Final Music Video Edit Evaluation

Daniel Hopkins

Throughout the filming and editing process, the production of our music video was very difficult due to unforeseen problems. However, I greatly improved on my original rough edit, using feedback from my tutor, assistance from tutorial videos and my own perseverance to make the video as professional as possible.

As I was the director during the music video shoot, I envisioned a certain style for the final edit. As the rough edit was generally a compilation of the clips without much editing, I was able to improve the final edit with many resources to change it vastly.

The opening scenes of the music video are of cars driving down the motorway and passing under a bridge. The shot then switches to one of trees, with the sound of cars gradually depleting and being replaced by the song over around 5 seconds. I think I could have made the transition better, as the song doesn’t come into the video very smoothly. The sound of cars ends well, as the sound fades out as if the cars are going off into the distance. However, the song seems to begin abruptly and doesn’t fade in as I had planned. Though it is clear that there is a transition in place, it only lasts for a second and the natural volume of the song makes it jump to a loud beginning. I think I could have experimented with the transition length and other effects that could have improved its introduction.

As can be seen here the decrease of the sound of the cars is much longer than the increase in sound of the song. I think the uneven balancing of these effects have contributed to the poor-quality transition. However, overall this opening segment is very good. Though the cars

seem irrelevant to the story, I stayed true to the storyboard and kept the scene in. I used it to symbolize how he is far from anyone (the next scene is of a forest) and the gradual fade of the car sound helps with this.

My titles on the left and an example of titles in a professional music video on the right.

Another addition to my final edit that wasn’t featured in my rough edit was titles. I felt this fit into the genre as well as the fact they are commonly added to music video in present times. I added two separate titles one was ‘AVICII’ to tell the viewer whose song it was and ‘WAKE ME UP’ to tell the

viewer the title of the song. I did it for those reasons and because I wanted more to be added to the opening scenes before the song and video fully kicked in.

Some of the shot compositions in my video are quite poor, not resembling professional-standard shots that I studied and intended to recreate. This is evident in some of the scenes where the camera has to follow the main actor (Daniel Harrison) at different points throughout the video. The various camera operators at the time including myself, Ryan Sharman and Lewis Dunn attempted to use the camera free-hand, which didn’t work very well for some shots as it leaves the frame shaky and poor. An example is of the opening scene when Daniel is lying on the ground and the camera,

while attached to the tripod, is panning across his entire body. The tripod was used to stop the chance of the operators feet being caught in the shot, but the difficulty can be seen in the rough edit as the footage is very shaky and unprofessional. I subsequently replaced the shot and for the replacement used a tool in after effects titled ‘warp stabilize’ which stabilized the shot, reducing the

shakiness. Next time, I would use some form of camera-stabilizing equipment such as a steadi-cam to make the shot much smoother, saving me the task of painstakingly adding stabilization effects to certain parts of footage.

However, for some shots, such as those of the sky and the forest, work very well free-hand as it adds an almost natural, primitive element to it. Another example is from the flash-back scene where the camera follows the bully heading towards Daniel. The operator followed the bully using an over the shoulder shot and I believe it worked very well.

After the flashback scene, Daniel walks away from the scene of the attack. I cut the footage using the razor tool and overlapped the footage with one another; using keyframes to make some of the clips fade out at certain points. The camera was still and on a tripod, so the effect was easy to create in this sense. Daniel seems to disappear and reappear as he is walking away, getting further away each time. I have seen this effect used in other media before and decided to adopt the technique for my video. This sped up the clip and scene and worked as a meditating transition between two crucial scenes in the video: the flashback scene and his further adventure into the unknown.

One of the shots that I retained for the final edit was very slightly out of focus. I could not replace the shot as there were none suitable, due to the pacing and timing of the video. However, I edited it very slightly in after effects using a brightening and enhancement tool which improved its overall quality. The clip lasts for around 5 seconds and due to the nature of the footage (dark and in a forest), it isn’t generally too noticeable.

Some examples include when Daniel walks up to various trees to investigate the symbols and the camera operator cannot keep up with him, so there are sharp movements and at varying speeds. This can be seen in the rough edit, but for the final edit I cut many clips down so instead of a zooming/panning process the camera appears to jump straight to the next shot.

I changed the colour of several scenes to make it clear that it is a past event. I used this technique as I have commonly seen it used before in films and television shows. The ‘flashback’ scene is preceded and succeeded by scenes which show him approaching the place and leaving it, respectively. It is meant to show him facing his past, so he can continue on with his present day journey. I think the black and white compliments the fact Daniel looks different during the scenes (he has a shaved head). I wanted to do this so that it would look completely different to the present day-scenes and add a gritty-darker element to the music video.

As well as using transition effects for sound and some parts of footage, I used some clips to purposefully transition others. For example, in one scene Daniel walks past a tree (MS) with a triangle symbol on it. I cut the clip just as his head is passing the symbol, with a continuing clip of a close up shot of his head passing the symbol. The music dips into an almost mysterious tone and I believe this part of the video works extremely well. I got the inspiration from the movie ‘Shaun of the Dead’ where Shaun passes a notepad in which he scribbled the name of his girlfriend on. The shot then cuts to a close up of it once as has passes it. Due to the way I edited it, the music change at the same time and the subsequent scenes I put in (more triangles on trees and the beginning of the flashback scene), I think this may be one of my favourite scenes in the video.

For the final scenes of the video I had to use extensive colour correction techniques on the footage, as they were much darker than the rest. This was due to a very cloudy day when we were filming so we could not do anything about it (we relied on natural lighting throughout our shoots). The difference between the ending scenes and the rest of the video are very prominent and so I had to use different colour tools in After Effects. The primary tool I used was ‘Brightness and Contrast’. I

would slightly move the brightness up, followed by the contrast, to try and replicate the general look of the other footage within the video. It was a very hard task and even after experimenting with many different tools I could not get a perfect balance between the brightness and contrast as I would have to minimize one to keep the full effect of the other. This has resulted in the ending scenes of the video looking particularly bright, with the footage seemingly having a white tint to it.

Above is a before and after the colour correction has been applied to the footage. On the left is a screenshot from the rough edit and on the right, one from the final edit. As can be seen the change is very prominent but, the brightness in the footage now more closely resembles the rest of the video. On the right of this text is a general screenshot from the video, showing how the post-edit footage is similar in colour levels to the rest.

I used the ‘Brightness & Contrast’ tool during my edit, which is an effect in ‘After Effects’. I experimented with other tools, but I was unable to make any significant change with them.

To stop this problem next time, I think we would try and film scenes when the lighting levels outside were similar, to minimize the long process of adding colour correction tools to the footage. However, if this was not possible I think we would have to work around it, such as getting shots from certain angles to reduce the noticeability of the brightness in the video. I may also experiment with different colour correction tools, as there were many I didn’t use, due to a lack of knowledge. Looking up tutorial videos may assist me with this. Another possibility would be to use high power lights, to illuminate the scene of the shoot.

I believe I followed the general conventions of pop/dance music videos during my shoot and edit. It has a fast pace, story and has many elements including fun, happiness and drama. Other music videos from the genre of my video have videos which follow the pacing of the music, which I aimed to do during my editing. I believe I achieved this, as the general genre and atmosphere of the video changes when the music changes in flow. Overall, I think my music video was very good, with some specific shots and events in the video being of professional standard. I applied creativity to my editing, something which I had planned to do and think I succeeded in doing so. The things I wish were better are some of the shots which are shaky, out of focus and of general poor quality.