iMovie Research

This week I have decided to look into how to use iMovie and I have been looking at guides on youtube to help myself. First off I looked for different editing effects and how I go about editing parts if of my own videos. The iMovie software is pretty basic and easy to understand so I believe this is a good starting point for me. iMovie is just one of the video editing software's I will be trying to teach myself as i would like to use more advanced software's but this is the only one currently available to me. This is the video I am going to watch first - 




After watching the video I think I have learnt alot of new editing information and discovered things I Didn't know you were able to do on iMovie. This video was very long so it was hard for me to take it all in, I will have to try and test some of the things I have learnt in school and update my post showing my new skills. 

Read more

Camera Movement

In class we took a quiz to refresh our memory on different camera movements, as I had not researched them in a long time I struggled with a lot of them. After the quiz we went through lots of different camera movements and this helped me refresh my own memory. This activity has helped me since when it comes to creating my own video I will be able to incorporate a lot of them into it. 

Camera shots and movements are used to demonstrate different aspects of setting, themes and characters, Composers of films also use camera movement to shape meaning. The following are some examples of camera movements and how they can be used to shape meaning in films.


Zoom In - A Zoom In does not require the camera itself to move at all. Zooming means altering the focal length of the lens to give the illusion of moving closer to or further away from the action.

Zoom Out - The Zoom Out does not require and camera movement either had its just altering the focal length of the lens, The zoom out is used mostly as a establishing shot to show the audience more depth of field.

                                                     

Tracking shot - A tracking shot is when a camera follows a person or an object physically moving with the subject- This can be done using tracks, handheld, ropes, Steady-cam

  

      

Pan shot - Panning is a camera movement technique that involves moving the camera horizontally to the right or left. With this technique you can track an object or follow any type of movement.

Whip pan - A whip pan is a camera movement that is a very fast version of the pan shot it is that fast it usually blurs the background, it's used for things such as following a passing train or spaceship. Because of motion blur, it's most often used to smooth transitions between abrupt cuts of shots or scenes.

Arc shot - When the camera is rotated around the subject in a circular motion

        

Crane shot - In video production, a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a crane or jib. The most obvious uses are to view the actors from above or to move up and away from them, a common way of ending a movie.

Steadicam - A Steadicam is a brand of camera stabiliser mount for motion picture cameras that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement. It allows for a smooth shot, even when moving quickly over an uneven surface.

Aerial Shot - A extremely high angle view of a subject usually taken from a crane or a high stationary camera position, but may also refer to a shot taken from an actual aeroplane or helicopter.

Hand held camera - The Hand-held camera shot technique is when a camera is held in the camera operator's hands as opposed to being mounted on a tripod or other base. Hand-held cameras are used because they are conveniently sized for travel and because they allow greater freedom of motion during filming. Hand-held camera shots often result in an image that is perceptibly shakier than that of a tripod-mounted camera.

Read more

Four songs to lip sync 4/4

This is the final music video in the four that I have watched. I have gained a lot of knowledge about the different types of music videos by analyzing four different videos. For my final video I have chosen -

Sum 41 - The Hell Song

                           

  The music video was of a concert with dolls and action figures, with Sum 41's faces on those "performing" in front of a Lite-Brite screen. They were joined with other action figures such as those of Snoop Dogg, Ozzy Osbourne with his family, Marilyn Manson, Korn, Metallica, Eddie the Head, Gene Simmons, Spice Girls,Angus Young, Jesus, Alice Cooper and Ludacris . Also, the dolls' obscene finger gestures and nudity are comically censored, which are used to make it look like real life. The video was directed by Marc Klasfeld.

Marc Klasfeld is an American music video director. He has directed over two hundred music videos for artists such as Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Buble', Nelly, Foo Fighters, Avril Lavigne, Aerosmith and many others with multiple MTV award wins and nominations. The reason I would like to lip sync this is because the video is unique and I would love to see how it would be without such a strange video but somebody just sitting and singing the lyrics.

Read more

Four songs to lip sync! 3/4

Music Video 3 -

                         

The song's video is directed by Paul Fedor. The video features young people in underwear and received plenty of play on MTV, especially on Total Request Live. David C. Hayes, a famous B-horror actor/writer, appears in the video.

The music video features a fully clothed teenage boy (Josh Keleher) who attends a pool party at which Jimmy Eat World is playing, only to find everyone, except the band, in their underwear. Much of the crowd is making out, but the boy is excluded. Finally, out of frustration, he starts to strip to be like the others, only to bump into a teenage girl doing the same thing in the wardrobe he is in. 

The kids keep their clothes on and leave the party, arms around each other, as the song concludes. 

Paul Fedor is an American music video director and visual effects designer. Fedor has been a part of the computer graphics industry since 1994. He directed music videos and commercials. He is the founder of the production company Natural Selection.

I believe the music video fits the lyrics really well but I would be interested to see how the lyrics are when lip sync'd without such a crazy video behind it. 

Read more

Four songs to lip sync! 2/4

This is my second video that i have chosen to watch take inspiration from. I have chosen this video since i think the lyrics could have many different meanings and could have different meaning when lip synced and not watched with the video.                                          

  Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars





This video does not have any real meaning behind it, it is split between people relating it to a romantic song or a break up song and the artists themselves said it is as what you make it out to be yourselves. T

he editing is slow to keep up pace with the songs beat and lyrics. In the music video Gary Lightbody lies on open ground as cameras film him from different angles. It starts raining, splashing his face and hands. Gary enters a pool of water next to him and in the end of the video, he gets out of the water, rises on his feet and looks up at the camera as it zooms out overhead.

If I was to make this myself i would keep it in one shot and just use the lead singer on his own and have him engage the audience with the camera and i would keep the editing and tempo slow all the way through rather than using so many camera angles that the original as did.  The denotation of the lyrics of the chorus ‘if I lay here’, is physically represented by him lying on the floor of each location he is in. Near the end of the video he is lying on the floor at the top of an escalator, people then walk over him like he isn’t even there, this may be used to represent how invisible and lonely he may feel.

Read more

Four songs to lip sync! 1/4

In a previous blog post I have written about four songs i would like to lip sync, after some discussion with my teachers I have learnt that i did not understand the reasoning behind the task and did not reflect well on it. I am now going to re-try this task and reflect on the songs and get inspiration for my own video. 

Video One - Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine

This is one of my favorite arctic monkey videos they have produced due to its simplicity and effectiveness. 

The whole video is in black and white for a classic look and feel. The whole song is filmed inside a car with Alex and his drummer singing along to the song, it has no true narrative.

The final shots of the scene introduce the rest of the band into the video showing them as a group. 

The editing between shots is very well done and as a audience you don't really notice them until you view it in depth. The video shows the band playing around in a car, again, with Alex Turner showcasing his prowl as a front man, Air guitar and drums included, the end of the video introduces the expected girls in masquerade masks and a live performance at the end.

 

If i was to do this video i would use the band in the whole of the video and not in the last few shots of it, I would also decide to make it a narrative with the lead singer singing the words in sync with the music. I would maybe set it in a bar and focus on the main artist and connote that he is singing about a woman. I would enjoy lip syncing such a simple song.

Read more

Mock up posters

We have been learning different features in Photoshop over the past week, the most recent was putting a image into text which is very helpful and creative for making things such as posters. I would like to create posters similar to this - 

I have made three mock up posters over the last few hours. This is what i have come up with so far - 

Read more

Green Screen Testing

Today in lesson we have been trying to learn how to successfully remove a green screen from a video and then import the video over another, this is since its very useful for when we create our music video. We have had problems with the software so were not able to remove the green screen from our lip sync videos. Over the weekend I will set myself the task of learning how to do it in preparation for next lesson. 

This is the example we were shown today in class - 

The Green colour is the only tone which allows most software to completely crop the object or person infront of the screen out of it, the character or object in every single frame of a motion is cut out of the green background completely. After cropping it from the green screen it can be placed onto another video or picture.

Read more

Soundcloud

As this is my media blog i will be updating it with my personal activities involving music. In my spare time I love to create my own remixes and mashups of songs as a hobby. Over the last few days I have created a few remixes which you can check out at: 

https://soundcloud.com/jacobsandersonn

As I am researching music videos and songs I have came across many songs I would like to experiment with. I update my soundcloud weekly with new songs. I will use soundcloud to look for different ideas for my own music video! 

Read more

Music and Me

Music and me

Video one - Childhood Music Video

I heard this song first when I was around the age of 8 and fell in love with the music video shortly after and always stuck in my memory. This was the first single I ever owned, I was gifted this as a christmas present since this was my favourite song. The video for this song is also very iconic and well known. Even though it was released in 1985 by A-ha it was still over-played on the music channels and still is now 30 years on. The music video is very unique one and i have took a lot of inspiration from it. 

Video two - Holiday song



This song is my holiday song for many reasons. This song reminds me of my three holidays to spain as it was played in almost every club and bar. It was such a memorable song for me since I associate this song whenever I hear it with my three holidays in spain. Tiesto was also the first DJ i really liked and I still carry this love of DJ's and dance music with me. The reason this song is important to me is because it brings back many memories back, the song does not have a official music video but has many videos of it being played live.

[Picture Tiesto and Hardwell Performing Adagio for Strings]

Video three - My music taste

 

This song defines my music taste which is simply dance music, I picked this song since it is produced by my favourite DJ hardwell. I also have seen live and this brings back amazing memories and this is why it's my favourite song and genre. The Dance genre does not have many music videos to go with their songs. 

Read more

What makes a effective music video

What makes a music video effective?

A music video that is effective leaves the viewer feeling satisfied in what they have seen, this can be through many different ways. People enjoy seeing a narrative to the song and lyrics relating to what they are watching. Some music videos do not follow the conventional videos and decide to use a video completely different from the song. 

I have chosen Michael Jacksons - Thriller since it follows a narrative and is an interesting video to analyse.

Firstly I have chosen this music video since it is one of the most famous and well known music videos of all-time. Thriller was the first video of its kind, it became a thing people would stay up and watch.  The instant impact of of this music video is that it starts off as a almost typical romantic movie which was unseen in music videos until thriller. The video includes a spectacular dance sequence, plenty of drama and story, and most importantly the actual song itself.  The song has a strong sense of artist identity since Michael Jackson's classic signature dancing is implanted into this video amazingly as he turns a short horror film into a a group of zombies dancing in sync.  The dancing goes in time with the song that is really important so that the song matches the dancing. The dancing in this music video is complex while the song is simple so it is hard to pull off but he has done well. All of the above will all draw and welcome the audience and they will continue watching. this is what makes a music video effective. 

We have shots like this in the video: this makes you feel like you are watching a film and not a music video since its a shot reverse shot which is never used in music video since its for films, this is what makes the video effective as its known as a short film rather than a video and this is why thriller is a effective music video.

Read more

Four songs - Lip Sync

The arctic monkeys - r u mine 

The video for this shows Alex turner in a car for nearly all of the video and he is singing every lyric to the camera, the reason I would like to lip sync this is because I like the style and editing of the video.

I like the fact the main artist is singing to the camera and would like incorporate this into my own video even though the video does not represent the lyrics. This song could be fun to do and is also one of my favourite songs and this is why I would like to lip sync it. 

THE FOO FIGHTERS - THE PRETENDER

The video for this song is quite unique and does not represent the lyrics much, the reason I would like to lip sync this song is because I have grew up listening to it for years and would also be a challenge to keep up with the lyrics. The video of this song shows the band being very destructive and chaotic in the chorus and I would like to see how the song would look if I lip sync’d it and weather I would look at it differently after not seeing it in the foo fighters music video. I could take the style of this video and the fast paced editing to help me and inspire me in my own video.

queen - BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY 

The video for this song is very well known along with the group queen and is a very iconic song. The reason I would like to lip sync this song is because it is a very hard song to lip sync and I would love to try and keep up with the lyrics for the whole six minutes even and give me practice for my own music video. I also enjoy this song and would have fun trying to lip sync this. 

 linkin park - numb

The final song I want to lip sync is Numb by Linkin Park, the reason for this is due to the fact it’s one of the only songs I know all the words for and has been one of my favourite rock songs for years. The video for this song does represent the lyrics very well as it has a narrative about a woman who is feeling down and is represented as being ‘Numb’.

This would be the easiest song to lip sync out of the four for myself since I would not have to learn the lyrics beforehand. I like the fact the lyrics represent the narrative in the video and would take the same approach in my own video. 

EDIT: I have had feedback on this post and I have not completed the task properly since I have not listed reasons relevant to the task. I am going to re-post a updated version at a later date

Read more

Personal Introduction

My name is Jacob Sanderson and I am a year 13 student at Cardinal Hennan Sixth Form. 

                         

[Tom Josh And Myself]

 [Creamfields Festival 2014 UK] 

[Tom And Me]

[Holland, Amsterdam White Sensation Festival July 2014]

This blog will not only be dedicated to my research planning of my final product but my journey over the year including everything musically media related. I am a dance music fanatic and have flew to over three different countries in the last year just to watch my favorite DJ's. I also enjoy other types of music such as rock and indie music. I believe sharing my love of media will help me in my own journey this year. Thanks for reading - Jacob

Read more