Music Video: Pre-Production

Pre-Production for the music video has come; following are my plans so far:

The band for my music video is a group of friends from my church who just formed a band recently.

The place that we will be recording is most likely the sanctuary of my church, however if permission is not given the back-up plan is to record in the Shepherd University studio.

The band has not recorded any songs yet, so I don't have a song to work with and decide how I want to shoot yet. When a song is decided, we may record live as we shoot the video. There are at least three ways that we could record live:

• We can use one microphone -strategically placed- and connect it to a digital camera to record the video and audio. Then, after filming, I can alter the track through imaging.
• We can use two microphones and record while we take the video footage.
• We can use the church recording equipment to record the sound as we take the video footage.

There is no set date to record yet.

COMM 360 Syllabus

COMM 360- Studio Production is a class that on the first day of class I was wondering if I should actually take. I don’t know the first thing about production for television, so I was very nervous. However, when we went through the studio as a class looking at the equipment and talking about how things worked, I started to feel like this is something that I can do.

 As I was reading the syllabus for this course, I kind of felt the same way. Yes, there is a lot that I don’t know about studio production, but the syllabus talks about a lot of the things that we will be doing in class this semester. The most helpful bit to me was the list of tasks in studio production. It gives very simple and understandable descriptions of what each of the people in the studio do.

While Studio Production is not the specific job I want to do for the rest of my life, it will be a good set of skills to have. If I eventually work in sound or lights for live performances, it is going to be helpful to have a background in production skills. If I work as a video editor, it’s still important to be able to work in a team, and in studio production working as a team is quite essential.

Overall, Studio Production is going to be helpful no matter what I do in the future, so I’ll just get over my nerves and do the best that I can.

COMM 333 Syllabus

The course syllabus for COMM 333 – Music Video has a lot of useful information. It outlines what will be taught in the course this semester and provides information on COMM Department policies as well as University policies. However, probably the most important thing in the syllabus to me was the statement “COMM 300- level courses are, for the most part, practical, hands-on and intellectual, critical-thinking courses” (p8). I learn by doing, so hands-on is really the best thing I could hope for in a class like this one. Hands-on experience with video making software like Final Cut Pro is extremely helpful for finding a job when I graduate. Getting experience with cameras and lighting is amazingly helpful as well.

Also, many of the videos we will be looking at in class will be outside of my personal frame of reference. I listen to and watch Asian and European music videos more than I do American music videos. In the media field, I need to be familiar with American media as well as what I would normally be interested in. Expanding my frame of reference can help me to understand what references in other media may be and can help when I make videos and other media.

This course will be giving me the opportunity to up my chances of getting a job when I graduate by a) giving me hands on experience with video making software and equipment as well as b) expanding my frame of reference.