PB2 has been the most complicated creating process I have experienced my whole life. It was not the editing, filming or creating soundtrack that was hard, but rather the process of putting them all together and work as one. It went wrong with so many things along the process but eventually they were fixed after millions of thoughts. I started with filming random stuff at night on the street, just to get an idea of what I wanted it to look like in the end. So after the first day of shooting I got about 20 clips, and 15 of them were selected as the clips that might appear in the video. And I started to edit right away just to see what I needed to push it further.
After I got the idea of how it’s going to look like in general, I kicked off with the soundtrack designing process. I figured out a simple rhythm that night and left it to the next day because I could not get any tunes out of my head. And I was wrecked and needed a good night’s sleep. So the next day I got the basic tunes settled and started to add beats and fills to build it up for a more vivid and sonorous sounding piece of music. I finished the first version of the soundtrack at night and dragged it into Premiere Pro to see if it worked with the clips I took. It did. I was very happy because it as the second time I ever put videos and my own original music together(first time was the Haiku Exercise) and they fit perfectly with each other. The feeling was orgasmic. I felt high for a whole hour. But I soon realized that there was not enough clips to edit for. About 1/3 of the soundtrack was not covered by clips at the time. So I had to film more stuff to fill them in.
So I did another shooting 4 days after the first one. I figured that I had to wear the exact same clothing as last time as I did not want the audience to feel that there has been a change in time. So I put on the same clothes, did another shot at that night, obtaining about 25 clips, about 15 of them were selected. (There was this manager who interrupted my filming and some janitors accidentally got into the frame. )
Now I got more than enough clips. Then I realized that my soundtrack was 1min 30 secs which exceeded the length of requirement way too much. So I got back to Garage Band to adjust the length. I took 2 full loops out to make it around 1min 06 secs and I increased the speed so it’s exactly 1min. The soundtrack was changes, that meant the beats/grooves were changed. And that meant all of my editing has to be change as I cut to the beats to make them fit well together.
For the concept of the video, I intended to show why I enjoy night time and why I identify it as a part of my being. For the editing, I cut according to the beats and rhythms to make it look invisible. Also to tightly connect the soundtrack and the video together. So the audience’s attention would be drawn to watch for more.
For the text, I only wrote two sentences at the end of the video to demonstrate my ideas. I decided not to write too much as the video was a highly dynamic and has so little still clips or photographs. A text at the side would just be too much to look at for a frame. Besides, the video it self explains everything I wanted so it does not need extra texts to explain it. So I kept it nice and simple.
In the whole process, the problem that caught me up for the longest time was where to put the four images. The vibe of the video is hype and constantly moving and walking around, going well with the music. But the images are too still and quiet for a video like this. I spent lots of time thinking where I should place them and finally I decided to put them in quick succession at the end just before the closing rhythms and the last clip. It’s not as ideal as I expected but at least they did not look too bad.
And here’s the PB2 video! It is called ‘Night Time My Time’.
For further improvement, I would expect myself to work on more complex soundtrack using Garage Band with more clips and lots of other techniques on Premier Pro that I haven’t gotten my head around. I am quite satisfied with my PB2 video and even though the creating process was very intense, it was so much fun.