On the 2nd of February, I went to Tavoy Films International in Martinez to meet with my mentor, Mr. Teddy Gyi. I arrived at the building early in the morning at around 11 a.m. My mentor introduced me to a number of staff. I was the assistant director for the day.
I helped in the preparation of the music video "Gas" by Problems and Iamsu, upcoming bay area rappers. In this music shoot, I helped by taping down where the rappers would stand, where they could not pass, and other such things. I used the clapper and had to announce what scene and take it was. I've almost made the mistake of going into the shoot because I thought it was another take.
In the second music shoot, for the song "In The Sunlight" by Sharyn Maceren, we made a makeshift room. A bed, curtains, window, tv, and what would look like a real room. It was a lot of work but exciting.
I learned that lighting is one of the most important aspects in video shooting. We used two softboxes opposite to each other and two barndoor as well. We used all four lighting tools for the rappers to make them look glamorous. We wanted to eliminate all shadows. For the singer, we had to put the lighting to where we needed it. We moved it around a lot to eliminate shadows and have a direct shot of what we were shooting.
For the rapper music video, we had about six scenes with about three of four takes each. We had a b-roll for a hip-hop dancer that was part of the rappers crew. We also had b-roll for the singer.
It was a long day and I was still sick at the time. I lost my voice but it was worth the hours and experience I learned from that day. I log about 11 hours. I was there from 11 am to 10pm.
