Advanced Editing Workshop

 In today's lesson, we were in the editing suite looking at how to edit our music video. 

The most important thing to do is to sync the footage with the music using the clapper Board and you must do this with every single shot so that they are all in sync and makes it much easier for the rest of the edit. 

You must also rename each shot so that you can identify them easily. Don't mention name of actor or actress, use their role instead e.g. Close Up singer, or Mid Guitarist and Drummer. You should also group the shots together so that access to them is easier especially in the edit.

Make a performance cut - this is where you make a music video and only include the band and afterwards, for the final cut, drop in the singer and some narrative elements. There is little use in making a rough cut especially in the short time we have to edit our videos so instead we create the performance cut to the best of our abilities.

Best method is to edit 1 hour at a time so you don't get overly bored and get distracted because there you won't make the right decisions when editing. It is also best to edit 10 seconds at a time and focus on it to the best of your abilities so that you can make the right editing decisions therefore, it looks great. Do not show off your video to others as it wastes time. In that time you could polish off a dodgy bit of the video that you're not too sure on. 

Three Rules to follow when editing

1. You must have a close up of the singer's face on the first line to establish who the lead singer is.

2. Group shots together - Have 2 shots in a row of the drummer, then cut to 3 similar shots of the guitarist e.g. guitar neck, then face then strings.

3. Cut on motion - This will help the video flow much more as it won't look static if the singer is motionless creating excitement for the audience as it won't be boring.

Listen to the music and try and match some of the edit to the music, for example if you hear a 'swish' in the music, have your lead singer spin around or have someone doing some motion that would create wind.  After the final cut, colour your footage so that it looks perfect. Not too pale, not too bright not dominated by 1 colour and hopefully not too dark. Take this time to add any effect shots like a split screen to make the video more interesting.

This is an example from the matrix where the footage has been colour corrected.

You must also clean the edit by going over the footage 6 or 7 times correcting anything so that you are happy with the final edit.