What went well:

• we were successful at getting enough footage to fill the whole clip
• our editing to the beat was successful and choppy like the harsh beats in the song
• our lip syncing is successful and in time
• the jump cuts of the dancing at the beginning are appropriate to the genre
• the inserts of the high angle movements when there is no singing make the video seem less static
• the dolly shot is very effective and creates the sense of madness the singer is feeling – it relates to the lyrics

Even better if:

• the first zoom transition is the only one in the video – it is nice to have things in three’s so it looks more complete
• add colour corrections in the future
• more moments when she isn’t singing and dancing to convey the pop genre as fluid and free
• the long shots could have more movement to them – the singer is quite static which isn’t as conventional to the genre

Targets:

• make sure transitions are in 3’s to make it more complete
• have a wider range of shots to create interest
• ensure the singer moves when they sing

Here is my edited video of the song Poker Face by Lady Gaga. For this task I had to lip sync footage to the original song in order to make it seem as if our stars were singing the song. This is more difficult than it seems!

Successful editing and lip syncing is crucial for a music video because with faulty lip syncing, it makes the video unbelievable for the audience. This could then impact on the stars reputation and the trust with their fans: is the star actually singing the song?

The footage that we got made it difficult to lip sync the video to the audio as some of the lip movement was unclear because people were laughing and messing up the words. It was difficult to get successful footage at first because the stars weren’t animated and looked rather still on camera, however once more people joined in and got into the spirit of it, the footage looked more lively and interesting. It would be better if the footage had more dancing in it or the stars used facial expressions more, however overall the footage isn’t awful. When editing the footage, there were moments that I couldn’t quite get to sync up with the audio (0:33) and there are also moments of darkness where I didn’t put a clip in or cut a clip too short (0:18). However, there were also very successful moments of lip syncing (0:57). This is extremely effective because it makes the clip seem very believable because the lip syncing and audio are exactly in line. There are also successful cuts between shots in the edit (0:08-0:13). These quick speed edits make the video interesting for the audience to look at because it is frequently changing and showing different stars.

Looking forward, I have learnt that it is extremely important to have successful lip syncing in a video because without it the star looks fake and it doesn’t look effective or professional. I have also learnt that it is important for the stars to be animated and comfortable in front of the camera because otherwise it makes the audience feel uncomfortable watching the video too. It would also be useful to have shots other than singing because watching people singing over and over again can get very tedious on the eye, so a variety of shots would be preferable for my music video: e.g. dancing and narrative shots.

Below is an image of my storyboard created to help my group plan for our shoot on making our montage. Our montage theme is being based on the title ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ and we aim to portray different shots of what people find beautiful through our images. We have included a variety of different shots such as mid shots, extreme close ups and extreme long shots in order to be able to portray the different views of people and what is beautiful in their own opinion.

Here is our final montage in which we edited clips together, added transitions, graphics and music in Premier Pro to create our final montage:

Some strengths of our video are:

1. We have a variety of shots
2. The music is upbeat and happy which illustrates our positive narrative
3. Transitions such as cross dissolve make the video fit together successfully and make it interesting for the audience to look at

Some weaknesses of our video are:

1. Some shots are blurry and out of focus
2. Some shots e.g. the lipstick shot isn’t interesting and there is a lot of empty space in the shot that needs to be filled (0:47)
3. Some of the shots are static and would be more interesting if there was movement involved e.g. holding hands (0:19)

I have learnt that montage editing consists of shots that are composed in a fast-paced fashion. A montage traditionally compresses time and conveys a narrative in a short amount of time. This editing technique will help me with my music video production because it will help me to convey lots of information in a short amount of time, create tension, combine multiple storylines and convey a narrative and reveal characters. I have also learnt how to successfully use the basics of Adobe Premier Pro by learning how to edit clips, upload audio onto a video and how to compose a video.

I think that our montage has a positive impact on the audience because it has shots that convey happiness (0:07). Our narrative could have been portrayed more as it is not completely obvious that it is four different peoples perspective on what they think is beautiful. One specific cut that create meaning is at 0:46. This is a medium close up of someone waving at the camera, implying that they are friendly. The emotion of happiness is also conveyed because they are smiling. There isn’t a sense of progression in our montage however there is a journey in our montage as we see each individual ‘storyline’ of what each person thinks is beautiful. We repeated some shots like extreme close ups and mid shots to show the precise thing that was beautiful. I would have liked to have added some long shots and wide shots to get a wider picture and to get more in the shot. I would have also liked the shots to be the same length and that there were more in each perspective so that we got a wider range of beautiful things to create a better sense of a montage. This would have been easier to do if we could film off the school premises.

Focus forward has helped in basic editing and how to add in clips and edit cuts together to create the montage, which will benefit me for future in order to put my music video together successfully.