and evaluation stages?
Programs:
- Adobe After Effects is the program I first used when editing my footage. As mentioned,
I chose to incorporate masking into my music video. Masking in terms of footage, is essentially
covering something up with something else. For each scene that was going to be masked, I had to
record that scene three times, one for each character. I also had to record a background track to
mask the footage onto. I used After Effects to do all of my masking as it was the method that I
thought would produce the best results. I was not familiar with the program before so had to learn
all the basics before I could even consider tackling something as complicated as masking. After
some lessons on how to use it, I made a preliminary masking video (see below) to familiarise
myself with what I had to do, and also to see if I liked the outcome, which I did! I was,and in fact
still am amazed with the process of masking and what the final product looks like in comparison
to the original footage. To mask, I firstly had to import the footage into After Effects and layer the
clips in accordance to how I wanted them to appear in the mask. The background track usually
went on the top, and then the remaining clips under that in order of sequence. Once this was done.
I had to draw a mask around the section of the clip that I wanted to use, which would then appear
on another layer, next to whatever was in that shot. In this case, my masking was of Nikita, so I
masked her from one shot, into another, and did this again with the third character, so there was
three of Nikita in one scene. This process was particularly monotonous and overall frustrating on
motion shots as if the timing was out or the camera moved even slightly, the whole shot was
ruined. Moreover, unlike with the static shots, the motion shots meant I had to create a mask path,
whereby the masked character would move along the screen on the new layer I placed it on.It
turned out that the process of masking would become the most time consuming part of my
editing, with a single 3 second shot taking over 5 hours to mask. After I masked all my shots, I
then exported them as complete new pieces of footage, which made it easier for me when I came
to importing all my footage into Final Cut Express, as I could simply place it on the timeline for the
desired length and in the right place, and that shot was pretty much done. Although I find Final Cut
Express easier to use as it is generally more simple and I used it last year, I am very pleased that
I incorporated After Effects into my editing process, as not only am I satisfied with the results
of the work that I edited in there, but I am now familiar with yet another program, that without
studying media, I would probably never learn how to use.
This screenshot shows some of the masking that was made using After Effects, here I was playing around with the colour of the footage.
Here, I was brightening the shots by adding in a blue sky. This helped with the overall feel of the video as it needs to be bright and happy. These is the before and after shots- Final Cut Express is the program that I used to edit my music video together. I am familiar
with this program as I used it for my coursework last year, so the initial use of it did not set me
back and I could start my editing with ease. However, unlike last year, I did not have to cut to the
beat, which became a challenging part of my editing. I begun by using the markers to signal
where the main beats were in the song, as well as having the waveform showing on the music
track to enable be to be able to visually see the beat as well. After importing all my footage,
I started to select the in and out points on the footage for the parts I wanted to use, and then
placed them on the timeline in sequence. This was all okay, I just had to ensure that everything
was to the beat. One thing I personally found particularly difficult was the lip syncing part. Some
of this was due to the actor not singing in time with the music, and some trouble was caused by
other shots being off. Although, at long last I overcame this hurdle and started working on the
effects that I wanted to include as part of the 'gag' video. I also played around with effects such as
'flop' which moves the footage from one side of the screen to the other; I used this for parts of my
base track to make it more dynamic. I also changed the speed, some to slow motion and some
I made faster, whilst I found the reverse tool quite appropriate too as it added humor to some of
my shots. Something I also used on Final Cut was the colour correcter tool. This helped me to
ensure that I added warmth to my footage, which supported the 'gag' aspect of the video, as it
helped it look light hearted and happy, rather than dreary like some of the white skies had
previously done. Moreover, this tool aided me in the sense that I could add consistency to the
footage and either lighten or darken them depending on what needed to be done.This particular
editing process has definitely made me aware of how many shots you need in order to create
an interesting music video, as they tend to have a great deal of quick shots as oppose to a few
longer ones. Furthermore, I realised how using different angles would benefit the overall look of
the music video, and that cutting to the beat takes a fine eye in order to get it 100% spot on.
Finally, I think I can appreciate just how difficult it is to edit together a music video as not only
does the lip sync have to match, and the shots be cut to the beat, but it has to contain a diverse
mix of shots and different footage, all things that I have learnt how to do during this process.
This is my sequence on Final Cut. Here, the RGB effect can be seen in use, which I edited in Final Cut. Moreover, the sequence an the music can be seen on my timeline, where I have been editing together my video.
- Photoshop is another program that prior to this coursework I did not know how to use. Initially,
I found it really frustrating as I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to do it. We started
with a lesson into the basic features of Photoshop, and even then I struggled to keep up. I found
that as I was finding it particularly challenging, I would discover how to use it for myself. I began to
watch tutorials to help me use it, from watching videos as basic as showing me how to create a
shape and adding in text, to videos that taught me how to make my work black and white with
certain parts in colour. I found this easier as I could figure things out at my own pace, and this
worked, because after a little while, I was able to complete my digipak and magazine advert
to the standard I wanted, and they turned out how I had hoped. Of course, I had help and
guidance from teachers along the way, but I found that once I got the hang of it, I was able to work
independently. As well as using Photoshop for my ancillary tasks, I went back to it during my
video editing for a particular masking shot. Here, I needed to remove a rose that Nikita was
holding, to make it appear that it had been snatched by a second character played by Nikita.
This was tricky as it began to look fake and literally looked like I had coloured over Nikita's skin
with a paint brush. I was using the clone stamp tool so that I could clone parts of Nikita's neck
and use this to hide where the rose was being held in front of her chest.
This is the original photo that I imported into PhotoShop to make the back cover of my digipak.
This shows a more developed version of it. I changed the star from blue to green to fit the colour scheme, which is a convention of digipks, and then started adding information such as the track list and the bar code.
Here, I am making the panel that will contain the cd, which was more difficult than the other panels. I had to place my image, but then make sure there was a circle in which the disk would be placed. I decided to use the cow image to continue the motif from the video, and it was the perfect shape.
This is me starting to make my magazine advert. By this point, I was far more familiar with using PhotoShop, so it did not take me as long.
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