P5- Editing Techniques

Edit 1

In final cut pro, I began by making a copy of my animatic, so that I could use the same timings of the clips. I made sure that all of the settings stayed the same, so that the video would stay in HD and at the correct fps for a professional video. I then Imported all of the useable footage from my shoots into the clip library, ready to be edited into the place of the animatic slides. For this, I replaced the animatic clips with similar clips in the exact same place. For green screen shots, I didn't do any green screen effects but did put the clip in front of the green screen and the background together, ready for more advanced editing later. I also had to alter the aspect ratio of all of the clips, as they were exported at a different size to the screen and was squashed. Many scenes also required some slow or fast motion, both because of the effect it created, but also if some clips were filmed too fast or slow. All of the clips had to be muted, so that the majority of the audio focus was placed on the music.

From my first edit, I learned that it takes a longer time then anticipated to edit in shots, meaning that I may have to schedule more sessions for editing if I am to finish the video in time. I also will need to learn how to use more advanced editing techniques, such as green screen or the smoke effects, so that I can fully integrate the supernatural effects that I have planned.

After my first edit I had my video watched and assessed by two of my classmates. I was told that the ideas and narrative of the video were good, as well as my use of details, and that now is should focus on finishing editing in all of my clips and filling gaps, Add green screen effects to my shots, and edit sections of the video to focus more on the rhythm to the backing track. My teachers also repeated these sentiments, meaning that for my next edits, I made sure that I put all of my effort and time into addressing these basic issues, instead of focusing on finer details.

Second Edit

After adding the rest of my clips to their proper places in the video, remembering to include the foreground and background shots for green screen videos, the first thing that I did when editing this video was to improve the clips rhythm and synchronisation with the background audio. I did this by cutting certain clips down into smaller clips and slightly editing their speed, so that they could better match the beat and rhythm of the song. I did this for the hallway lyrics section, as well as the foot tapping in time to the song. I then focused on the green screen sections of the video, using the keying effect in my editing software to remove the shots background and beginning to arrange the shots to match up with the video playing behind it. I also began to add some of my visual effects to the clips, using free effects, software effects and transformations to add to the supernatural elements of the video. for example I changed the opacity of some of the clips to make SC appear and disappear, added smoke and mist to some shots, added a camcorder effect to the intro to make it seem more real, and changed the colours of some shots to be more vibrant and interesting.

Final edit:

In the final edit I first and foremost focused on perfecting the green screen shots, to do this I applied a mask effect to each one which I then used to cut out every part of the background and edges which were still visible. I then used this to arrange the clips in a way that both makes sense, but also doesn't reveal the seams of the clips. I then added a few more visual effects, such as scan lines and a radio sound quality in the intro and more movement transformations for the clips, until the video had reached a point that I was happy with. Finally I added black bats to the top and bottom of the video, which both makes the video seem more professional and high quality, whilst also making sure that nothing bleeds over the borders of the video. When I was finished with the video, I exported it as two files, a lower quality version which could be uploaded to YouTube and the internet, as well as a higher quality master version which can be used professionally.