Final - Music Promotional Video

Linking Audio to Visuals and Applying Effects P4 (d)

Replacing The Audio

Firstly, the audio had to be added, which I have shown in a previous post.

There were two ways in which I could have separated the audio to produce the final music video.
My preferred method was to import the track into Audio 1, giving me the best view of all the waveform and timings of the music video. Furthermore, I would have all the video footage audio in Audio 2 and 3.


After this, I simply mute all other audio tracks, leaving Audio 1, which will simply play coinciding with the footage. Below shows the other audio tracks that have been muted. Then I have used Audio 5 to add a guitar feedback sound effect for the music video. I favoured this method of linking the audio as it was quick and effective, playing the audio track over the video footage.

The second possible method would simply be to unlink the audio from individual clips, then deleting the unused or unneeded audio. This is shown in the images below.

Below you can see the waveforms within the song. I observed these to assure my cutting was on time and efficient. Using regular quick cutting techniques meant I could maintain the pace of the song, as well as producing a more entertaining music video for the audience. 

As well as simply linking the audio to the video footage, for every chorus I included a lip-sync clip, therefore it was then essential to match the footage with the audio once again. However the lip-syncing process took more time and accuracy to ensure the audio matched the video, to show the singer, miming the words coinciding with the lyrics heard.

 Although a reasonably simple process, I was keen to match the audio as close as possible to produce the most professional looking, aesthetically pleasing music video. Once recording the video footage, which involved playing the track for the singer to 'mime', providing me with perfect lip-synced footage, including the correct timings.  After this I had to import the clips to Adobe Premiere Pro, and match the footage, removing the original audio, resulting in the high quality audio of 'Livin' In The City' replacing it, providing me with correctly synced footage.

Furthermore, I included typography in the chorus of the song, meaning not only did I have to match the lip-syncing, but the text seen on screen as well. Above shows the individual words used in the creation of typography. It has been matched with the audio and lip-syncing to emphasise the lyrics, which is the most captivating part of the song. 

Other than the song's audio, I included one additional piece of audio which is seen to be diegetic. At the beginning of the music video, before the song begins, the footage shows a guitar being plugged in. This simple sound effect was recorded whilst filming the rest of the instrumental footage, and therefore I simply had to add this in post production to achieve the highest quality sound.

Applying Visual Effects P4 (c)

Many Visual effects were added within my music video. Above shows two effects that I have included to create a compelling video. Here I have used an optical lens flare, which increases the technicality of the video, and is appropriate due to the light seen behind the bass drum.

Throughout post production, I continued to use a wide variety of technical editing processes to develop and create my final music video, this involved spending long periods of time studying the individual video clips involved in the final piece to ensure continuity was achieved for the duration of the music video, giving a professional, high quality look.

In order to create my music video, the various editing techniques used included;

Simple cutting and rearranging of clips to ensure I have captivating, high quality footage - Continuity Editing

Superimposition of Clips in order to create an engaging, high quality music video

Editing of Position and Scale (Motion Effect) for a montage and compilation scene

Colour Correction and Tint to create an atmosphere, matching the individual clips

Additional lens flares and visual effects to emphasise the video footage

Cloning Technique in Adobe After Effects to demonstrate time passing 

Time Remapping to slow down and speed up individual clips to match audio and pace 

Typography to present lyrics of chorus & Titles

Replication of clips to match lyrics

Cutting and Rearranging of clips

The initial editing and post production process involved using the razor and selection tool, which simply involved importing the required footage into the editing workspace/timeline, and cutting to the appropriate lengths, then placing in the correct position to match the audio. Although this was the most simplistic process involved in post production, taking the greatest care and attention to detail was essential to create the highest quality, professional looking video, ensuring continuity was created between footage and the video flowed well.

Superimposition of Clips in order to create an engaging, high quality music video

As seen in the image above, two individual clips can be seen at the same time through the use of superimposition. This can be achieved by placing one clip above the other on the workspace in Premiere Pro and cut to match both clips duration. Furthermore opacity can be altered in the effects control area, reducing this will allow both clips to be seen at the same time, one above the other, depending on which clip you wish to be behind, and which to be above. 

Above shows the change in opacity for a clip involving two different pieces of video footage. This has been reduced from 100% to 48%, which simply reveals the footage that has been placed underneath the clip, this is superimposition, the placement of a video on top of an already-existing video.

Examples of Superimposition

Editing of Position and Scale (Motion Effect) for a montage and compilation scene

This scene was created to keep pace up to match the audio, keeping the audience enticed and involved during the music video. The use of the split-screen meant the audience could view the different instrumental parts at the same time, which also gave a new perspective and look of the overall music video, creating an enticing effect.

In order to achieve this, I simply had to use the motion effect in Premiere Pro, which allowed me to scale and position the individual footage to create a split screen effect. By doing this with four different video clips, I was able to easily achieve a split screen involving each individual piece of footage. Below shows one of the clips change in position and scale, meaning it reduced in size and whereabouts on screen.

Colour Correction and Tint to create an atmosphere

1st Technique

For the first instrumental scene at the beginning of the music video, I concluded that I would have a slight purple tint on the video footage, to create more of an atmosphere and engage the viewers of the video. I did this in two separate ways to create individual effects depending on what I wished to achieve.

Firstly, I simply selected a tint tool and colour matched to a similar piece of footage, that would eventually be used for the second way in which i created a colour change in my footage. This enabled me to add a 'tint' filter to particular footage of the instruments being used. 

Above shows the tint added to create the filter on my video footage, an example of before and after the tint was added is shown below. 

Before

After

2nd Technique

As previously mentioned, using a piece of footage from my first video shoot, I was able to create a tint over the desired video footage. The way in which this was achieved was simply by reducing the opacity of the clip, which was a focus pull of purple lights, creating a blurred effect, and placing over the video footage. Both the initial focus pull clip and the opacity change can be seen throughout the music video. An example of these can be seen below, where the opacity of the clip was reduced from 100% to 21%.

The reason for combining the two clips and reducing the opacity was to create a more interesting music video, with the blurred lights making it seem more realistic, as though the footage had been filmed at a concert, and creating a more enticing video with additional visual effects.

Additional lens flares and visual effects to emphasise the video footage

I chose to use lens flares when it was visible that light could be potentially altered by the positioning and mise-en-scene of the video footage. This again was to add extra detail and depth to the music video, developing a standard video to a high quality, professional standard music video that could be used by the artist. Some lens flares occurred when filming, although ameliorated (made better looking aesthetically) through post production by adding a separate lens flare, allowing me to alter the lens type and form of the actual lens flare, as well as positioning and size, enabling me to emphasise the original lens flare.

Original 

Additional Lens Flare

The band, John Butler Trio are known to be 'Indie', and therefore I decided to try and present this with the way I which I filmed the music video, presenting the genre as well as the style of the band. I believe the beginning shot especially with the lens flare (shown above) matches the 'indie' them that I wished to achieve, showing the name of the band in simple but effective text, and a strong opening shot of the drum kit, the first instrument to appear in the audio. 

Cloning Technique in Adobe After Effects to demonstrate time passing

This post production editing technique was the most complex throughout the overall development of my music video, this is due to the way in which the effect is created. 

Firstly, I had to film three individual video clips of the actor if different positions, which would eventually result in him appearing in all three at the same time. Initially I was going to have all three clips visible at one time, although during post production and final editing, I decided to fade out the clips to suggest time was passing as a decision had to be made by the actor in the music video. When taking the footage, it was essential that the camera was placed in exactly the same position, this is because if the camera position changed, cloning would be extremely hard to achieve, as backgrounds and surroundings would constantly be changing, meaning there will be a lack of continuity. Each shot should be roughly the same length, although this can be altered in Adobe After Effects to achieve the best cloning results.

After the footage had been taken, I imported this into Adobe After Affects CS5. 

When imported, I then had to mask the individual clips using the pen tool,  to ensure there were no overlapping clips. This created a form of 'barrier' between the different clips which could cause the footage to look inconsistent and unprofessional. As the background has not changed due to the camera being positioned in the same place, when masking the footage, only that part will be shown on screen, and when complete with all the different clones, the whole background will be seen throughout the clip. Furthermore, I add a mask feather fades the edges of the mask, which simply blends the mask into the other clips, making it look as it was all one piece of footage. 

Below shows the different masks added to create the cloning scene.

All clips were placed on top of one another, then once all masks were added I decided to fade the clones in and out to simulate time passing as a decision had to be made. As a consequence of this decision, I then had to change the opacity of the individual clips, which would bring the clones in and out of view on screen. 

The grey diamonds in the image below shows the changes of opacity for the individual clips, this caused the footage to fade in and out depending on what was relevant at that moment during the music video. The first diamond indicates when the opacity change begins, and the following diamond indicated the opacity change has completed.

After all processes were complete, I exported the footage and then simply imported to Adobe Premiere Pro, where I incorporated this with the rest of my music video.

Time Remapping to slow down and speed up individual clips to match audio and pace 

This editing technique was used simply to change video footage to match the audio, for example I speed up and slow down some of the guitar footage to match what the audience were hearing from the audio, if this had not been done the guitar seen would have looked too slow, and reduced the pace of the music video, causing it to become uninteresting and unprofessional. 

The image above shows the time remapping had caused the speed to be reduced from 100% to 82%, causing the footage be be slightly slowed down, resulting in it matching the audio guitar parts. I could simply use a trial and error, as well as educated decisions to work out roughly how much to decrease the speed, then analyse the clip and slightly alter the speed to achieve the most appropriate looking footage. 

Typography to present lyrics of chorus & Titles

The use of typography within the music video added an emphasis to the lyrics, as well as an introduction to the song. The font style was matched in every part of the music video, keeping to Avenir, size 195, with small caps and a shadow. 

Below shows the Premiere Pro workspace where the lyrics of the chorus were added for a more engaging and interesting piece of footage. After creating the font style and using this throughout the development of the typography, I simply added this above the video footage and matched the auido to the visual lyrics on screen, altering size and position depending on the clip used.

Replication of clips to match lyrics

Finally, I added a simple visual effect to match the lyric of 'but you wanted more'. This was just before the chorus, and I felt I required a build up in the previous clip, so due to this I analysed the lyrics and decided by replicating what was on screen could suggest that the protagonist wanted more in the city. Therefore by using a clip of The Ritz hotel in London, I added a replication effect that would progressively add further replications of the same footage, creating a large split screen of the same clip.

Producing and reviewing an off line edit P4 (b)

Offline Edit

Using Adobe Premiere Pro was essential in the production of my Music Video. This was the primary programme used in the editing and production of the final media product.

Firstly I had to import all footage recorded into Adobe CS5, naming them individually for ease of use further into the editing process, allowing me to simply add in and cut clips in the correct order, to create the initial structure of my music video. Adding the music track was next, this created the overall structure, giving me the exact timing required for footage, as well as providing the necessary storyline to coincide with the footage. After importing all footage, it became clear that I had too much footage, that over-ran after audio finished, which overall gave me a diverse range of clips to edit, opening my options and enabling to include the new ideas I had incorporated when filming the original footage.

At this point of the production process, it was vital that I kept roughly to the storyboards, script and original concept. All clips had been renamed and therefore I could pick out the individual pieces of footage required to create the off line edit.

Above shows my imported music track, as well as the completed working area from my editing process. The waveform of the track was extremely beneficial throughout the editing process, especially when tweaking the finest details in the final processes. This is because I wished to synchronise and match the track to the footage taken, which at some points required me to look closely and analyse the waveform to create the most effective presentation for the music video.

Tools Used

There were many features included in the editing of my video, including typography for the chorus, tinting, speed alteration, as well as simple cutting and trimming clips. The primary tool used throughout was the razor tool, the fifth icon down, shown to the right.

The Razor tool allowed me to cut and trim any piece of media within the workspace, including video footage as well as the track. Using the razor tool to trim and perfect footage to create the best possible edit for the music video, I then combined this with the selection tool (top icon on the right), to rearrange, manage and organise all clips.

The programme is reasonably technical although once understanding how to use it's features, it is possible to create very captivating, technical music video.

Below (Fig 1) identifies the different tools available to use in Adobe Premiere Pro, and secondly (Fig 2) explains and gives a description of the individual tools, providing information on how they can be used.




Fig 1

Fig 2

The image above shows gives a perspective of the workspace I have been using on Adobe Premier Pro CS5. I have quick access to all my imported clips on the left hand side, where I cans imply drag the footage into the effects workspace.

Logging rushes & Creating an edit decision list P4 (a)

Logging rushes was crucial as it would make it much easier to find all footage and choose the appropriate shots when needed. Firstly I transferred all footage from the camera using a card reader, then continued to create a new 'Music Video' folder to store the footage. (Shown Directly Below) This meant I could then go on to organise all clips for editing. 

When transferring into Adobe Premier Pro, I named each individual clips to organise and make it much easier to edit the footage. This meant I could simply drag a clip into the work area and proceed to edit, rather than scrolling and searching for clips which may waste time and be hard to locate the exact clips.

Once in Premier Pro, I was able to the the clip 'Name' and 'Frame Rate', the frequency at which frames in a television picture, film, or video sequence are displayed. As well as this I was able to see the media start and end, as well as duration of the clip, which helped me identify exactly which clips were what, giving me the finite details to help me differentiate when editing and synchronising footage.