Final Cut Pro

Now that in our media room our school has provided us with brand new Imac's, we are finally able to have access to the programme of final cut pro. final cut pro is a much more advanced programme then Imovie and a lot of better effects and techniques can be used and achieved in order to produce a better final product (in our case, a music video).

We were then told that out of the 6 brand new Imac's my groups' was the only one to have final cut pro on! we were delighted to hear this as we could get going on it straight away where as the other groups will have to wait a little longer until it is working on their new Imacs.

In order to help us understand how final cut pro works and how to use it etc, we watched the following tutorial video on YouTube to give us the basics and great hints and tips in making our music video look the best it possibly can!

Narrative research

Narrative theory and structure
NARRATIVE is the term given to coherence and organisation to a series of given facts. The human mind needs a natural sense of narrative in order to connect events together and make certain interpretations based on these connections. In every situation, our mind always seeks a beginning, middle and an end and by understanding this shows that we understand how a common narrative is structured and shown to us.

Narrative Conventions
NARRATIVES are always made up of several similar conventions in order to find it's correct meaning. Within this meaning there are a series of codes that need to be considered. When we look at a narrative we examine its: GENRE, CHARACTER, FORM and TIME.

Narrative Structures
There are many ways in breaking down and defining what a narrative structure is. For example, you may here a Hollywood film describe as "a classic Hollywood narrative" meaning it has three acts. News stories have their own individual structure. A lot of work has been completed by literacy theorists in to develop ways of deconstructing a narrative:

- Tvzetan Todorov suggests that narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium,
- Vladimir Propp suggests hat narratives strongly depend on characters and action
- Claude Levi-Strausse believes that there is a constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only ever end on a resolution of conflict. Opposites can be visual (light/darkness/movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate/control/panic) and do with the sound track. Also, he believes that binary oppositions can also be used in order to deconstruct the narrative of something.

Narrative

For my summer exam, we have tow rite about a narrative piece either focused on AS or A2. Both the film we produced last year and the music video which is still undergoing it's editing process, have clear narratives. However, for the exam I think I will write about my A2 music video. This is because our short opening to a horror film last year was told in linear form and was shown in chronological order and the music video is much more complex when it comes to it's narrative. The music video includes flashbacks and flash forwards which fit in with the narrative and has a broader 'plot' and so I will have more to talk about when it comes to analysing the narrative in the exam.

Narrative on film
the basic narrative to our horror film was a victimized ballet dancer who was being followed and stalked by a villain all dressed in black. It was called "The music box" because of the fact she had a similar outfit to the ballet dancer that spun inside the box shown numerous times in the film opening and also because when the villain had possession of the box, he has possession of her as well. The villain eventually ends up following her home from dance class one day and the opening ends in a fantastic cliff hanger and the audience are left in suspense as to whether he kidnaps the girl or not.

Narrative on music video
A teenage girl has split up with her boyfriend and throughout the song, in between the performance clips (where she is just singing to the camera), she is reminiscing on all the good memories she had with her boyfriend before the relationship ended. There are many flashbacks of the happy times and therefore this reflects the overall narrative as a whole.

Overall, I feel i have exceeded my knowledge on narrative far More then what I knew at AS level and that when it comes down to writing about narrative for the exam this summer, I feel confident that I have the correct terminology and background information on to talk about the narrative of either my year 12 or 13 produced piece with in media.

IKEA inspiration

Although I have already spoken about our outing to IKEA and what we filmed as a group, but it took me a while to find the clip that we used for our research and what gave us the inspiration to film some of material for our music video at IKEA in the first place. It's taken from a clip from the comedy/romance film "500 days of summer" where the couple are running around IKEA pretending it's their house that they have moved into together as a couple etc. We thought this had a really good effect on showing how realistic the couple looked. So, as Elle and Alex are Boyfriend and Girlfriend in real life, it wasn't hard for them to act like the 2 characters did in the film!

(video to be uplaoded)

Saga Advert

I was watching TV last night when i saw this advert for "Saga Cruises". I looked like a normal advert but then as I watched closer, it had one of the same concepts that myself and my group wanted to achieve in our music video.




the way in which the photo's move around the space is how we want our stop motion arrow and "L" "O" "V" "E" letters to look like once edited to perfection. Also, the way in which the Polaroid photos have been green screened and the images inside the photo go from "still" to "real life" and this exactly what we want to happen in our music video.

CD digi-pack

Now that I had done some research into existing CD covers of my pop genre (see 9th January post) I need to define what a CD digi-pack actually is and how it is different from a normal CD cover.

So, What is a CD digi-pack?

- It is made from cardboard so is light weight, is shatter proof and allows great graphic display for any images that want to be used.

- It was originally used to package albums

- They make a bigger statement that what an average Cd cover does and represents the ultimate custom packaging for our CD cover project.

- It's more environmentally friendly than originally CD covers were.

- Rather then just having a front and back cover, it "folds out" into different panels which have different functions. Most commonly it is either 4, 6 or 8 panels.

- The front cover and back cover of the CD Digi-pack are different. The front cover usually has the artist's/band's name, illustrations and most commonly the logo of the artist/band is featured too. The back cover will have a track list which simply includes all the song titles that are featured on the album and some will perhaps include the name of the producer of this music or some form of management label/website address.

- When it comes to consumer use, in order for the customer to be attracted to the Digi-pack, they are placed frontwards on shelves. This way the buyers can see the bright front cover with the artist/band on and will be immediately attracted to it.

Changed brand name

Seeing as we changed our song, we have to change our band brand. To fill out our meeting log, over the Christmas Holiday's while everyone was seeing family, we used the social networking site Facebook to discuss our ideas. We decided to call our band brand Pixie Mix or Pix 'n' Mix. The idea is taken from a mix of our artist Pixie Lott, which gives it the pop vibe, and also sounds a lot like Pick and Mix sweets. We thought that this was a connotation of pop music and decided that it had a certain 'ring' to it.