Final video. Edited by Joe Williams

Day seven was a return to the Photography Lab with Roger helping me out. This last day was the same setup as day six minus the gels and black backdrop. We traded the black backdrop with a grey backdrop for smoother color and shadow diffusion with a more popping visual. No gels were used. Each shot was diverse and varied from jump shots to full song length shots to various angle shots. B roll was added into this as well for more footage to work with. We finalized everything on this day and ended the music video shootings.

Day six of the shooting was done indoors in our Photography lab in the Vorhees building. The CLT Roger helped me out in setting up a professional music video style area using a black backdrop, three umbrella lights set up as key, fill, and background to diffuse the shadows. We included a strobe light as well for a lighting affect that was triggered remotely. Roger was my camera operator while I guided direction of it as I was on camera. We added gels into the shooting as well to make a different color and add more to aggression and creativity. They were all static shots on a tripod.

Day five and six were days I blended in as b roll footage day. For a good 4 – 6 hours I was spending my time going back into the areas I went and shot b roll of the environment and other points of interest along the way that was fitting for grit and aggression. The lighting outside was a pain because of how it would bounce back and forth between sunny and cloudy. Every time this occurred I needed to keep adjusting my Nikon’s Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO to get as balanced as I can with lighting each shot was taken. Movement, focus changes, static shots, panning, and tilting were all being used to capture what I felt fit the video the most.

Later on, I was shooting static shots with my tripod in my apartment to develop a sub plot into the song. The sub plot was meant to be how I can’t really understand or get with how other rappers are involving style, look, and flow. However it can also be interpreted as the making of the song and the process of the writing.

In total, about 110 b roll footage was shot.

Day four of shooting was utilizing green screen. Shooting with a Nikon D5200, me and my partner Anthony Hom rigged the green screen in a basement of SEA Theatre. We hung it up and made a key, light, and fill style light structure for the filming. While we were filming, we did various angles and punch ins of certain parts in the song to add more clips. I was mainly static for most of the shots to provide more green screen coverage with some moving shots of both the camera operator and myself, however it still felt out of sync from the first two days of footage. I don’t know if it was because there is no Gimbal Stabilizer or a different camera or just lack of vision, comfort, or creativity that I lacked. Regardless it was a nice experiment.

Day Three of shooting turned into a failed attempt that was not used at all for post production ideas. It was shot in SEA Theatre using a LED light with a black curtain. Other shots were in their bathroom and on a staircase which were also a failure. It was not strong and did not fit the vision nor the song overall. I scrapped all the footage. There was a interesting shot possibly used as b roll involving a caution tape broken and used. It nay make it in post, however I doubt it will be used.

Day two of footage was primarily done inside Simple Studios’s chroma key room. The chroma key room was dimly lit so with Jordy’s light equipment of an Umbrella Light we attempted to bring better brightness and less shadow against the chroma wall. We shot between 3 and 5 takes which one consisted of B roll. All but one was salvageable because of how difficult it was to bring the proper lighting into the room. We were also time limited an hour to film. It was still a successful shooting day as with chroma key anything is possible in post production. We shot with Jordy’s Canon 5D and his own tripod and made static shots.

Day one of shooting music video. With aid form Jordy Deleon being the camera operator, we shot numerous continuous shots down an alleyway under the Manhattan bridge. After that, we went to a nearby skate park to do the same shoot ideas however do more lower angles. The skateboarders and the background fit with the style trying to achieve. The alleyway was a good location because of both grittiness and artwork that was present throughout.

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