Editing or Post Production is the crucial stage when the rushes are bought together and we moved from first assembly to various fine cut versions of our Pop Video. Eisenstein, the famous Russian film maker, argues that the meaning of a film comes through the montage, the sequecnes, the order of the shots and how they are assembled one to another. We were constantly aware that we were creating meaning through montage.Since the end of filming, and getting to the rough cut of the music video, I have spent several evenings and afternoons editing using Apple’s Final Cut Pro editing software, which amounts to at least 15 hours spent personally. Given our late change of original idea and loss of location, we had limited time to prepare for the shoot day, therefore did not manage to develop a new story board for the project, so could not follow this during the editing process.
All of our shots, except a few close ups, were done as 360° tracking shots, fitting with our new avant-garde idea. To begin the editing process, we filtered through all our shots, and got rid of any unusable shots, such as blacks, and then renamed shots aptly (eg. ‘CU INTRUMENTS WHOLE SONG‘) to make the process as efficient as possible. We then created several log bins (eg. ‘BANJO SOLO’) and put appropriate shots with in them.
To begin with we put in the audio file containing the song, followed by a wide shot of the whole song as a ‘foundation’. To follow this we put in an alternate wide shot at the end of the timeline, which was shot specifically to end the video, which incorporates a change of set. We then watched the wide shot, and went through our footage to see what specific shots we wanted to place within the song (eg. wide bar scene) and placed these on the timeline ensuring the image was synchronised with the audio of the song. To ‘sync’ audio and image, before placing a shot on the timeline we inserted a ‘marker’ at an easily definable point on the shot using the recorded playback from the day, and then placed a marker on the timeline for the same point, so that when we dragged the shot onto the timeline, all we had to do was ‘sync’ up the two markers and delete the recorded audio.
Next we identified distinct sections of the song, such as fiddle solo, banjo solo and guitar solo, and ‘cut in’ fitting footage for them, trying to ensure that the musician who’s solo it was the focal point of the image. Because our footage was constantly tracking right to left (camera moved left to right), it was necessary to combine different shots of the same musician consecutively, using video transitions such as ‘edge wipe’, to create seamless ‘cuts’ between shots, to uphold the effect that the image is constantly moving. This also regularly creates the appearance of the same musician with in the frame twice (upholding Negus’s convention of a music video that there exists ‘the flexibility to disregard realism’).
We noted that the beginning of song lyrics (eg. first line of the second verse) were important, and thus was necessary to accommodate several of these ‘first lines’ with a shot (be it close up, wide or medium) of the lead vocalist. This was also applied to several of the backing vocals.
After watching the current video back, we noticed that there were prolonged periods of black, which would need to be filled. To do this we found shots that would fit the gap and used ‘edge wipe’ transitions at both the beginning and end to slot the clip in between the existing enclosing shots. It was often necessary to alter the beginning and end points, and even the angle, of the ‘edge wipes’ to accommodate for the occasional variations in tracking speed of juxtaposing shots.
To emphasises the atypical nature of our video, we found sections of footage, such as a wide shot of the whole band, and sped this up to near 1500% of original speed, which created a rapid spinning sensation, and this fitted perfectly with the intro/post chorus/outro swift guitar riff.
Our aim for the pop video was to accentuate the idiosyncratic nature of the song, band and genre; which is ‘Blue Grass’, a form of country music with a fast tempo. It is not a typical genre for music videos as it would not be encompassed by the term ‘popular culture’, therefore we opted not to try to produce and archetypal music video but attempt to be innovative. The lyrics of the song are sung from a female characters point of view, and the lyrics and music combined portray the message that the girl is; strong, rebellious and independent. The constantly tracking footage portrays visually what the song does aurally, unsettled and unrestricted freedom. The constant movement also suggests voyeurism, and creates an element of intimacy between the band and audience, which is how we want to portray the band; not an element of ‘us and them’ but makes them appear more ‘accessible’ and less distant.
The band are dressed in bright colours and the girls have brightly coloured hair (red and blonde), the clothes are to an extent smart (such as the trousers, shirt and jacket combination of the males and the dresses of the girls) yet with an ‘edgy’ nature about them. The movement within the frame of the band from right to left, suggests too the unconventional and rebellious nature of the band.
The unfamiliar constant tracking motion of the video, combined with the appearance that in terms of camera and editing it could be one consistent shot (bar a brief section of cuts) yet in terms of realism is completely impossible would be the unique selling point of the video, capitalising on theorist Barthes’ jouisance (meaning pleasure through the unexpected). Due the niche market of ‘bluegrass’ musicians and fans, there are little other existing bluegrass videos (in comparison to ‘pop’ or ‘rock’ music, where there are tens of thousands) and therefore the audience do not know what to expect at the beginning of the video, and we attempted to uphold this throughout, by often introducing new scenes and shot sizes, to constantly keep the audience in anticipation for what could appear onscreen next.
Continuity editing is used to establish a logical coherence between shots, and is commonly found in media products with a narrative or something thats trying to portray fact such as a film, TV programme or documentary, how ever this is not always the case. Discontinuity editing is when the purpose is not to portray realism or to create an element of alienation, it can be achieved by changing shots before the viewer has time to recognise what is going on or breaking the 360degree rule to give the appearance that the subject has changed direction, amongst other various methods. We used mostly continuity editing, as we wanted to make the majority of the video appear as one long smooth shot. During the middle of the song, the camera stops tracking and remains fixed, at this point we adopted standard cutting technique and used methods such as eyeline match, when there is a CU of the lead singer playing her instrument then we cut to a CU of her face looking down at what she is playing for a bried moment before she looked up again.
We chose to both challange and uphold many of Keith Negus' common generic conventions of popular music promo videos. We upheald the convention of 'the explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist's 'image'' as the subject of our video was only the band, and incorporated no narrative (challanging his convention that the video often contains a narrative element), as we decided the band and the performance were more important. When straight cutting was used we ensured the convention that 'shots are cut tightly to the beat' was upheld as we did so, and at this moment we adopted short sharp shots, of no longer than 3 seconds. We developed a repeating thematic element in the form of the constant tracking, fitting the convention.
Negus' convention that 'a wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement', as we only used CU, MEDIUM AND WIDE SHOTS, which were always at the same level - there were no angles used. We also challanged the convention that there is often the feature of 'special effects', there is no element of CGI or in camera effects used, only a small amount of colour editing used.
