Video Editing

The first problem with the video edit came from getting the footage off the camera since the XF100 footage can’t be directly imported to Final Cut Pro, and I didn’t realise. Eventually I found the transfer programme (Sony XDCAM Transfer) and made the footage useable.

You can see partly along the timeline that the shots have very specific lengths to sync to the music, the markers are deleted here for some reason but I used them to sync it up as perfectly as I could.

I did the first rough cut, mainly to sync up the images with the soundtrack so it flowed nicely and we knew how many clips we could get in. After that Elliot did the fine cut, changing the shots so they flowed visually and made sure we used all our best shots. For the final cut I went back and made minor changes to a couple of clips and me and Elliot decided that was our final cut. They sounds are very well synced up with the video, an effect that works and we can thank to the Star Guitar music video I analysed earlier.

The theme of frames runs nicely throughout all the shots well, it is noticeable in most of them but it isn’t used so much that it becomes overkill, they’re split up enough to avoid that. Instead it just shows that we had a specific reason for some of the shots and it has been thought about which ones are in the final cut.

The split screens develop really well, it comes in surprisingly and since we used the opposite footage (e.g. zoom in and zoom out) of the same shot it both disorientates the audience and gives them a better view of the area being shot. I like how the split screens multiply in one part of the film it gives a good feeling of building visuals without it looking unnecessary or being too visually overwhelming. The zoom split screen shots sync up very well since we used the slow zoom button on the camera, they move simultaneously and work against each other better than I expected them to.

On this screen grab you can see the track being built up on top of each other, that's the split screen building to two then three images in a line, the effect can be seen slightly in the viewer.

One of our biggest worries was how to finish the piece, since the audio builds to a crescendo but it’s a lot harder to build to a visual peak. In the end we went with a shot that zooms outside through a hole in the roof as if we are finally leaving this warehouse and escaping. Since the contrast from outside to inside was so great as it zooms in on screen it slowly illuminates the room more and more until the screen is just bright white almost too much. As it goes slowly brighter it fits in with the build of the soundtrack and with the brightness of the screen along with the loudness of the soundtrack at the end, it sort of gives you a bit of sensory overload which works really well as a finale to the piece.

The final issue came with exporting the files into the various discs needed, but after some trial and error we were able to export them in the file types they need to be according to the brief. The playable DVD we made using Toast Titanium, and the Quicktime file was more a matter of trying the same thing multiple times to get it right eventually. As this was such a pain at the last minute I've become much more aware of this for future projects and will give myself plenty more time to work out how to export properly, quickly and easily.