Throughout the as year in media i learnt alot of new technical skills that helped me with my final piece of work. Some of the technical skills i had never heard of but i thought it was very enjoyable to learn new skills. 1. I learnt the different camera angles , Close ups , Mid shots, Wide Shots , Hand Held and many more this was very helpful as different camera angles shows aspects of the film.
2. We used final cut to edit our thriller films.
3. We used this to make different types of music.
3. Life Type to create different types of text and effects.
Final Cut Pro - In final cut pro we edited the clips of a band, which had seperate shots of each member playing their instrument. This is how we learnt to
BASE TRACK EDIT: when the track is marked to the beat and section of the clips are cut out in time to the beat.
We synced the clips with the tracks so that the mouths were in syncs, then i marked the tacks and cut random bits out in time to the beat (base track editing)
TOOLS: RAZOR, ,ARKER AND TINY ADJUSTMENTS OF CLIPS (ALT LEFT/RIGHT ARROW)
hard to sync the clips to the word on the soundtrack
easy to base track edit once the clips were synced, easy to use markers
FILMING OF OUR OWN LIPSYNC - SONG: BEACH BOYS - SURFIN USA.
at first we did not know that we had to lip sync so we shot random clips of things in the field.
After this we lip synced the song.
then we added the song on final cut pro and synced the clips and did the base track edit, like the first band clips.
We decided not to waste the first clips and added them during the insrumentals.
I was pleased with the video for a practice, it taught us how to lipsync,
has hard to lipsync as we didn't know the song.
My DIGIPACK!!!
I took screenshots of the final surfin usa video to add them to the digipack
The picture looked plain so i edited it on photoshop before adding it to the digi pack
added tracklist
added barcode ect
Picture for the middle of the digipack:
edited to make it blurry and more colourful
added pictures to the shot.
Most proud of this, spent most tine on it
it was easy after you play around with things, the layers were really annoying, have to lock/unlock all the time and freezing things before you move on.
I wanted to stretch the front cover image over the front and back to have a colour scheme. also ifleft the full image over just the front cover it would look squashed. the big image makes more of an impact.
also if i cut the image and kept it at the large size that it is, it would look strange to have just the tops of shoulders and faces in the shot.
I wanted the best picture to be on the cover.
The inside was an image of the band that was stretched over two pannels.
If i did this again i would use two sepetrate images for the inside, as the Cd will cover two people in the group.
Also i would add information on the spine to make it look more realistic.
Front cover
Promotion
Unfinished!
added tour dates, headings, and 'sold out' stickers.
I would have liked to finish it, add back ground ect, information about the music ect.
In the A2 summer lessons, we got the chance to experiment with photoshop to create a digipack. This is the packaging in which the C.D is sold in. The digi pack is very important and must keep in style with the house style of the band or artist. This is why i have taken still shots from the short music video demo, as the images are what would be synonymous with the band. Many artists base their digi pack house style on a particular music video of theirs and I have chosen to do the same.
I edited the pictures on photoshop to make them stand out and look interesting. The front cover image I am particularly proud of as it has a 'upbeat summer' feel that matches our song, Surfin' USA. I wanted the image to stretch across the front and back cover so the theme was continuous, also the image looked squashed when i put it as the front cover. I did the same on the inside so that the audience gets a feel of the whole band and is able to recognize them.
To make the digi pack look authentic, I added a bar code as well as copy right and label information of the back cover.
So I finally am able to access the blog so this is where the work begins!
My name is Charlene Moore, and I'm really excited for this coursework to begin. Mainly because it revolves around one of my favorite things: music! I listen to music all the time, like any other teenager, an also watch music on youtube. I got to have a taster of the coursework at the beginning of summer and now have so many ideas that I was thinking about over the summer.
‘In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly.’ Laura Mulvey, 1992
If we were to break down what Laura Mulvey is trying to say we would see that in her opinion society works in such way that it creates this representation where males are the dominant, powerful beings who shape the way females should act and look, once this idea is shaped it is constantly applied and females are therefore compared to this ‘fantasy’ and represented in such way that is closes to it.
An example of Mulvey’s theory is Benny Benassi – Satisfaction. In this video we clearly see women’s body being segmented for the male viewing.A lot of the time there’s close ups or pans of certain parts of the female body, reinforcing the idea that there is a focus not on women as a whole, but a focus on parts of their body. The whole video is based on two things we assume men like, hard work and females so Benny Benassi has gone and combined them together. The choice of clothing is too suited for male viewing with there being as little as possible.
Eric Prydz – Call on Me is another example that follows Mulvey’s ideas of representation in music video. The whole video is based on females doing yoga in as little clothing as possible. Similarly to the video above there’s constant use of close ups of different body parts of the female, clearly implying that its targeted at males.
In ‘Experiencing Music Video’, Carol Vernallis’s focuses on the editing and camerawork of music videos and tries to explain to us the main points and ideas on those particular areas that are taken in consideration when making a music video.
While studying editing and camera work, Vernalli has realised that editing in music videos come much more frequently than in films and in fact they seem to have a rhythmic basis which in most cases is closely connected to the song. This means that the usual rules of ‘continuity’ editing which we came across with our thriller productions is broken when it comes to music videos, mainly because that way you tend to draw the viewers’ attention to what is on the screen.Similarly, edits such as wipes, may be made really obvious for the same reason to draw attention to them. Another thing which is very common to music videos is the use of jump cuts, this is perhaps as common in music videos as the use of close ups of the main artist. Having close ups of the main artist not only makes the audience aware of who the main artist is, but also promotes them. Finally, Vernallis’s informs us that a master shot (also known as base track) is frequently used in order to give the video a structure.
Just Jack – Straz in Their eyes is an example of a music video that illustrates Vernallis’s ideas because we can clearly see the obvious use of special effects in the course for instance when the people explode an turn into stars. Similarly, there are about 3 base tracks, the hotel corridor, the black screen, and then the stage which the video keeps going back to. There is also no real continuity as the video features a variety of places that are pretty much different or not linked with one another and there isn’t much of a story middle and end.
Supergrass – Sun Hits the Sky is another example of a video that follows the points Vernallis had made. In Sun Hits the Sky, straight away there’s use f jump cuts as the red car makes its way close and close to the camera. Similarly, it is obvious that the base track for the video was the desert where the group was signing and playing their instrument, this is known because ever so often it would go back to them playing an singing along to the song. Finally, there’s use of obvious edits such as the overlapping of two scenes near the end, this is an interesting technique to use because it grabs the audiences’ attention, while also relating to the mood of the song as it’s very calm.
