Final Cut Pro

Today we had our Final Cut pro lesson and now have thought of many good ides and effects we can incorporate in our music video.
We have decided to use stop motion animation to have a flower appear in the pupil of an eye at the beginning of our music video.
Also we have decided to have a montage of real footage and pictures from the 60's and 70's to represent  the era our song is about and our theme.
I have learned some valuable skills which will help me in editing and adding effects to make our music video more interesting and reflect the message we are trying to portray.
The images underneath are our pictures we are using for stop motion:

Filming

On Wednesday we filmed our hippy scenes for our music video in Forty Hall.
We mangaged to get some great framing shots and pans, tilts and many close ups of the hippy's face and her singing.
We are now half way through our filming and only need to film our office worker scenes up london.
Whilst filming we had many other ideas for different shots using the bad weather and muddy fields to our advantage.
We also have incorporated using animals in our music video as we wanted to show our hippy in a natural environment so have included a mid shot of her in a field surrounded by sheep.

What is a Digipak?

A digipak is a patented style of CD or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI Shorewood which is an atlas holdings LLC company.
Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (which means book style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.


Manufacturers have sought to reduce environmental impact and improve functionality by introducing recycled components into its trays; one has announced a 100% post-consumer PET tray made from recycled bottles, which also eliminates the need for the brittle "teeth".  Another one goes one step further by totally eliminating the plastic tray and replacing it with a paper tray made from sugarcane and egg carton. Many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the board stock.


Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s.

For my digipak I will have four panels.
The material I will use will be 300gsm card with matt or gloss varnish. I will use four printed colours or pantone colours.
The dimensions will be 139.5mm x 6mm x 125.5mm.

Here is a template of a four panel digipak:

Here is an image of a digipak used by an artist from our genre:

This is Katy Perry's digipak, which you can see relates to her theme and her genre.

Signifiers and the Signified theory

Ferdinand De Saussure popularized the the idea of signifier and signified.
Signifier is the physical form which we can see or hear in the clip, whilst signified is the meaning attached to the signifier in the clip.
For example signifier is the word tree and signified is the mental image of a tree.
Roland Barthes adapted this theory into a symbolic code and puts together the signifiers of the text, referring them to groups.
Here are a few example of signifiers:


This image shows a band playing in a deserted area showing they
are alone, signifying they are different and unique to others in society.

This still image shows a nature background and a girl wearing white.
This signifies the girls innocence and purity as she is wearing white
and her being down to earth and peaceful due to the nice natural setting.

Voyeurism

The idea of voyeurism comes from the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud. It means the notion of looking and watching someone or something for entertainment without the person knowing. People who do this are more commonly known as peeping toms.
Voyeurism is used in the media particularly is music videos.
Laura Mulvey 1975 says that because most filmmakers are predominantly male, the presence of women is often solely for the purposes of display (rather than for narrative purposes).
This facilitates a voyeuristic response such as the male gaze which is a powerful and controlling gaze at women.
There is a lot of voyeurism used in rap music videos.
Here is a  representation of this:

Filming - Day 1

This is a screen shot showing what we have filmed so far. This shows stop motion of a flower which represents nature and anti technology.
As weel as this we have footage of an eye opening and closing. We will edit this to have a flower in the eye instead of a pupil, showing the girls hippy side and again representing anti technology.
We have other stop motion ideas such as a daisy chain wrapping itself around a phone, and stickers of flowers appearing on the guitar.

As well as this we have many ideas for cutaway shots to show nature and our characters down to earth nature such as a pan of birds flying in the sky.

We are also representing the era of what our character is singing about which is the 60s and 70s. To show this we will have cutaway shots of peace signs, flower power as well as leather jackets and motorcycles. We will also change the effect on our camera to black and white etc to make our footage look old fashioned.

Filming Locations

This photo of St Pauls Cathedral has inspired me to film a montage of shots of Londons famous landmarks including Big Ben and the London eye.

This shot especially interests me because of the framing. The symmetry of the photo and the lines of the bridge are interesting and is good composition for our music video.

Shooting Schedule

We are now planning what we are going to include in our music video and ideas that we have to use stop motion

Framing and Composition

Composition

The term composition means 'putting together,' and can apply to any work of art, from music to writing to photography, that is arranged or put together using conscious thought.

The position of the viewer can strongly influence the aesthetics of an image, even if the subject is entirely imaginary and viewed "within the mind's eye". Not only does it influence the elements within the picture, but it also influences the viewer's interpretation of the subject.

The rule of thirds is a guideline followed by some visual artists. The objective is to stop the subjects and areas of interest (such as the horizon) from bisecting the image, by placing them near one of the lines that would divide the image into three equal columns and rows, ideally near the intersection of those lines.

Here is a youtube clip about the rule of thirds