Final Cut Transition Research

A transition is the visual effect that is used to carry along or to change the transition between two clips or images. I researched the basic transitional effects – at the start of the project - of Final Cut and listed them below.

3D Simulations

These transitions are Cross Zoom, Cube Spin, Spin 3D, Spinback 3D, Swing, and Zoom. They are used to create a large impact between clips, to catch the attention or to give off a somewhat futuristic or humorous feel to the audience. Such a transition style would not be suitable for our music video as it is too bold and would ruin the emotion we are trying to create.

Dissolves

These transitions are Additive dissolve, Cross dissolve, Dither dissolve, Fade In, Fade Out, Non-Additive dissolve, and Ripple dissolve. Dissolve is the most commonly used transition. These transitions morph the image into something else by gradually erasing what was there before hand.

Page Peel

Page peel is literally as its name states, the first clip feels away like a page to reveal the second clip. Such an effect could possibly be used in conjunction with the “memories” theme however it is still a little too bold to be placed within our video.

QuickTime

The 13 QuickTime transitions are Alpha Compositor, Chroma Key, Cross Fade, Explode, Gradient wipe, Implode, Iris, Matrix wipe, Push, Radial, Slide, Wipe, and Zoom. QuickTime has its own selection on effects. Cross fades are used in out video to create a soft yet ghostly effect between clips. Other transitions however are a little too overpowering to be used. 

Slide

These transitions are Band slide, Box slide, Center Split slide, Multi-Spin slide, Push slide, Spin slide, Split slide, and Swap slide.

Stretch and Squeeze

These transitions are Cross Stretch, Squeeze, Squeeze and Stretch, and Stretch.

Using these transitions makes the clips look rather distorted, so would be inappropriate to use in such a serious and deep meaning video, as they will stretch the faces and backgrounds of clips to something bizarre. 

Wipe

These transitions include Band wipe, Center wipe, Checker wipe, Checkerboard wipe, Clock wipe, Edge wipe, Gradient wipe, Inset wipe, Jaws wipe, Random Edge wipe, V wipe, Venetian Blind wipe, Wrap wipe, and Zigzag wipe. Wipes are different to dissolves as they do not blend in the transition process. Although they are not as subtle as dissolves, so would not be suitable for our video. Wipes are often used in family memory or home video editing, again as they provide a somewhat comic aspect.

Music Video Research

Music Video research:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PojE1LTswV0&ob=av2e

The first video I looked at was “Memories” by Within Temptation. Dissimilar to the band’s usual rock based music, this song was rather slow in comparison and filled with deep meaning. The song is about looking back to the past with hints of loss and regret with the imagery of faded reflections in the mirror and a ghost like presence in both the video and the lyrics. In comparison to our own music video, the piece has been saturated to give it a dramatic and emotional feel, is story lined based and has a gothic quality to it. “Memories” however features the artist a lot more often than in our own video, is of a different genre and does not involve a couple particularly. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_S_TbD1XFM&ob=av2e

The second video I looked at was “Almost Lover” by A Fine Frenzy. This video is based around the loss of a love, similar to our own music video. It also includes elements of memories and looking back to the past, as if the woman’s lover had died for some reason. This feel is mirrored in our own music video project, but it is portrayed differently. There is so differentiation between the past and the present; all the clips are actually rather bright which gives a lighter sense to the video. This matches the lyrics; “I never want to see you unhappy”.  The video overall has a very home-movie feel to it which, after reading feedback, is similar to our own video, but “Almost Lover” shows only one half of the couple and not the man. Furthermore the singer acts the woman of the couple, whereas in our video I played the artist and Nicola was the actress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Zqq5YY4t4

The third video I researched was “Reila” from the Japanese band The GazettE. Although the video is, of course, in Japanese I discovered many reasons as to why it is relevant to analyse in contrast to our own music video.  The song and video again reflect a feeling of lost love and looking back to the past, reliving memories – shown by the girl looking back to her childhood, wishing to be a ballerina. The lyrics “Reila... Even if I try to call out your name, this voice does not reach you...” reflect this notion.  The saturation of the video and the transitions used are also very similar to that of our own music video, as well as the pace of the song (despite being rock) and the haunting aspect of the video. The imagery of death and mourning is also used in the video, when Ruki – the singer - places flowers over the body towards the end of the piece. However the video is rather different to ours as the artists, particularly Ruki, are shown throughout most of the video and the pace of editing is much faster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX093fWDzfI

The fourth video I looked at was another by The GazettE, called “Pledge.” Rather different from the previous, this video was much slower paced and less dramatic in costume and imagery. The entirety of the video is in black and white, giving a very dramatic yet cold look to the video but the band are features less to give way to the actors performing the main story line of the video. Again it gives a sense of lost love and regret, especially with the imagery of tears and rain, and lyrics such as “Our hearts must know the meaning of losing each other”. Raw emotion is also shown more on Ruki’s face as he sang, which I tried to mimic in my own lip-synching performance in our video.  The pace of editing has also slowed down slightly to match in with the feel of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkFHlAdGGV4&feature=related

The final video I looked at, back to English again was “Snuff” by Slipknot. Very different to their usual style “Snuff” is very slow and does not contain any elements of metal or heavy guitar/drums/screamo. Instead to fit into the emotion of the song, the singer’s voice is the main focus.  What I found interesting of this video was the fact the artist is not shown lip synching at all, which is very dramatic for a music video, but may have been done for the fact the artist is seen throughout with no mask on. There is also a heavy sense of voyeurism, through television screens, uses of phones and the fact the actor is sneaking into his ex-lovers room with her only in the next room.  The video does give a sense of lost love, but not because of death yet the feeling of haunting is still shown purely because of the man’s break in.

MTV Task

After watching the five nominees videos we feel as if the winner should have been Katy Perry with her song ‘firework’. This is for many reasons.

For example the genre characteristics are shown through the dance routine at the end of the video. The Mise-en-scene reflects the genre of pop due to the bright colours shown and the carefully chosen outfits. The lighting is always bright so this shows the genre because it helps to emphasise the positive connotations. Also the pace of the song highlights the pop genre as it’s quite upbeat. There are special effects within this video when the fireworks are shown. This shows the pop genre as bright colours are shown to light up the sky.

There is a strong link between the lyrics and the visuals. For example when the lyrics ‘there’s a chance for you’ are sung you see a boy suffering from cancer, so it’s as if she’s singing to him to give him self-confidence. Another strong example was when the lyrics ‘come on show ‘em what your worth’ this is when you see a boy trying to stop the violent argument between his parents so it’s as if she’s telling him to stand up for what he feels.

The music pace always matches the visuals. Within the verses the pace is much slower so it puts the point of the lyrics across which is emphasised because the chorus of the ‘fireworks’ is uplifting.

There are quite a few close ups to put across Katy Perry’s facial expression as that portrays the mood of the lyrics.

There is a vague amount of Intertextuality when the dance routine is shown at the end as it crosslink’s to the film Fame.

Overall we thought this video was the best because it had a meaning to it. Compared to the other videos, which were just natural or voyeurism to the females’ body.

By Nicola Gutteridge and

Abi Gourlay

Mercury Music Prize Task

GhostPoet

How do their clothes, hair, accessories, shoes influence your impression of them?

In the promotional image we studied we decided his clothes were smart/casual and quite basic so therefore this gives us the impression that he’s just an average man. He always wears a hat so this gives us the impression that this is the smart element in combination with his shoes. His expressions are always very serious which reflects that his lyrics will be quite meaningful and serious.

Can you tell what genre of music they make by the image?

Initially we thought that he would fit into the reggae/soul music genre due to the style/look he portrays. However we didn’t have a strong feeling about him fitting into this category. So we think he might be apart of a hybrid genre.

What does the composition of the image tell you about the artist?

The colours are quite washed out and simple. The lightings quite natural but its only on one side. So it reflects his mood and again empathising that he’s quite a serious guy. There are no props so this shows he’s the main focus and he likes to be basic and have the focus on the music. He’s positioned in the centre of the frame, which shows us that he’s the focus. He’s standing naturally so therefore he’s just an everyday guy who doesn’t care about his image, as he’s just got a passion for his music. The location is as if he’s in a college with a chalkboard behind. The chalkboard includes writing/scribbles, which are crossed out. This gives us the impression that he’s made mistakes in his past and his lyrics will reflect this.

Analysis of Music Video against Goodwins theory

From watching the video we realised that he doesn’t have any bold genre characteristics so this shows us that he falls in and out of different genres. An example of this is he vaguely shows rap characteristics as the focus is of him and his lyrics with no dance routines. The lyrics and visuals have a strong link throughout the music video. As the visuals are quite dark/dull this reflect his lyrics of the song as they are quite strong and on about surviving in a world that has cutbacks and conditions which are tough. 

Also it gives us the impression that he’s had a tough past. The link between the music and visuals are that they are both very basic so that you focus on the lyrics. It shows the emotion of the song by the simplicity of both the visuals and the music. Their weren’t many close ups of the artist although he was always on the screen. This shows he doesn’t want to be the centre of the attention, as he isn’t trying to enhance his image.  Due to the fact he fits vaguely into the rap genre there is no voyeurism. This is because again the focus is always the lyrics. There are no signs of intertextuality as the video is very basic. 

After watching the music video we were surprised. This is because we thought it would be more upbeat and lively. And include more than just him. We also expected the lyrics to be quite short and snappy so they would be catchy, however this wasn’t present.

Biography

The artists name is Obaro Ejimiwe and he has been in the industry since 2006. He works for Brownswood Recordings UK.

Word Justification

Here is our word justification for the the artist construction task.

The location we have chosen will be by one of the trees within the Long Road site. We have chosen to use this location because it’s quite simple so therefore the attention and focus will be on the artist. The image we are trying to create is a punk/rock image. So this will include bright colours, a bold outfit, outrageous hair and a simple location so therefore the focus is on the artist. We have decided the artist will be just to the right of the frame and it will be a long shot so that the audience can see the artist clearly. The outfit will be a punk styled dress, tights and shorts. We have chose this as then it will clearly reflect the genre of punk. As we are trying to show the punk genre the artists’ hair will be quite messy and eye catching. We have chosen not to use any props as we looked at existing punk album covers and props generally aren’t used. We have also decided that in Photoshop we will turn the image to black and white with a bit of colour in the title and the artist.  The colour theme will be quite bold but not varied so they are striking yet quite dull too. We feel as if this will put the image across to the audience that our artist fits into the punk genre. Overall the image we are trying to create will be to reflect the punk genre. From looking at examples of punk bands the image is to reflect the genre not the song, so therefore we will be aware of this when putting our poster together. The image overall will be quite simple however the thing which will make it stand out will be the artist due to the artist being in colour with the background dull. We think this will work well to sell the artist, as the audience will see that being comfortable in your own style is okay. 

Artist Construction Task

 Here is the task we did at the very beginning before creating our video. To learn the basic conventions needed etc.

Creation of our commentary

Today we put our commentary all in order. So next lesson we will be editing it to a great standard.

Deadlines

The deadlines which are approaching are the following:

Editing commentary - on blog by Wednesday 14th December

Improve our individual evaluations - finialised by Monday 12th December

Blog Work - Finalised by Thursday 15th December

Directors Commentary

Today we filmed our commentary it was successful and we got a variety of clips, shots and footage in general to accompany voice overs and screen shots of our video.

For the next two lessons after today we shall be editing our footage and putting together our final directors commentary

Our final products

Creation of our magazine advert

After creating our digipak and the haunted theme working we decided to carry on with this in our magazine advert.

So we used our second tree/natural shot for the background and made that black and white, and then played around with the hue/saturation, as well as the brightness and contrast. When we had completed this we then layered it with the second image of the couple and made that black and white. We then changed the opacity so it looked haunted/spooky, we also used the filter 'linear dodge add' to make it more visible and haunted of the couple.

To make it a bit more different from the digipak we layered these with 'parchment' texture layer which makes it more unique so therefore it will capture the attention of our audiences as well as making the couple more visible.

So in both our digipak and magazine advert there is an image of either the artist or the couple which has been faded in by the opacity which means you have to look closely to see like a magic eye.

Magazine Advert Layout

We used the same technique with our magazine advert in the sense that we included all the information we needed first before adding the image.

Our Final Video

Our Final Video

Feedback from teachers

After speaking to Amar and Andrea we had some really useful advice which we will definitely use.

 For example using cross dissolves throughout to soften the scenes together as at the moment they are quite harsh, especially due to the colour change.

Also Amar said that we should make the colour difference even more extreme. As well as this he said that we should use the photos more with overlaying it on other scenes.

Also to maybe use transitions which blur the edges more to reflect it more as a memory.

 He said it was a very good storyline with alot of emotion which is great.

Also he said maybe have the sunset at the beginning and very slowly at the end to add to the emotion.

We don't need anymore footage unless we want to re film the artist from different angles to make it not so long in one angle view.

The memory bit with the photos and the memories overall we could use the grain/texture tool over the top to emphasise the memory aspect.

Rough Cut Video