EDITING - Process - Changing motions

We started to experiment with motions in some of our shots. We sped some sections up and slowed others down to see what effect it had. This was a good oppertunity to discover whether or not these motions suited our song which is generally quite slow paced.

EDITING - Process - Adding and cutting 'filler' shots

This is the point where we really started to get stuck into our editing! The process became much more complex and tricky however the hard work was really starting to pay off. As our video does not contain only basetracks but also 'fillers' as I call them, we had to do a lot of cutting and erasing to ensure everything fit in without any gaps or over-laying. In the screenshot above you can see the process as we approached the half-way mark. At this point I hadn't cut out all the footage that needed to be erased as for the time being I was just hiding some layers to ensure the video ran smoothly before I deleted anything.

EDITING - Process - Adding markers

This was a step I found a bit tricky and I made a few mistakes at first. Adding markers is very important for lining up two pieces of media so that they are alligned perfectly. In this case, we needed to place markers on significent lyrics in the song where the music is driven by them. We then had to find the very point where our singer sung these words and place a marker on that also. The next step was to re-allign the clips to get the markers in the same position vertically. As seen in the image, I put several markers on loud/noticeable sounds/lyrics in the song. I now know that I didn't need to put so many however I was told that having the markers there did not make a difference so I left them.

EDITING - Process - Adding music and Laying basetracks

The next step was to add the track and lay the basetracks. All in all we had around 10-12 basetracks as some were duplicates where filming was good at the beginning of one clip and at the end of another for example. This was quite a simple process despite not having much experience with it previously and we got to grips with it fairly quickly. We ensured that the sound of each basetrack was muted so it was not heard over the song. We lined up the footage with the track so that the lip-syncing and sound matched and it appeared as if our actor was actually singing

EDITING - Process - First step

When we finished filming we were very excited to start editing however we knew it wouldn't be easy! With approx 200 clips of footage we knew it was necessary for us to briefly watch each video then rename and organise them into a very basic order that would make the process much easier in the long run. We did this on Final Cut Pro by importing everything then renaming. Once we had done this we then moved them around into groups of basetracks and fillers. We also made sure we put them into rough chronological order. The names of the clips may not make much sense to someone not in the group as we abbreviated words whilst rushing this process to get the real editing started.

PRODUCTION - Filming overview

Filming session 1
This filming session was quite successful in terms of getting the basetrack done and dusted. We tried our best to follow the storyboard we created however not all shots went to plan. We were supposed to get two shots - one wide shot of the artist sitting at the bus stop and another wide shot of a bus stopping and leaving to reveal an empty bus stop where the artist was no longer sitting. We tried several times as buses passed however couldn't seem to get what we were aiming for. Instead of planning to re-film this part we decided not to use it. We were pleased with the location choice as it was suited to our artist branding - working class Londoner and it was easy and practical to film in as there was a lot of space around the actual bus stop itself and we didn't need to step out into the road to get a good shot. The choice of costume was also very suited to the branding and also the location. We did not feel that anything needed to be re-shot from this section
Filming session 2
This day of filming was also really successful, especially because the weather was perfect. We got to our location at around 3:30pm and due to the clocks going back, sunset was soon approaching. This made for some really nice sunshine shots over Waterloo Bridge which went better than expected. There was still enough daylight to get some brightly lit basetrack shots of our artist walking along the Thames down at Southbank. As it got darker, we moved along to our bench location which we were really pleased with as it was exactly as expected - a very visually appealing setting to film in. The choice of costume in this part(cardigan instead of hoodie/t-shirt etc.) was suited to the location which is quite wealthy. We even moved up onto a bridge when it became nightfall to get some establishing shots of London town lit up by sparkling city lights.
Filming session 3
In this session we got some really strong shots of the Tower/London bridge area. One problem we ran into was that we were unaware that we were filming on private property and therefore were approached by security who disabled us from filming on the platform. After explaining our project, we were able to speak to the manager of the Tower bridge area in order to ask for permission to film on the premises. He kindly gave us half an hour to film which would have usually needed to be payed for. Everything apart from this ran smoothly and we were happy with our location choices as they really created an atmosphere in our footage, especially the dark tunnel
Filming session 4
This was our last filming session and it went as well as all the others. We got more base tracks than planned as we thought the more footage we had, the better. The park we chose was suited to the lyrics in the song and was easy to film in as there was quite a long and spacious walkway which we used for one of our tracking basetracks.

 

PRODUCTION - Filming session 4 - 7/11/13