Task Four - Understand the Techniques of Music Videos

In this task I cut a sequence together from footage that I recorded in the program Final Cut Express. The music I chose to edit to was Don't Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John and Kiki Dee. The video I have created features a duo of a boy/girl as does the song. Below is the video that I have created for this task.



First of all, we had to record footage to later edit along with the music. This meant that it had to be in time so that the song would match the speed of the singing in the video. To make this look realistic we printed off the lyrics to the song so that both people in the video knew the words. If they did not have the lyrics then, when it come to editing the music over the top, it would not have matched up with the song. We practiced what would happen before we took each take. We then proceeded to record and, as a result of practice, only needed minimal recordings before we had recorded all the footage needed.

In total we recorded from four different angles, all of which were used in the final edit of the video. We decided to set the camera up so that it was directly in front of the duo and do one take of the song. The song was played out loud and to make it look realistic the duo actually sung the song out loud. We recorded this in one shot and then proceeded to move onto a second shot which was directly in front of them but close up. We then recorded them singing the whole song again. The angle then changed to an angled shot to show them from the side which captured their 'dancing' movements whilst singing. One more shot was used which was a close up of their mouths alongside the microphone which was a close up. They took it in turns to record this as only one of them was on the screen at this time, so they sung their parts out loud to the music.

Shot 1

Shot 2

Shot 3

Shot 4

When we had recorded all the footage needed, I imported the clips into Final Cut Express for the editing process. As I had already completed a task editing footage to a beat, I had an idea of what I needed to do. The beginning of any video sets the scene for the song. I decided to have an establishing shot that sets the mood for the video. This was a long shot of the duo from directly in front. I then edited this part to the beat. I done this by using markers to rule out where the duo turn their heads at the same time. The markers helped me to then match this with the music when each beat come in on the song as seen below.

As there were multiple shots used within this video I decided to use layers to make it easier when editing. On the base layer I used the front on clip of the duo and then started to add the other angles on top when necessary. When the other angles were used I would add the parts I needed on top of the base layer as it shows whichever clip is on top. If I needed to use a different angle, I would place the clip at the top of all of the layers. To play the bottom layer clip I would just delete any clips on the track/s above. On each layer, there was only one clip that was cut into parts, I did not use multiple clips on any layer as that would have been confusing.

To lip sync the footage I decided to play around with the output volume levels so that I could hear what was happening in both the clips and the sound of the music. I also turned on the sound waves on the sound tracks to see the beats and where the music goes over the top of the videos. I then decided to mute the volume on the right output track on the video and mute the volume of the left output track on the music so that each played in different ears. I could then easily hear both the video and music in different ears and decide how far out of time each one is. I could then edit the video to be in time with the music. After this I made sure to change this back and play the music through both left/right outputs and mute the video's sound track.