Conclusion

Overall the editing process for me has been successful and I am pleased with the outcome of my video, I felt that I used the editing software well and made use of skills I already had and learnt new skills throughout the process.

I think I used the editing tools and effects well to change the lighting on the majority of my shots because they were quite dull and boring beforehand. By using the RGB Curves and three-way colour corrector tools I was able to adjust the colour and lighting of my shots easily and quickly to the effect I wanted to achieve. After using Adobe Premier Pro to edit my video I now feel quite confident in using the programme and feel I would be able to use the software again in the future as I now know how to use the effects and tools like Magic Bullet.

I think if I managed to have more time on the editing machine I could have made some other slight improvements to my video like trying out other different effects that were available to vary my video slightly to make it more interesting.

However I am overall pleased with the outcome of my video from using new skills and effects to edit my video together and make it look professional, however there were a couple of things I would have done differently to improve my editing experience.

Rendering and Exporting

Once I had completed my music video and added all of the effects I wanted to use I watched my video through several times to check for any small things I wanted to change, by watching my video back several times and getting other people to watch it too allowed me to pick up on anything that could be changed. For example there were a few shots where the lighting was slightly off therefore I could go back into my edit and change this to make it correct. After each effect was added to a clip that clip then had to be rendered to allow it to play back smoothly, the time this took was dependant on the type of effect I added and the length of the shot itself.
 

 

After rendering all of my clips I was able to watch the whole video back smoothly and see the effects that I had added and how they worked in my video.

I then came to the stage of exporting my video, I had to create two different copies, one for a DVD and the other for upload to YouTube therefore I had to save the music video in two different file formats so they'd be compatible.
 

 

 

 

 After I had set both the file formats ready to export the videos then exported as individual files.

 

Using Effects 5

During the editing process I noticed that some of my shots were either too fast or too slow to appear as they were in my video, there were a couple of shots that I wanted to appear for a longer period of time in my video as the original clips were very short to begin with. Therefore I was able to change the speed or duration of my clips easily by simply right clicking on the clip I wanted to change and setting the speed to either higher or lower.

 

 

As you can see below I have changed the speed of my cip from the original 100% down to 20% because the clip was so short to begin with therefore I made it slower to give it a very slow effect and to allow the clip to appear in my video for a longer period of time.

 

 Throughout the editing process I also used tools such as the slip tool which allowed me to move my shots along the timeline by individual frames, I used this in situations where my lip sync wasnt 100% matched up correctly so by using this tool it allowed me to ensure the lip sync was in time without moving the rest of my timeline along.

 

To end my video I wanted to give it a professional and subtle ending that would clearly indicate the end of the video, therefore I decided to use a dip to black to end my video, this is a very easy and clever effect to use.

 

 

As you can see the dip to black has been added to just the end of my last clip of my video to indicate the video has finished, you can adjust how long the dip to black appears for and how much of the shot turns to black therefore I let the dip to black run past the end of my song slightly just to ensure the end of the video was as clearly indicated as possible. I think using this effect is very clever and a good way to use at the end of a project like a music video, however I dont think I would use this effect throughout a video, only at the end or maybe the beginning.

Using Effects 4

The three-way colour corrector tool allows you to create different colours in a shot, you can change the colour of a shadow or highlight, I used this tool in my editing to add warmth to some shots so they matched up with the tone in the rest of the video. As you can see in the shot below, some of my outside shots appeared to be slightly grey and dark, therefore using the three-way colour corrector tool allowed me to cancel out the greyness and match up the warmth to the rest of the video, this is another effect I used to adjust the videos lighting.

 

 
The tool is very easy to use and consists of three different wheels that can be adjusted to your requirements to change the colours of different areas of a shot, you can easily adjust the shadow and highlight of a clip. On this particular shot I used the hightlight wheel to add an orange tone so that the warmth of the shot improved.

Using Effects 3

Other effects I used throughout the editing of my video were the RGB Curves tool and three-way colour corrector which allowed me to slightly adjust the colours and lighting of some of my clips. The RGB Curves tool allowed me to change the amount of white and black present in my clips, therefore by altering this setting I could add more white to make clips brighter and add more black to make things darker. This tool came in very handy when I had shots that were either too dark or too light against the rest of my video, therefore by using this effect I could match each shot up in my video to ensure the lighting was correct and worked well.
 

   

 As you can see from the screenshots above, just by simply adding a small amount of white into the shot it has completely transformed the look and allowed the shot to look professional, it is a lot brighter than it was before and the background is now clearer. Small adjustments like this one can make a big difference to the final result of a video just because before the effect was added the appearance was so different.

Using Effects 2

To use these tools you are required to open Magic Bullet Looks where you can completely transform the look of a shot, by doing this it allows you to change how much vignette or edge softness appears in the shot, I used this effect because it allowed me to brighten up the background of my shot completely giving it a whole new look and making it easier to see what was happening in the shot.

 

 

The edge softness tool allowed me to focus the shot on the lip sync itself because this was the main thing I wanted the audience to focus on whilst watching this type of shot. By moving the yellow circles inwards and outwards it allowed me to adjust the amount of blur that was added to the outside of the shot, as you can see I used this effect to blur out the majority of the shots background so the main focus was on the face and lips.

 

Using Effects 1

After filling my timeline with all of my footage and having a complete music video it was time to start looking at different effects and edits I could use to make it look professional and creative.

Simple things such as lighting can make such a big difference to the way clips look, just by brightening up the background of a clip can change the way the whole video looks, it is essential to ensure the lighting of each clip is set correctly and that no clips appear too dark or too light. Other effects that can be used are available in Magic Bullet where you can add effects such as a vignette or soft exposure, these look very professional when used correctly.

One of the Magic Bullet looks I used on many of my clips was the vignette which allowed me to brighten up my lip syncing shots massively as they were quite dark to begin with. I also used a edge softener effect with the vignette to blur out the background of the clip and to ensure the main focus was the person lip syncing in the centre.

 

Below is an example of where I used the vignette and edge softener tools to drastically change the appearance of my shots.

 

 

Starting to Edit

I then began the process of placing shots onto my timeline, I started with the beginning of my track and worked my way to end end, this was easy to do as my shots were all in order from when I carried out principal photography.

 

 

As you can see I took the most imporant shots that I wanted to use first and placed these on my timeline in the correct places, I used my storyboard to help me with this. I also matched up all of my lip sync shots first ensuring they were 100% in time and in the correct place on my timeline, I then worked around these shots to add in the narrative story to my video. I spent a lot of time arranging my shots and moving things around to ensure things were in the best places possible.

I used the cutting tool on Adobe Premier Pro to cut different clips to the length I needed, this is done very easily you just use the cursor to move the clip to the length you wish.

 

 

Importing Track

Once I had captured all of my footage onto the computer I then imported my music track so that I could add it to my timeline ready to match up my lip sync and certain shots. I downloaded the track at home onto my USB, then copied it onto the computer before importing it into Adobe Premier Pro, I imported the track into the same folder as my rushes so that everything was together and easy to access. I ensured when downloading my track that it was the official song instead of a remix and that it was of good quality for playback.

 

 

 

 

Capturing Rushes

I captured all of my rushes onto the computer and I am happy with the amount of footage i have managed to gain. However throughout the process of capturing my rushes I came across a few errors that were caused by very short rushes on the tape that were so small they caused the program to crash. I have however managed to get all of my rushes onto the computer now. I used the scene detection tool whilst capturing to save each of my shots individually instead of having one very long clip.

 

 

I saved all of my rushes into one folder with the name of my chosen track, allowing me to have all of my footage in one place ready to edit. This made it easy for me to locate certain shots during the editing stage as I could easily find which shots I needed, also by the rushes being in the order they were shot I was able to easily fill my timeline in the correct order I had planned on my storyboard, as you can see in the screenshot below my shots are all clearly labelled in order and sorted into my own folder.