Production log #4 (editing)

Production Log #4

Editing our music video

 Olivia and I decided to start editing our music video as we were still in the filming process to make sure we weren't wasting any time in lessons and before the deadline. Initially, we put together the footage from the first shoot, then filled in the gaps after the second and third shoot until we had a rough cut of the music video.

The projector shoot

Once we had the projector shots from the first shoot, we were able to choose our favourites and drop them in to FinalCut. We had a rough plan for where each clip would go before the shoot so it wasn't difficult for us to decide which clips would go where. The main challenge with this bit of production was matching the lip-syncing to the different parts of the song. Here, we decided that we would need to re-shoot some of the projector shots, either because the lip-syncing didn't line up or because we wanted to experiment with different camera positions or emotions. 

Shots from the first shoot

Olivia and I then dropped in the shots from the first shoot with our two main actors. We left our projector shots where they were from before but decided to layer them so we could always switch back to how the edit was before we added this footage in. We felt here that our ideas for the video were coming together and were beginning to experiment with different edits and cuts to reduce the length of some of the shots. 

Shots from the second shoot

Once we had finished all the shoots (except the final projector re-shoot), we dropped the rest of the footage into FinalCut and had a rough cut of our music video, which we presented to the class. From here, we began working to edit the clips to the beat of the music and experimenting with different ideas as we edited together. An example of this was an idea Olivia had, which was to cut between the dining room and bathroom in the first 10 seconds to the beat of the song. This was good as it split the original clip, which was a bit lengthy, into about 16 cuts, and we used this idea for lots of the other clips in the music video in order to make the edit feel a bit more like a music video, rather than a short film. 

Another change we made was taken from some feedback we received from our rough cut. Similar to the beginning of the video, we decided to try making the video more 'chaotic', especially towards the climax of the song. This matches the increasing pace of the song and the loud part towards the last minute. Olivia and I added more shots to break up a clip of the characters fighting with some clips with red lighting. The contrast between the blue of the kitchen fight and the red clips of Lucy added dramatic effect and fit the red and blue of the projector scenes following them.

Colour correcting

After editing the video, Olivia and I started working on colour correcting. We did this after finishing the editing as it was something we found quite challenging and wanted to do once we had a clear idea of what our music video looked like. Our use of coloured lighting in our video made it difficult to match the clips together, so we decided to use colour scopes and wheels to make it more accurate. Specifically, the red shots of Lucy before the projector scenes in the last minute were difficult for us to match as some of them were filmed with a red light or with just the bathroom/dining room lighting.