Editing Session One

For the first editing session, I began by uploading all the footage we had onto Final Cut Pro X. I also ensured I made copies of all the footage on the computer in case anything happened to the hard copy. I also downloaded the live version of the song (Lorde Sober) and placed it on the timeline.

For this session I decided to focus on the first 30 seconds of the narrative which would include the introduction and the red thread. Therefore, I began by adding an establishing shot of the background of the live performance as the introduction to the video. I also added ‘Luna – Sober’ over the top as it is a convention of music videos to do so. However, when I played it, the font was not bold enough to contrast the background and hence made the text difficult to read. To fix this, I added a filter on top of the clip to make the background out of focus and increased the font size. I also realised that the clip wasn’t as long as I would like it to be to allow the audience to read the text. Therefore, I changed the speed of the clip to 70%.

When I played back the text over the top of the clip, I realised that I wanted to find a more creative way to reveal it is it didn’t conform to the ‘unique’ way that music videos often introduce their titles. Therefore, added two lines either side of the text that scrolled along the screen to reveal the text. I did this by adding the two lines in text format and blading it at each frame so it appeared to scroll when it is played back. I also did this with the text to make it appear that it is being revealed by the scrolling lines.

After I had completed the introduction, there is a ten second gap between the beginning of the audio and the first lyric. Here, the soundtrack becomes louder. Therefore, I decided that in order to conform to Dyer’s Star Theory, I would utilise these ten seconds to display clips of the artist. I used different shot types, one including a change in focus to conform to artistic music videos. I also utilised the speed change again in order to create a dramatic effect of the artist staring into the lens- creating a relationship with the audience.

Due to the fact we played the song in the background whilst we filmed the live performance, the sound bars of the live performance clips matches the sound bar of the actual audio. Therefore, I used this to help me align the clips to ensure the lip sync was in perfect synchronisation. I also used different angles, framing and shot types to ensure that there was more variation within the shot types of the live performance, I used the crop tool to help me achieve this in one of the clips.
When intercutting the red thread scenes between the live performance, I tried to insert two red thread clips in-between each live performance clip. This helps to obtain the balance between live performance and narrative performance that I had researched. Also, due to the fact I had to deviate away from the storyboard when filming, I had less footage than I had less scenes that I had planned to film. Therefore, instead of each clip lasting 3 seconds they lasted five.

In the next editing session, I can continue to edit the red of the narrative performance with the live performance. After finding a method to make it easier to align the lip syncing to the audio, this session will hopefully be more efficient.