Preliminary Task - video edit

Preliminary Task - Video edit evaluation

In the preliminary task i was given before creating my own music video i was asked to create a music video alongside my peers to Unfinished sympathy by massive attack. It was written by the three band members Robert "3D" Del Naja, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, the song's vocalist Shara Nelson and the group's co-producer Jonathan "Jonny Dollar" Sharp. The song was released as the second single from the band's debut album Blue Lines, on the band's Wild Bunch label distributed through Circa Records on 11 February 1991.The music video for "Unfinished Sympathy", was directed by Baillie Walsh, who had also directed the video for Massive Attack's previous single "Daydreaming", and was filmed in a single continuous shot from 1311 South New Hampshire Avenue to 2632 West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The video, filmed on Steadicam, begins with a shot of a street gang before moving to follow Nelson walking along the pavement unaware or uncaring of her surroundings, which include drunks, bikers, and disabled people.

However due to the equipment and funding for the music video that i did for my preliminary task we was not able to use a Steadicam or hire actors to play characters from different socio economic background.Due to this some of the footage was shaky and for my actual music video i will try to keep it stabilised as much as i can personally or with help from peers. As a group we decided on certain roles we would take ranging from the director to a background actor. I chose to be the protagonist actor of the music video. After we decided on our roles we gathered to create a storyboard of what we wanted inside the music video even though we wanted to base our music on the original video we needed to think of locations and order.We chose our local town centre as our location as it was urban and we was able to get members of the public in the background just like the music video that was originally made for the song.We filmed our music video on a Nikon d3500 with a camera dolly creating smooth horizontal camera movements when following the actor walking this would be called a 'dolly shot'. This worked in some cases however due to the gravel on the ground it was not successful at some points.I would try to fix this in my final music video by making sure i am on a flat smooth surface whenever and if i use the dolly. We also used other camera shots such as panning from mid shot to wide shot when the actor was walking as well as extreme close ups on the actors feet when coming down the stairs after the lift shot. The video was edited on Adobe Premiere pro a timeline-based video editing app developed by Adobe Systems and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. As this was the first time using the software i started by watching tutorials on how the software works and different effects i could use as a beginner due to the fact we worked as a group but all edited our videos individually. I placed all of my clips into the media box, to figure out which clips are good the use and match the idea we was looking for. Many clips had the be cut down to fit what i was looking for or to make the start and cut off points much smoother.I  also added transitions between clips to make fading in and out of clips clean as possible i did this by placing a transition between two clips (centred on the cut line), the clips must be on the same track, with no space between them. As i dragged the transition to a Timeline panel, i could adjust the alignment interactively. Whether the clips have trimmed frames determines how i can align the transition as you place it between the clips. And then In the Effects panel, find the transition i wanted to apply.Expanded the Video Transitions bin, and then expand the bin containing the transition you want to use.I also used other effects such as increasing speed , reducing speed , changing the colouration of the video and adding credits at the end of the video.

When happy with my work i exported it to YouTube making it available to view.I created a new sequence to start the uploading process which was the preset by clicking on FILE > NEW > SEQUENCE. Selected the option which best matches the resolution and frame rate of the original video. I then gave the sequence preset a new name and save. With a new sequence preset created, a timeline window opened and i placed the video into the timeline.I then set the IN and OUT points to tell Premiere Pro where i wanted the rendering to begin and where i want it to end. Moving the play head to where i wanted the rendered video to start and press ‘I’ on the keyboard. Then, moved the play head to where i wanted the rendered video to end and press ‘O’ the keyboard.  I used Premiere Pro’s “YouTube 1080p HD” preset as I work in 1080p HD, but there are also four other YouTube Presets depending on the resolution of the video footage. The overall video i was satisfied with however i would try and make it much smoother and by knowing this i will make sure it happens in my final video as well as my further knowledge of premiere pro in the future i will know how to do more effects etc.