P5 - Editing Techniques

To begin with, I created a new project on Final Cut Pro by firstly creating a new Event so all my work was collectively in one place to avoid complications and delays later on in production (file, new, event), naming it music video. Then I created a project 'Claws' and imported all the files I needed by directly inserting my 64GB SD card into it. I used Image Capture and created a separate file on my Desktop which I also named 'Claws' so my files were easily accessible.


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The first version was created before we had all of our footage, as we had only completed one filming day and therefore didn't have either the Church scenario, the tunnel segment or the Artist shots. I worked with the footage, attempting to fit it with the storyboard which Ellie drew. As you can see from the 'first assembly' above, I used the Final Cut placeholders in place of the church to remind that there was footage I was missing to return to later.

I attempted to insert an overlay of the shots by making the eyes 65% transparent over a still of the trees but, after receiving feedback from the rest of my group, I changed it.

In the first edit, I made the decision to only include basic cuts as we weren't yet sure of the transitions that were possible so it does, in retrospect look very amateur and clumsy. Also, with the footage we had, our first edit could only be up to 1:29.



As we progressed with another day of filming, we were able to require the footage from the Church and the trees (which were near the church), so I was able to remove the placeholders and replace it with the actual footage that was in the storyboard.

However, I discovered that the tree footage was very shaky, meaning I had to put on 'Stabilisation' and slow it down to make it only look like it was only moving with slow wind and to give it a more celestial and other-worldly feel. Another thing I did was to turn down the overall exposure of the Church shot as it was much lighter than expected when we finally viewed it on FCP.



In this edit, the eyes section is removed as the rest of my group didn't like it and we made the decision to try something else instead. To fill this now-empty space, we used one of our reserve shots of the bunny looking menacingly into the camera and began thinking about the overall colour correction as it looked very unstylish still. We timed this one for the entire duration of the song so we were aware of the overall length, hence why there is a minute and a half of black screen.

In place of the artist footage, I used another placeholder, with a text effect put over it to show the lyrics the artist needed to play too.





We set this version to our peer and they handed us a list of changes they wanted us to include. I strayed a little from the storyboard (not having the character touch the camera earlier) and the whole jumpcut segment, but looking back on it, I didn't think settling on the storyboard would be possible.

At this point, I had all my shots so I worked thoroughly with the shooting script, trying to interpret it the best I could. 

To make our video seem a little more varied, I made the decision to have fade transitions from the leaf to the graveyard, and to the credits, which I implemented with the FCP text tool.

The feedback I received was:

'You have all created a really strong concept video with impressive visual strength. Really striking, well done!'

'Some lovely pacing and the visuals complement the music well in terms of edit points and visual changes.'

1. 'My first instinct is that the overall feel of the video would benefit from every shot having a slight slow-motion effect to emphasise the “otherworldly” feel. I would suggest only slowing the footage down by 95%. This change should not affect the edit points, just the speed of the footage.
2. The footage would benefit from a purposeful colour grade to balance it and add coherence and enhance the stylized look to complement the concept.
3. 0:16 visual change needed
4. 00:23 beautiful walking away shot is it possible to introduce jump cuts here to echo what we see later in the video.
5. 00:32 whisper shot and tilt-up is fabulous!!!
6. 00:45 love this shot!
7. 01:03  camcorder graphic fx needed
8. 01:12 check if natural sound accidentally still audible
9. 01:14 love this cut
10. 01:20 check if the natural sound of water is accidentally still audible
11. 01:24 water/stream shot - consider a really slow gentle zoom in to focus audience attention.
12. 01:50 my favourite shot.

We acted on this feedback!
Starting on the first bullet point, we worked through the list, 

• I slowed down all the clips initially (selecting all of them), and going on the 'duration' tool, custom... then setting it to 95%, changing the speed of each clip, without changing the duration. 

• We chose a certain colour grade percentage for exposure for all of our shots so they all looked roughly the same. I created a colour shape mask around the coat and scarf, to make them stand out and to look brighter as they were one of the steady motifs I decided on. 

 

• To track these masks through the shot, I used control points and effectively animated each of them. 
• I added in the jump cuts with the walking away effect.
• Looking on FCP, I used the camcorder overlay to make an effect here and to also make another running through motif. 
• 1:12, the audio wasn't audible.
• I created a compound clip of the water to be able to do a zoom in.

Over the entire video, I put a cartoon effect to make it very stylistic, I think this gives it flair and individuality.

With this feedback, most of it was unable to be accomplished due FCP not being able to do the 12fps frame rate, the roto effect being 100% and not being sensitive enough to pick up all parts of the video. 

If we had more money, another suggestion he gave was to hand-animate the leaf over to make to a more prominent feature. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time or money. 

OUR FINAL PRODUCT