Lauren & Aimee A2 Media Blog: Editing our music video (inc. changes made from the feedback received)

Adaptions and Developments to our music video:

With the feedback we gathered and highlights from the comments, we went back to our music video and focused on particular content which was constructively commented on. Here is evidence of the changes/adaptions we have made and what effects we have used.

Motion/Motion Blur/Basic motion:

Through the use of Motion Blur we were able to create an exaggerate motion blur

Earthquake:

The earthquake effect gave some of our still shots some effective movement which we believed applied well to the style/sound of the song in which the shot was placed. We used it mainly for the echo/repeats of the singing so that the visuals had a relationship with the sound.

Soft Glow:

The soft glow allowed us to apply a more soft effect/glow over our shots, such as enhancing the light / bokeh movements and lightening any imperfections (e.g. uneven skin tone) on our actress/artists skin.

Brightness and Contrast:

The Brightness and contrast was used in most of our footage as alot of the footage needing adjusting to change the intensity of the light/darkness and colours in the shot.

Radial Blur:

The use of this was to have the clip create the illusion that the image was spinning. This was added to the Bokeh shots of the car lighting so that it was more defined and looked more creative.

Defocus:

Blurs an image while creating a controlled glow effect in brighter areas of the image. This results in the image structure being shaped around the highlights of the image. This shape of the glow around the highlighted area can be altered. This was used filter when we blurred one image to match video other clips used.

Echo:

This was used to create the effect that the moving area of the image was leaving a streaking tail behind it as it moved slightly. This is done by repeating frames

Soft focus:

This was used when we were overlapping clips. The Strength parameter controls how much of the blurred image is added back to the original image, while other sliders let us control the overall, horizontal, and vertical amount of blur.

Cross dissolve:

In order to blend the end of a shot with the beguinning of the following shot, we used a transition know as 'cross dissolve' which allowed us to achieve a more smooth transition of the shots.

Over Lay of clips/Opacity:
In many of our shots, we changed the opacity of the shots, with one or more ontop on other shots to allow a mixture of two or more pieces of footage to be seen. We found this particularly effective for our music video because we were able to make it look alot more interesting and allowed us to build up the creative footage ontop of the visual footage of our music artist.

Heres an example with the use of opacity/overlay of two shots. One of the shots flickered in time to the beat by cutting the shots so they were introduced in time with the fast paced beat.

Speed Change:

By adjusting the speed of particular shots (mainly speeding up of the motion) we were able to apply it better to the style of song. Since the song is fairly fast paced with a quick beat, applying speed enabled us to make the footage/shots look better with the music.

Manual Scale Adjustment:

For a longer piece of footage, Lauren and I decided to apply a bit more impact with the footage by representing the sound of the beat to the quick jump/zoom into the footage. This allowed us to make this particular piece have a relationship with the song. We applied points to the footage and adjusted them ( in and out of the zoom ) in time with the music so that it looked more appealing to the viewer and keep it in context.

Beginning and end shot:

In order to keep the music video flowing, we knew we had to keep the music video consistent. One of the key things we looked at was the start and end of the music video and how we could an effective start and ending point to the music video.

We linked our opening footage of the blurred lights for the ending, as we used the same shot for the beguinning and end, however, for the end shot we used the overlay of shots of our music artist with the same blurred light shot. We did use some effects/editing features to adjust the colour, brightness and contrast of both of the pieces of footage, as with most of the footage within our music video.

Brightness and Contrast:

The Brightness and contrast was used in most of our footage as alot of the footage needing adjusting to change the intensity of the light/darkness and colours in the shot.

To many of the footage we caught which was lacking brightness and intensity, we found this particular feature useful as we were able to adjust both features to improve the quality of the film.

Image control;Effects:

Some of the effects we used within the 'Image control' folder were 'Brightness and Contrast' 'Colour Balance'

Fade in/out:

We applied this particular transition to a few selected shots where we believed it was appropriate and would allow the music video to flow well with the music itself. We incorporated many quick cuts in the video, in order to keep with the time and pace of the song, but in some places where we felt it needed to blend from one shot into another, we used the fade in/out transition.

Colour Correction / Colour Balance:

We used the colour balance in shots where we believed it was either lacking in colour or the colour tone of the footage needed altering. The colour balance allowed us to use colour wheels for 'Balance' of colour and 'Hue'. When we perceived a shot to be lacking in colour or appearing a particular shade of colour which wasn't well suited, we were able to change the shot to the colour we believed to be suitable for the style of music video we were going for. Such as linking the colour of the orange/yellow shades of blurred lights with the natural shades of our 'music artists' face.

Prism:

The prism effect allowed us to apply the concept of 'Lights' into our video by giving a couple of our shots/footage an ultraviolet style. We found this effective because we were able to manage the intensity of the effect. We timed the growing strength/intensity of light as the powerful note kicks in; we were able to do this manually by adding in points and adjusting them in time.

Zoom blur:

Zoom blur allowed us to distort some of our shots to look as if speed itself has been applied to the shot, distorting how it looks and making it look out of place.

Slit Tunnel:

Bloom and Soft Focus:

Applying the bloom effect over some of the shots enabled us to create a particular glow, particularly to our blurred light effects, enhancing the light itself and making it appeare more bold.

Bad TV:

The Bad T.V. effect was applied to a couple of shots because we believed it would be a suitable application to the shot and believed it fitted in well with the 'lights' concept - coming through as if it were a T.V. producing light. We also noticed it added more flare and movement than what it was originally - which would attract our audiences attention alot more.

Creation of the Introduction Banner using Motion:

Once we decided what music channel our video would be shown on, we created a logo for this. We used Up Your Viva as our music channel therefore we used a similar logo to theres. Below is evidence of us editing our introduction banner.

As a background image, we decided use one that we had taken with our camera as it had a very cool creative effect. The other reason was that we wanted to keep the banner consistent with the colours used in our music video.

This image's opacity was turned down so that it was more discrete.

We added text to display the Artist, Song title and the Record label.

Here is the fonts list that we chose from. It was then saved as a PNG file.

Motion:

To create the Introduction Banner to be used for the music video, Motion was used. When selecting the to create the project, the project preset that had to be used was PAL DV. This was because we were only creating a small motion under 250 frames.

The PNG file was imported onto Motion to start creating the motion transitions.