When cutting for the music video, everything has to be in context, artist in character, colour schemes. It’s important that every element is talking to a particular aesthetic because with fast cuts, moments can be jarring if they don’t fit into the same mould. Because we have been working closely with Ali and her manager throughout this process, getting their feedback and incorporating it as best we can throughout the editing process, we have had to manage going for something that we think is visually captivating and engaging and balance that with what the artist wants and what they want their image to be. It has been a good experience having the artist feedback because ultimately they need to use and be proud of the final piece. Our creative input needs to work with their suggestions rather than us decide what looks best. The representation of the artist is the most important thing and ultimately it is up to them or their manager how this is executed through our original concept.

 

Our original concept has changed quite dramatically especially after our 2nd shoot day, we loved the footage so much that we became more fixated on using the live performance footage from the 2nd shoot rather than the original dye footage. We were encouraged by Rohan not to forget or completely throw under the bus, our original footage and concept. However, we also have to use the footage that makes the artist look the best, the most flattering angles, the best lighting, the best performance. All of this comes into consideration when choosing the cuts.

Things we have had to think about during the edit include;

 

• Formal expectation for the viewer
• More of the sense of explosion
• Reintroduce the clapper board
• Effects shot
• The ink is developed further
• Chose great images and cut to the beat
• reversing of the head banging
• Stop start forward backwards
• Including another texture
• Build up textures
• At the bridge you wanna know more about the story
• LA palm trees go by
• Stock footage
• Find the interesting moments

 

February 18th Edit Session notes include;

• Footage of her like this (2nd shoot) is overused
• Sense of crescendo
  Clapper board what’s happening with that?
• Swap the choruses to encourage build up and suspense
• Intercut the bridge with car, performance
• Have her hands on he hops in the car
• Close up is too long
• We could cut out the awkward flicker
• Suggestion black and white
• Blue Natalie Portman
• Also the hand reaching moment
• Ali running
• Start of verse 2
• Not sure shot coffee verse 1
• Leave the Orange dye footage ?
• Don’t have her playing not playing the guitar when the guitar is on
• Intercut the white background projections with chorus 2
• The bridge isn’t working
  Blog post – the dye footage being not able to be used for other stuff because we shot it as test footage
• Don’t linger on last chorus
• Go to the original footage
• Could hand shots be sped up?

It has been interesting seeing what footage we have used and developed from our original experiments with the Dye. We shot that dye footage for experiment use only and therefor didn’t have a completely white or clear background. We had reflections from the circular vase that we were using that have become a problem when we were using the footage for different effects in our later edits. I did encourage the group to reshoot this footage with the Red camera however we got distracted with other shots and ideas.