EH - Starting to Edit 2

Solo Task:Emma Hall 9162
             

Particular challenges found whilst cutting our music video together were thing like adding transitions, and more importantly, changing their length and how far into each clip the transition went. TO change this, we found we had to use the Precision Editor, which split the single timeline into three lines, one for the first clip, one for the transition, and one for the second clip. This, as the name suggests, allowed for more precision and control over our transitions, which was very important for our opening, which uses a lot of cross dissolves to set the calm tone of our video.

Another challenge was to cut the video in time to the beat, which as one of Carol Vernallis’ editing conventions, was very important to include. To aid us in this, we used the marker function, adding markers in whilst listening to the music that denoted the general beat of the music, so that all we had to do was line up the blade tool with one of the markers, and the cut would definitely be in time. We also found that you could add different coloured markers, and placed these in prominent places in the music that we knew we wanted to specifically relate to a moment in the video. For example, the first time vocals come in, or the prominent drum beat starts. This helped us keep track of how much time we had to fill before a moment arrived, and kept us in line with our storyboard.

Something we knew would be important before we started editing was changing the colour and brightness of the video, particularly for the barn shots, which we could not film in darkness for fear of losing picture quality, and so shot brighter in the hope it could be dimmed using Final Cut. There are a series of pre-set effects that are easy to find, and on in particular, luma keyer, seemed to create the moody, harsh look we wanted for the barn. After consulting an editor from the film company Blueprint Films, we discovered ways of fine tuning the pre-set effects, or creating your own grading manually. The inspector button brings up a menu from which we could adjust the grading of each clip individually, including adding or taking away a certain colour, changing saturation, exposure or the contrast. We found this not only useful for the barn shots, but also for nearly all of the other clips as well. As we filmed over several days outside, the weather and natural lighting changed drastically, from bright sunshine to quite a cold, grey atmosphere. Grading our music video meant we could adjust each shot to look the same, with the ‘match colour’ feature being especially useful. This feature allows you to select a frame from another clip, and match the colours exactly on the clip you have selected. As well as simply a continuity device, we used the grading as a means of creating better representations. For our natural settings to look more magical and beautiful, we added more greens and yellows, for added warmth, and raised the contrast and saturation to a level that was maybe not realistic but looked more stylised in a way that would complement our concept.