Production - Editing the opening

We now have produced an effective opening to our music video. There is a period of more or less 8 seconds before the artist starts singing. We have decided to start the music video with a close up of Ray Jones to introduce and promote our artist, bringing all the focus to him. This sequence include a shot of the artist walking in the city with his guitar on his back and lots of people passing by. Having the same shot through 8 seconds would be boring, so to make it engaging we decided to break this shot with two other shots. Firstly this shot is interfered by a nice long shot of Big Ben, which clearly establishes London. Then, the sequence consists of switching between the tracking close up of Ray Jones walking between people, and a long shot of him walking towards the camera. This is edited according to the beat of the song. You ca watch our opening in the sample below:

Why we believe it is an effective opening? Firstly, it is exerting the function of music videos which is promote the artist. Our artist is the main focus and we enable the audience to familiarise with his face. Also, it establishes the concept of the music video and the link with the lyrics by showing Ray Jones walking alone around London and showing the iconic image of Big Ben. The streets being the setting and the lots of people passing by also help to establish the atmosphere of 'The City' and it contrasts with the artists' loneliness. The use of the guitar as a prop is a signal of genre. The editing with the beat makes it an active opening and engaging to the audience, creating a sense of a busy London. We have also decided to keep the noises of people talking in the background so it adds even more to the atmosphere of the city.

Our first idea when editing was to break the tracking shot with other images apart from Big Ben, but we realised we didn't have footage for that, so we changed it to another shot of him walking.