Skills Development - Editing

Because I decided to create a stylised editing for my AS production, and I have done most of the editing myself, I already had many editing skills developed when we started the A2 production. However, developing new editing skills was inevitable since the music video has different purposes and conventions from a thriller opening. In addition, the editing process was a way of practising my already developed editing skills and getting faster at the editing process, including learning to use shortcuts.

The most important editing skill that I had learned with the production of the music video was the base track editing, which comes along with lip-syncing and using markers. In the AS editing process, I had no idea markers existed, and it made no difference. In my A2 production it was crucial to know how to use the markers to help the editing.

Marking the first word

Aligning the markers

Using markers to mark the very first word being sang in both the base track and the original song so that I could match the markers together was an easy way of creating an accurate lip syncing. The markers were also important for the base track editing. We could use markers to mark the beat of the song and cut all the base tracks where the markers were. Then we could choose which base track we would use and where, an easy way of changing between base tracks and adding extra footage on the top of it. It saves a lot of time and it makes the music video flow with the beat of the song effectively.

Another technique that I learned is the use of slow motion with accurate lip syncing. Ideally the technique would require some training and preparation like speeding up the song at a certain percentage (e.g 159%) and then the artist sings the song (or the part of the song) at the same pace. When changing the speed in FinalCut Pro, you have to slow down the same percentage you speeded up (e.g 59%) and this way the scene would be in slow motion whereas the lip-syncing would be correct. This technique is most commonly found in music videos and it is conventional of certain genres or certain types of songs. In our music video it worked nicely because it was a slow song and we used it in the change of key for the most dramatic part of the song.

A complicated technique that I learned with this project was how to blur (or add any effect) the background using the Eight-point Garbage Matte filter.

We had to make the points move together with Nimar everytime he moved by using the markers, so that he would stay in focus and the background blurred. Each time Nimar moved out of the points we would have to create markers and move the points around him again.
This tool might be useful for many occasions. For my music video it helped to distract the changes in the background from the mid shot to the median close up, as they were walking shots filmed separately and they might not match perfectly together. In addition, we used it in the shots in the chorus, which gives more focus to the artist singing and it helps to attend the purposes of the music video which is promoting a new artist.

These techniques were the most important that I learned during this project. The other techniques that I learned were very basic and many we were just trying out and we did not use in our music video.

Basic editing skills that I have learned:

Switching the shot by using the filter 'Flop' - this technique was useful to avoid confusion in our music video, as we had several different tracking shots of Nimar walking around the city and sometimes they were not going to the same direction. With this editing skill we could make sure that throughout the whole music video, Nimar would be walking in the same direction (to the left).

How to reverse the shot - we used this to create some nice effect to our footage of traffic, making it look more interesting as well as it goes along with the beat well. In other occasions, it can be used to imply flashbacks or adding emphasis to an action.

How to make the shot look brighter through colour corrector instead of changing the levels - a much easier tool to manipulate the brightness of the image. We have used it in our night shots because they looked quite dark even though there was some lighting, the lighting wasn't enough to show a clear image of the artist. Making the dark shots look brighter also helps to keep the artist's face clear and neat to the audience, which is better for promotion of a new artist.

How to crop a shot - it doesn't give a very effective result as it takes away the quality of the video and we did not use it because of that.

How to freeze frame - we have not used this technique either because it did not work very well, it seemed just like a still picture.
How to make a widescreen effect by adding a black border at the top and at the bottom of the video - we have also decided not to use this technique because it gives too much of a film sense and our genre is very simplistic and it didn't go very well with the song.

I believe I have developed and practised all the skills that I needed to create a successful music video which suits the genre and promotes the artist.