Final Edit - Creative Decisions and the "Out of Focus" Debate - Production of Music Video

THE FINAL EDIT

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During the editing process, I as the editor had to make some creative decisions to match the vision we as a group had for the music video. DUring the latter stages of editing, I was approached by my teacher and she asked me to amend some of the decisions I made in edit, because they appeared "out of focus" - here is a prime example of one of the "out of focus" shots:

I then had to explain to my teacher that the use of this shot, and it being "out of focus" and blurry was part of the aesthetic profile we wanted for our end product. We had another take of the same shot "in focus" that we showed to our teacher, and our teacher saw that it wasn't a technical mistake but rather a creative decision. I as editor chose to have the shot out of focus because I believe aesthetically it looked better, but more importantly added a mysterious texture to the shot, and makes the audience want to know more - the blurs imply that the character in the video is hiding behind a mask, that she is hiding something, and the out of focus shot and blurs communicate this perfectly.

There are other instances where the takes used in shot are blurry, and they are all purposely done - the blurs communicated a feeling of "drunkenness" and of "mystery" and were all creative decisions, during the evaluation stages of the course I will upload takes of the exact same scenes within the music video in focus and compare them - the "out of focus" shots were apart of an aesthetic decision and made up our motif's DNA.

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Production of music video

Ending the music production on a happy note;

Yay i and my group have finally finished our  music video editing at first we as a group thought that we would be a little behind schedule, but we have managed to pull through an complete our video before the deadline at 4:30pm, we tend to finish at 11:30am. All in all editing and creating our music video was very enjoyable, it did not feel like it was an  piece of coursework, instead appear to be an hobby/interest.

Below is a short video clip of Jerome a group member, ticking off our group, and below that is a scrap book resembling the hard work and dedication we as a group expressed.

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Production of music video

Effects included in my A2 media music video;

• In my music video i and my group included the use of light as a motif, we tried to match the light with the significance of the Wilhelm Scream Lyrics this is a reflection to the Andrew Goodwin theory.

I and my group incorporated the use of;

• Reverse Video
• Edit to the beat
• Jump cuts
• Fade in Fade out
• Cross dissolve

We used the above as a motif of out of focus, this was essential in providing mystery, the blurs allow you to see the important essence of what is going on but leave you astound as to what it means.

One of our most discussed edit is the reverse shot of the dressing gown; Louisa our media teacher desired it to be used as a cut which she believed achieved the complex effect of a prop jumping to a fade in fade out shot. However as we found that the reverse shot reflected our motif of out of focus we convinced her to agree with our goal.

Production of music video

Reflecting on the rough cut and final edit:

One of the main changes we made from the rough cut to the final edit of our music video is the incorporation of an ident. In the final edit of mine and my groups video production is the MTV ident, which was achieved in by applying a 'colour key filter' in Final Cut Pro, Saturating the color white and increasing the tolerance, to remove most of the colour from the frame is something that is frequently seen on MTV in real life.


Another change that was crucial from the rough cut to the final edit is the change of a variety of shots, a number of them were either out of focus or just disliked by our group. Below are still shots taken from the first scenes of the rough and final edit of our music video, immediately we see a difference in the choice of shot used although both are still 'ECU' shots, we as a group found the shot included in the final edit to be more effective.

With regards to our rough cut, the problems I felt it had were that editing to the beat as a technique was practically non-existent, editing to the beat is almost an essential principal and convention of a music video, I also felt that the text used in the rough edit din't match the motif and style of filming we achieved during production.

Moreover the rough edits biggest flaw was its failure to show a vast array of lip-synching, a technique and skill that music videos need, to identify them as a music video, the lack of actual singing on the track is reason for this, but also a failure on my part because I believe that to make the rough cut deadline in time, I wasn't particularly selective of the clips I used, I just wanted to make the deadline.

The final edit differs from the rough cut in many ways, For instance a variety of wider of shots, and better takes have been included.To allow our party segment match our story line and music tempo, we were required to experiment with slow motion and faster cuts. The camera in our music video moves in time to the beat, we have incorporated  jump cuts and even applied the "Blink" filter in Final Cut Pro.

Here is the inspiration of our "party" segment,we used intertextuality to incorporate a "skins-themed" event:

Skills Audit

*Will have to be posted during next weeks lesson - at present do not have access to Video Drive to provide evidence of screen shots and Final Cut Pro use, as I'm at home - the text for this segment of the blogs will accompany this...

Rough Cut Analysis / Comparison to Final Edit

Above are stills taken from the first scenes of the rough and final edit of our music video, immediately we see a difference in choice of shot used ( though both are still ECU's) but also the MTV ident is present in the above still - I achieved this in editing by applying a "colour key" filter in Final Cut Pro, and saturating the color white and increasing the tolerance, to remove most of the colour from frame and leaving the other colours to remain - something that is done on MTV in real life.

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With regards to our rough cut, the problems I felt it had were that editing to the beat as a technique was practically non-existent, editing to the beat is almost an essential principal and convention of a music video, I also felt that the text used in the rough edit din't match the motif and style of filming we achieved during production.

Moreover the rough edits biggest flaw was its failure to show a vast array of lip-synching, a technique and skill that music videos need, to identify them as a music video, the lack of actual singing on the track is reason for this, but also a failure on my part because I believe that to make the rough cut deadline in time, I wasn't particularly selective of the clips I used, I just wanted to make the deadline.

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The final rough cut that we produced trumps the rough cut in many ways, a wider array of shots, and better takes included contribute to this. Above are two exerts of the most complicated to edit part of the video in both the rough cut (above) and the final edit (below). In the rough cut, the "party montage" failed to utilise the dimensions of the dubstep beat in the song, and didn't provide a range of edits - the final edit however edits to the beat, experiments with slow motion, faster cuts, the camera moves in time to the beat, there are jump cuts and we even applied the "Blink" filter in Final Cut Pro to demonstrate this.

Here is the inspiration, our  "party" segment of our music video came from, we used intertextuality to incorporate a "skins-themed" event:

Final Edit - Music Video