Incandesence

Whoa, wait, I put up ANOTHER new video? But thats twice in one month! Thats almost more videos than yuo put up in the entirety of last year!

But yes, it is true. I have put up another video and it is just absolutely awesome! I think its my favourite so far, if only because I've put so much work into it. I have been dieing to talk about it on my blog for weeks, but my mom supposebly reads these things and this video was a birthday present for her so I couldnt. We'll just ignore the fact that her birthday was April 27th and I posted this on May 24th.... its less than a month late, so it still counts rigth?!

So without further ado - here is the loverly Birthday Rap song I wrote and filmed for my mother :

I wrote the actual song maybe 2 months before her birthday. It wasn't actually supposed to be a rap song. When I started writing, I was thinking it would be fun to make it "artsy" (kinda like mock-artsy, like this is mock-rappy lol) and do some stort of beat-poem. But the more I wrote it, the more and more evident it was that this was becoming a rap. It wasn't SUPPOSED to be one, just kind of happened. I mean really, I think I am probably one of the last people on Earth yuo would expect to write a rap, and my mother is definitely the last person on Earth yuo'd expect me to write a rap for! Once it was started however, I just kinda went with it. I think it had a mind of its own by that point anyway.

Now from my last mid-term to my first exam I had about a month-long break. I still had classes and I had one minor paper, but really I didnt havent anything too pressing to do. And yet somehow, one thing led to another and all of a sudden I was inthe middle of exams and stressing out and definitely had no time to be trying to film something like this. Mom's birthday was just at an inconvienent time as well, falling on the first day of the most stressful part of my exam period. So not gonna happen.

 But dont worry, I didnt waste all that free time. I've been watching a lot of youtube videos (as started in a previous blog) and have learned a few tricks of the trade. When shooting a music video - record the vocals ahead of time. Then when you are filming the actual video, you play it in the background and either mouth or sing along with it. Then when you are editing, yuo just mute all the sound and add in the vocals over top the video footage. Singing with is definitely better than mouthing because then you know you are on cue and it will probably make it easier to sinc up later. I didnt do that, and heres why - that rap is pretty fast and doesnt raelly have any pauses in it. And as much as it is my song, I didnt know it quite well enough when I was FINALLY doing my filming (tho I damn sure know it well enough now). So I was trying to sing it and figure out actions/dancing moves/whatever at the same time and just kept getting it all garbled. It was just easier for me to mouth it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So during my break from exams, I recorded the vocals - which is more than just saying words into a microphone. I had to find a rap beat to go with it. And yes, I said 'find'. I dont know how to mix rap beats and have no real sense for rap. I also dont have the computer programs nessisary for mixing a rap beat even if I had any clue how to go about it. This was super frusterating however because apparently all free rap-beats on the internet are REALLY slow! Like wth? I always thought rap was supposed to be quick and upbeat, but apparently not. My rap however is definitely quick and upbeat (and I could do it quicker to! Because I talk too fast :P) so it was a real pain in the bum trying to find a good one. I had so many downloaded rap beats on my computer now, I really SHOULD start seriously rapping :P (ok, maybe not....)

Once I found it, it was pretty simple. Get a feel for the beat and record myself singing overtop of it. I use a program called Audacity, free off les Internets, for putting them together. It wasn't like it was the most complicated of mixing ever.

And then it sat for weeks and weeks. Even after exams where done, yuo'd think I'd have had more time to film right? Wrong - I dont even know how it happened, but I was just always busy (and still kind of am tho it has died down a bit). I was handing out resumes, I was being social, I was running errands and... looking back, it doesnt seem like much, but it is. I even went out and bout a few "Gangsta" clothes from Value Village and Giant Tiger (Thats right, $5, maybe $10!) , with plans to get filming. But it kept getting pushed back. Anyway finally last week I thought to myself "enough is enough!" and set aside a day for filming. Except it ended up taking more than just a day. I always forget how much goes into filming. You  have to think lighting, angles, storage space on my computer. If you mess up one little thing you have to go back to the begining again (or closest start point. It's kind of like playing a video game). It definitely ended up taking me more than a day (didnt help that filming was interupted by a bbq-party that was originally supposed to be an evening but I ended up hanging around most of the next day lol)

The angles for me was the worst part, and I still wish I could have done a better job. If yuo watch rap videos its like weird side angles, nothing straight on. However the video camera I used to use for my movies is no longer usable with my new computer (which is a crazy bummer, but that camera is like 5/6 years old at this point anyway) (speaking of, anyone want to buy a camera?!), so I ended up havign to use a combination of my in-built computer webcam and my little digital camera. And I dont have  tripod. AND when I was trying to get a cool angle for one of my shots with my digital, I dropped it while its lens was open and screwed up the zoom function (its been mostly fixed now however, thank gawd). So that definitely limted what I was and wasnt able to do.

So filming ended up taking about 3 days, which wasnt too bad but was also kind of gross because I had to straighten my hair for it - straightening my hair is a lot of work and takes a lot time and I kind of hate doing it. I look really nice with straight hair, but its not worth the effort. So, and heres my big secret, I showered the mornign off and then didnt shower again until that last shot was filming (and then I practically dove into the shower). As long as I didnt shower, my hair stayed relatively straight (tho I did have to do a few touch-ups here and there because my hair absolutely refuses to stay pin straight no matter how hard I tried). Definitely felt gross by the end of that third day.

By this point in time, I was super into the video so I wasnt going to let it lie again. I started editing. I LOVE computer editing, I really really do. I've been in love with photoshop for years and am half-decent at it, if I do say so myself. In general terms of things you probably wouldnt call me a detail person, nor the most patient person in the world. But when it comes to editing, I can sit and do it for hours on end and wouldn't even notice the time go by (unless you ask me to choose fonts. Dont know what it is about fonts, but I lose interest so quickly when worrying about font choice.) So once I started editing, I dont stop.

Ok, thats not completely true this time around. I have two editing programs - Pinnacle Studios and Adobe Premier. Primier is a better program, gives you more control and better effects. HOWEVER, apparently it doesn't recagnise the files from my digital camera. SOOOooo, I ended up using Pinnacle. Except a lot of the effects I wanted (eg. Barney and Fred driving across the bottom of the screen) I wasnt able to do. It ended up frusterating me so much that I had to just give up for the night and sleep on it before I scrapped everything altogether. Also Pinnacle kept screwing up the audio, making it harder for me to sync everythign up properly. Once I slept on it however, I decided that I would take the video I had all edited together, spit it out as an AVI file and then add the effects in Premier. I love Premier, its so much easier to use (which is saying something, considering I've been using Pinnacle since I was 15 and know it pretty well by now.) I could have gone on editing that for ages, but at some point in time I had to call it quits, stop tweaking and decide it was finished. And once I get to that point, I have to upload it rigth away or I'll go back and tweak and tweak again.

Also, once its uploaded I can't watch it again. I've very proud of it, I think its hilarious, but if I notice one little error in editing it'll eat away at me.

Anyway, I think the whole proccess was a success. Like I said, I'm very proud of what came out of it. I think everyone else is enjoying it, I know my mother loved it. And Internets, I hope you like it to! I may never rap again (altho some of my friends are demanding that I do) but I do many more ideas for videos that I shalt post in the future! :D