Construction of Music Video:

The following slides expand on the step- by -step guides in which I took

in producing my music video.

Leading up to the actual making of my music video, I had to explore the actual videos I was going to include. For this I had to convert the videos in order to be able to analyse and look at them. When some were converted I organised them into different folders so I myself wouldn’t get confused. Below shows this:

As I did a lot of filming in preparation for my video the organisation took a lot of space and time. Following on I searched for the actual video clips in which I was going to include, use or shorten down to suit the lyrics or the song. This was harder as the majority of my filming included Inline Skating which in all looks very similar so I had to narrow down my search in some way. In order to do this I listened to my song choice and attempted to figure out whether I needed a fast paced skating clip or a slow one. Due to the fact that I was going to include the skating clips when it mentioned ‘strong’ or ‘Dreams’ I had to be careful when looking at the video as to whether I thought it would suit or not. If it didn’t I simply added it to the ‘bloopers’ meaning I didn’t use them for a specific reason.

Every time I wanted something converted I had to wait in order to get them converted so they would play on the Apple Mac. For the clips to work they had to be converted into Mp4 .

Once I figured out what video clips I was going to include within my music video I began to experiment with the Apple Mac in order to fully understand all of the functions and the tools of final cut as I had never even worked on a Mac before now. On final cut I experimented dragging different videos into the first video box and tried different translations such as Dissolve to suit two different clips. This was hard for my first time so as you can guess I had to have a great deal of attempts in order to get it correct. After dragging a clip or including a translation I have learned to render everything, which means that you will be able to see it on the final screen shown left:During the production of my music video on final cut I had to also learnt he basics of the Apple Mac and this is one I found quite easily simply as it allowed me to see exactly what I was on and what I could close with ease. It also allowed me to select the folder with all of my converted Mp4 video clips and to look at them before I place them onto Final Cut and include them in the actual Music Video.

I also messed around with the sound regarding muting the sound of the video clips as the noise in which you would be able to hear in the background wouldn’t suit with the song at all. In the background the sound of skates, people talking and cars could be heard which I thought wouldn’t be acceptable and would make my music video even more unprofessional. As you can see above I also learnt how to cut or divide specific video clips which made it easier to adapt the video to the lyrics of the song.

(Left): Shown left is a print screen of a series of Video clips in which I could of included within my work. Choosing which clip I could include was the hardest part of the task set. This was because after I lost the majority of my work I had to film a great deal more to catch up to where I was before hand and this left me with a difficult decision. As this was my definite copy the music video everything had to be ‘faultless’ so I often changed the videos to what I though suited the part of the song better. I got feedback of my other peers before and after each video was replaced and they responded positively to the after addition.

After I focused on the clips that were going in my music video I started to put together the main sections of the song such as the chorus and the beginning of the song. As you can see (left) I had to use the Cut tool often as the skating and the stride had to suit or match the pace or rhythm of the song. As in Inline skating you are going at a naturally fast pace it was hard to match both the song and the clip, so in order to do this I had to find the upbeat section of the song and distinguish if I could include it. Much like everything produced on final cut, I had to render what I had created or placed onto the timeline which occasionally took more then 1Hour for every clip.

Once I finally began to understand and be able to work Final Cut I started to begin on the ‘real’ video in which there were a lot of cutting clips and placing them into the right section of the song. (This is shown Left). The only problem with Final Cut that I found was the amount of time the clips took to write or render. It often took hours just for one clip which I only needed a few seconds off. After placing one clip into position it was difficult to get the next sorted as you had to find another place to put that one and often the time to render/ write a clip would be longer if the clip was large. This was a problem for me as I had a variety of large clips which involved skating.

After I got a lot of the clips rendered and into position i then explored ways of adding them together, one after the other. This was hard as they had to both link with the lyrics in some way or had to suit next to each other. I was lucky where this was concerned as due to the lack or limited amount of clothing they looked the same in most of the videos, not including the clips taken outdoors. As you can see, the picture in the left shows a variety of clips, one linked together already and the others are separate from everything else and far apart from each other. This is because certain clips only suited specific sections of the song and I had to chose where to place them.

When linking two videos together, one after the other, I had to make sure they suited each other in the pace of the skating and the song. This was difficult as the clothing had to be similar if not the same along with the location and setting. I had to be careful when doing this and linking the video clips together as I had a variety of Indoor skating which was quite dark based and I also had a range of Outdoor skating which was the opposite and was quite bright due to the filming being shot in the summer/January time. I had to be careful with this as I didn’t want them clashing at all as it would leave the audience confused.

When getting the timing right of the video clips I had to judge when to end them and when to start them. As you can see (left) I have two different locations in which I was trying to link together for the setting change. To do this I had to find a specific section of the song which may have a slight sound change and because I wanted to show the audience what skating is all about as well as getting the theme of ‘dreams’ across I wanted to keep it as simple as possible!I felt confident about this, as I had seen and gathered ideas from my peers showing me their videos I did not want anything all that complicated, but yet I wanted simple transitions which were things such as dissolve or fade in and out. These I used regularly and I thought they worked well within linking the clips together.

Within my music video I had to show a variety of Transitions used. This was harder then it looked as I thought over half of the transitions looked to ‘childish’ in some aspects and would made my music video appear less professional. Left, you can see a variety of transitions provided on Final Cut however the main ones I decided to include within my video clips to link them together were ‘dissolve’ or ‘fade in and out’. I felt these worked as my song chose was linked to dreams and the fade in and out and especially the dissolve showed a slow pace which contrasted to the fade which could be a fast pace. This could show about life itself and how you can judge how to time your life. I thought this was to difficult for the audience to get this in one go but this is what I thought when I saw these and as a result I decided to use them repeatedly. Part way through I noticed the song was still too

long after shortening it down before hand , so in order for it to become under the maximum time limit of 3:10 I had to cut it down a great amount. There were sections of the song in which I did not like much within my music video got took out as soon as possible which decreased the time. I kept doing this until I managed to cut it down to 3:09. After this, like with everything on Final Cut I had to render/Write the song again so it could register the parts of the song which was now missing. Once again this took a reasonable amount of time.Following on from this I linked the song together which did not seem to ‘fit’ with transitions such as fade out and fade in. Yet again I am using my idea from above.

Finally at the end of my production for my music video I had to line everything so it was in the same timeline but also had to make sure everything was perfect and looking professional. As you can see (left) everything is looking neat and tidy and all there is left to possibly do is to add the final transitions and the music video would be at an end. Taking in my audience feedback before the end of my main task I thought about the comments that I received such as view points about the transitions and the flow of the video. Due to the fact I had a variety of comments regarding the flow I made sure everything was flowing alright in order to add the final touches before the deadline.

In addition everything in the timeline had to be connected in someway or another so before the deadline and before I could possibly think about finishing I had to make sure there was no blank gaps apart from the areas which I wanted a pause for dramatic effect.The chorus was easy to fill up with video clips and to suit them to the actual lyrics of the song however the only dilemma I had in matching the lyrics to the video was in the verses. This was hard as the chorus had so many words with such different meaning along with them that I had to find something different each time which meant more filming was necessary. This meant more time was used up and during my own time I had to go to different places in order to shoot some more photos and clips.