Evaluation of Editing Our Rough Cut Music Video

Since this was my group's first attempt at a cut of our music video we were new with the process of cutting a music video. However, we were not beginners with the editing software we used to create the video, Final Cut Pro, as we used the software to edit our thrillers in our AS year.

The way in which we started to work was by reviewing all of our footage that we shot on the shoot day and then commenced with separating the potentially usable shots and unwanted shots into separate bins.

As we were not sure of whether our final product would completely evolve into another product we were not expecting at the start we did not want to dismiss too many shots that we were not primarily happy with as we could possibly make something of the shot, especially as we wanted to employ the style of discontinuity editing, therefore, many parts of shots could be used to create a fast paced, erratic music video. Consequently our group decided to only reject the shots that we knew we certainly would not use in any way, for example if the framing of our artist, Rosie May, was completely off, disobeying the rule of thirds in a shot when we were intending to create this effect, or the camera was unbalanced, because of a lack of prior bubbling when preparing. Another problem with any shot that we primarily decided would inevitably lead to rejection would be that of over or under exposure. At first we thought this would mean immediate discarding of the shot until we experimented with an overexposed shot by including it in the rough-cut sequence. It looked surprisingly effective and projected an alternative vibe that my group were trying to achieve in her star image.

Once our group had reviewed and organised, either accepting or dismissing, shots we had to complete the next step of creating a base for our music video. This was done by laying our shots out onto a timeline on Final Cut Pro, therefore resulting in multiple layers of clips on the timeline to work with. Once we had the shots laid out on the timeline we then started to edit the shot lengths of each piece of footage creating the base and structure of our music video as this would act as a way of interweaving different shots among one another, maintaining concentration and interest from the audience. Editing required our group to order the shots in terms of each section of our performance, enabling us to introduce and create the theme and idea of journeying into our music video.

We cut the transitions of the song to the beat of the song in order for the viewers to feel comfortable whilst watching the video. Also the way in which transitions of a music video are matched to the beat of the song is a typical convention of most music videos promoted and exhibited within the music industry today.

Our group made a decision to engage in both of the styles of continuity and discontinuity whilst editing our video. This means that our video will conform to continuity by displaying the artist’s journey through Brighton in a day, however, the discontinuity will be visible in the style and cut of the shots, being fast and erratic, as well as the inclusion of the repetition technique as multiple shots will be repeated through out the song, due to the verse chorus verse musical format. Therefore, our group will strive to gain and maintain the audience’s attention and interest from the start, being sustained to the end.