This blog post will contain of the process of how we edited our music video using editing styles, meanings and how they play a huge role to help create messages for our audiences.
Background
To start developing my skills, I had to dive into the world of editing and prepare myself to meet all the required criteria to achieve the best results. One of the main things I've discovered that can help me boost my work was colour. Colouring plays an important role in editing because it helps bring the song and the cinematography to life.
For me, the best way to research this was by watching movies and observing how they achieve their quality, colour grading, and overall visual style. In our project, we chose a cool blue tone inspired by a movie we've discovered together, as it helped create the mood and vision we wanted. Here are movies we've liked based on their colour palettes.
Waves (2019)
Edited By: Isaac Hagy
Euphoria (2019)
Edited By: Julio Perez
The Florida Project (2017)
Edited By: Sean Baker
After analysing the three films, I noticed they share a similar colouring pattern that can guide me in making my own videos look closer to their palettes. This is because certain features are used in all three, and these features work together to create their colouring style.
Grain is very important in this colouring style. It makes the image look rough and textured instead of smooth and clean. This stops the footage from looking too digital. The grain makes the scene feel more real, raw, and human, as if it was captured naturally. It also adds emotion because the image feels imperfect and natural.
Saturated lighting is a key feature because the colours are very bright and strong. The colours look more intense than in real life. This makes the scene feel dream-like and emotional. The strong colours catch the audience's attention and help show the feelings of the characters through colour.
Low exposure is important because many scenes are kept slightly dark. There are deep shadows where some details cannot be seen clearly. This creates mood and tension. The darkness helps the audience focus on the feeling o then scene instead of seeing everything clearly.
Colour Development
Now that I have discovered these editing style techniques, the next step is to explore the colouring tools in editing apps and develop a palette that matches the look I want. Because I'm new to this, it took me a while to figure out the colours and how I want them to be represented. Here are the colours that I've done and how I did it in VideoStar for (7.99$) subscription.
This colouring is gonna be used for her singing, we chose this colour because it highlights the mood of what we want which is blue and because her overall persona and what she wants to showcase is purely blue in her media.
We chose to do a yellow vibrant colour to help symbolise the subversion of using yellow for happiness but in the scene like this it shows that there it's good that they're having a fight and it it's happier this way. We also used it in the ending which helps bring the "it's a happy ending" mood. So this is technically used to subvert.
The use of a cool tone when they're alone helps increase and emphasise the emotion that they feel which is sad since they're alone now and it feels isolation. These blue colour will only be shown during times where they're alone and the running scene.
The use of pink purple and blue for memories helps emphasise the nostalgia of the relationship and creates this dreamy effect since there are all just memories. We barely chose to use a warm colour because the overall meaning of these cool tones show audiences that their memories are very depressing and sad. It feels very emotional and that it's very toxic in such that it's sad to watch.
These beach is a memory to them where it's their happiest time of their relationship. The use of the subversion even thought we've completely subverted shows no matter how toxic it was, this exact moment really emphasise that their memory had a tiny hope of happiness.
Process of Editing
Now that I've prepared everything, the first thing that I'm gonna do is to get a copy sound of the song to use as audio for editing. This website https://spotidownloader.com/en14 is what I used to download my song and thankfully it wasn't paid or had no viruses.
The first thing I did was to put my lip sync video to the song and match it to my singing. Then I cut them to placements where I wanted the artist to be singing completely or just a short cuts to let people know that the artist is still there storytelling,
Following whats on the storyboard, the next thing that I've done is adding the clips according to beat, especially emphasising the first lyric in the song and matching it to give audiences a dramatic shift from seeing a long take of the characters having fun and then a match cut of when they are split apart. Because the clips are so short, the idea is that we jump cut them back and forth which is used to increase the tension of the characters making audiences wonder what is the parallel about.
After getting feedback from my teacher, since we added a starting scene of the artist, he explained how this indicates to audiences that this is the artists story, while in reality, our intensions is to make this whole music video about the guys POV. So to make this idea, he suggested to start the music video with the guy alone. Because we do not have a single shot of just him, we decided to use an idea where well use the same exact video of him at the beach which can be a hermeneutic code to audiences to question who is at the beach and why is he there. Which in the end helps reveal the answer to the whole message of the music video.
The next thing I did is to continue on the short fighting scene that they had earlier, which helps showcase the short flashback of why they had the intense scene on the couch. I decided to keep it a long take to help keep the fighting realistic and so that audiences can see the full tension in detail and develop sympathy to the female lead in this fight. I then decided to use jump cuts and cut them based on the lyrics which plays a connotation to help enhance the emotion of the scenes. These lyrics are very important to help define the meaning behind the camera work and so audiences can deeply understand the idea.
"Why cant I stop?"
This just helps focus on how she's being very helpless with herself knowing that all they do is fight but she tries to keep herself in, knowing it's a toxic situation. Which technically refers to "why can I stop myself and get out of this toxic relationship".
"Everything I want speeding up my pulse"
Behind this meaning showcases the female leads wants and desires of wanting to be in a stable and happy/healthy/loving relationship that she was in at the beginning before all the fights and loss of interest. she desperately wants to go back to how things were before.
"Give em nothing personal"
This plays a huge role in the meaning of the relationship. This whole time during fight scenes, there is no communication happening. In most of the scenes where they are basically over, it shows them sitting down together in silent and no-one is saying anything to each other showcasing the lack of communication between them and how instead of trying to communicate and point out the problem to settle the conflict, they are brushing it off and no-one is addressing the elephant in the room . This plays a role in meaning because this shows that the characters will never open up to each other and they would rather watch the relationship fall apart rather than just lowering down their pride and egos to fix the relationship. this personally and highlights the reason of why they are toxic for each other.
"I'm not affected"
Modern relationships are very different to how things were in the past. It is far more confusing and complicated. One of the biggest pressures of modern relationships is the need to appear "nonchalant". many people feel like they must act like they don't care and it doesn't affect them when it really clearly does. This lyric emphasizes this meaning because both characters never openly show that the relationship falling apart bothers them when in closed doors it clearly does. showing too much emotion ma appear ''too much'' or ''too needy'' Because of this, people hide their true feelings, avoid serious conversations, and pretend they are okay with uncertainty just to keep the other person interested. This creates a situation where both people may care, but neither wants to be the first to admit it which connects directly into this music videos storyline.
For the verse, this is where we will showcase all the memories and all the emotional moments they had when they are happy, clips like this help audiences believe that they used to be in love and gives the sad emotion to audiences that the relationship is falling apart even though it used to be so cute. I chose to use quick jump for this because it helps emphasise that these memories are ironically fading away because these memories wont be there anymore since they are in a stage where they are moving on from each other. Using eye-line cuts when they are looking at each other helps bring their love interaction with their body language more realisticThe focus of this makes audience try to feel like not that look so cute why did it just quickly disappear to enhance how good the relationship was before.
"I've been the ice, I've been the flame
I've been the prize, the ball and chain
I've been the dice, the magic eight
So I'm not affected
These lines showcases the female lead being really tired and emotionally exhausted because they've been through so many different experiences in relationships. she's acted cold sometimes and very passionate some other times hence why we put flashbacks of memories of different situations in this specific verse. she's acted wanted and desired (which is at the time of the memories) but she's also felt like a burden and pushed away. after going through all these things, her present self (the one narrating the story and lip-syncing) they don't feel surprised of hurt as easily anymore. she's showing that she's grown out of it and she is much stronger now hence the "so I'm not affected" part.
To end the verse I decided to emphasise this lyric to when she's singing.
"Tonight I just wanna fall"
Emphasises on her growth from all this and now she's finally ready to tell her story, move on and
completely ready to let go from this bad past she was in.
The next thing I did was add a parallel of a scene of when they are happy together inside a car and when they aren't.
"Mirror, mirror"
Is used in this scene to showcase a parallel of when they were still in love and it switches to the present of how they are now falling apart. so there is a parallel hence "mirror" which is a reflection.
The next thing I did is to add 2 parallel scenes of when she enters the house during a tensed situation where she is still willing to stay and a scene of her leaving the house to show case how she's leaving the house for good. Then I used the lyrics in the scenes that helps emphasise what the meaning is behind the moment.
"I become her again
Visions of a teenage innocence
How'd I shift shape like that?"
In this scene/lyric she picks up a photo frame right when she's about to move out of there apartment and reminisces about a memory of them taking a Photo Booth picture. it cuts too the memory with the lyrics
"I become her again"
She falls back to that memory and wants to relive it and misses it.
"Visions of a teenage innocence"
Talks about how when they were in love they looked so pure and innocent before all the toxicity got involves.
"How'd I shift shape like that?"
Talks about how she cannot seem to fathom the fact that she was once so happy and full of love and now there's a huge jump to the her right now that is moving out of their apartment and completely heartbroken. she hesitates for a moment before she leaves because she still feels a bit of hope but then she finds it in herself to know that leaving is what's best for her and leaves.
Using jump cuts I went back and forth to each scenes of when they are standing in front of the door and the girl enters and ended the verse of her leaving to end the tensed situation. I made sure that I cut it to the moments of when she head turns and when they open the door and thew same time to help really bring the match cut and eye-line cuts for audiences to feel like they are in her position.
The next thing I was to make a memory flashback again but this time lesser since the memories are slowly decreasing and tis building up to the present of the story. I also decided to use a scene of them happy when the song says flame to symbolise that the she was passionate about her relationship and its sad that its slowly fading.
The next thing I did plays a major role that helps build up the scene of the whole meaning behind the music video. This scene has 2 pathways after the breakup, the girls POV and the guys POV. We see how the reactions after the breakup using memories and their present situation.
As soon as she leaves and moves back into her childhood home, in the heat of the moment from all the heartbreak she only remembers everything bad he's done to her and how the relationship was so toxic. it cuts to the male lead now and the whole mv shifts to his POV and we don't see anything more from her because it symbolises the fact that she has moved on and that's the end of her story.
The main focus is now on the male lead months later because in general it is said that men only start to grieve their loss a lot of time later because they are still in denial at the beginning so we showcased that by making a whole shift in the music video to his POV. From his POV, everything is a lot more different from hers because she was the one being treated badly so she remembers only the bad. However, he only remembers all the good memories that is shown in a very dreamlike filtering to showcase how when we are feeling nostalgic our minds play a trick on us and showcases only the good and not how toxic the relationship actually was. he is shown heavily reminiscing and can't seem to get her out of his head.
I also added a small text edit of when he gets notification to help audiences understand that the reason why he will be running out to chase her is because of a special occasion. I used video start and used the same style form the movie euphoria when they get phone notifications.
This is when he goes to the beach with the same exact scene in the beginning because this is when the answers are being revealed to questions about who is this guy and why was he at the beach. He goes to their spot which is the beach. the place where they spent the most time being in love and starts to feel a lot of regret for his actions. which is why we only chose to add memories of the beach only when he is at the beach thinking about all the great memories he had with her.
I also chose these specific lyrics during the scene where she's singing. Just like what I've mentioned the purpose of "I'm not affected" is that she feels like she doesn't care if he wants her back no matter how desperate he is. So really emphasising this lyric during scene really shows how far she has moved on.
Now it cuts to him running. Because the clips were quite short and it was really difficult to shoot, since it was a public space, our choice was to create jump cuts and help make the clips look longer using this technique. It also really helped emphasise the heated tension thats happening. In the end, a long take slow-mo of her looking back really helps support how he really misses her and how precious she was to him. We also used a blur effect to highlight that his focus is now becoming reality and he is finally realising what he truly wants in his confusing situation.
After getting feedback, our teacher suggested to added clips of the girl between the running scene to help develop the memory core, We also decided to slow those down to bring the mode of how he is really just trying to focus on her as he is running really fast.
Ending it with him arriving at the cafe where he meets her with another guy, I've decided to add clips of her when she isn't singing to showcase that her part of the story ends and its a slow-mo of her looking away, this helps indicate that she's moved on from the relationship and isn't looking forward to the same situation.
We've decided to go over the time limit of the music video of the eyeliner match of him looking at her when she's with another guy. This long take, allows to really emphasise the emotion of the guy after realising that he lost her. This then allows audiences reactions to feel apathy for him because now they know that he was the cause of this whole situation. But it also because sympathy audiences are more willing to see a happy ending but only to find out that it wasn't.
Reflection: to me this block post was really stressful because editing a four minute long music video took ages for me to get to develop knowing that I had to research a little bit into colouring and to sort out the perfect clips for this project. I also procrastinate a lot and it took me a long time to really settle myself into working on the blog because I'm more focused on just editing itself and since I have to make a blog for it it was really hard to just quickly take evidence and to write it down on the block post. Luckily, I had teammates who are willing to help because they also want to showcase their idea into the music video which helped made it faster for me to do my work. I think in the future, I really have to work on my procrastination skills and my responsibility because this block post really drained myself as a person because there was so much to do knowing that I had to edit make a block post and colour.
No comments:
Post a Comment