseys, loose pants and sports environments. It is fast-moving and it makes her stand out of other pop stars who are either more glam or sad.

Analysis of how you will use this to develop your own social media presence: I observe that Tate is exploiting her hobby (dancing/sports) to differentiate her music brand. I would like to consider what I am unique in and present it on my Instagram. I appreciate the fact that she makes use of Reels to demonstrate her competencies, so I will add more video material to demonstrate my ability rather than merely beautiful photos.

 

Picking the Song

As a part of our research and planning process my partner and I began by listening to the album and making our choices about the song that would be most suitable in our final music video. These were the two songs which we thought about seriously Ode to the Industry (Cough Syrup) and I’ll Call You When I've Made It. To help us in making a decision, we reheard both songs a number of times and jotted the ideas and potential scenes that may suit the lyrics and the general feeling of both songs.

We talked it over and came to the decision of doing I’ll Call You When I’ve Made It. The key factor behind my selection of this song is that we could come up with a more coherent narrative and visual concepts behind it in comparison to the other choice. Although both songs were good, this one offered us more possibilities to create a story and develop various scenes, which can be compared to the moods of the lyrics. As you will see in the image below we braindumped on this document on ideas and nothing is really official but we had more ideas for this song.

Annie LeMasters is based in Nashville so our project will have to be entirely storytelling as opposed to a promotional video that the artist performs in it. This initially complicated the process of planning a bit since most of our initial thoughts were about performance scenes. But now we are dwelling on the narration with images and symbolic episodes rather.