Editing

Editing is the post production process of rearranging shots to create a new piece of work.

The three videos below show the use of editing in indie music videos. After looking at several videos I felt that these three had the best editing. Green day's video even got an MTV music video award.



The type of editing in this video mainly focuses on the pace of the editing. The editing has been sped up especially when the band are being puppets. Images are added to the music video for example the ribbon in the screen shot below. They caputre imagery very well in this video and use it to create the appearance of them floating

Green day won an award for this music video, they use editing throughout their video to create an old western effect. As you can see from the screen shots below you would of had to edit these effects in as they would not be captured on camera.

The use of editing is very clever in this music video. Below I have taken screen shots of images where I think editing is used very effectively. This music video is a performance video but has additional extras for example using text to represent a lyric.

Editing Tips

TIP	EXPLANATION
Leave 10 seconds before significant footage is taken	This allows you to identify the shot which you can later voice over. This will speed up the process of editing when it comes to finding certain clips
Always take two shots of scene	This means you have back up if one of the scenes goes wrong. This will save time as you will not need to go and film this scene again. One of the shots may also be better than the other and so you can have a choice to produce the best peice of work
Consider moving shots	The length of a shot needs to be relative to the pace of the music, there is no point having a long shot in face paced music as it will not make sense. The length of shots can also be effective for example when using zooms (short shots will be used e.g when you are showing what someone is looking at).
Avoid jump cuts	This is when the scene cuts from one scene to one that has no relation to the previous scene which can confuse the audience
Shorten the scenes	In order to fit in all the shots you want and to keep the audience interested you can cut out unnecessary scenes for example if you are showing someone walking down the stairs you only need to show the first few steps to establish what the person is doing. You would not need to film all of the stairs as this would waste time.

The Script 'Nothing'

The music videos that The Script create have a specific mode of address and have a regular house style. Mostly all of their music videos are set in a busy town or city such as London where you can clearly see the lead singer (Danny O'Donoghue) walking down the streets lip syncing to the lyrics. The videos are always based on boy and girl situations for example 'The man who can't be moved' consists of the male sitting on a corner waiting where he last saw the girl and staying there until he sees her again. The Script incorporate narratives and performances in their videos; you will always find that the lead singer is filmed the most whilst the other band members can be seen as the 'friends' or during the performance. This creates a brand image for the group and those watching the video will be able to distinguish the lead singer. This is typical of a music video which singles out and focuses on the lead singer. The location of the music videos are exactly what we are looking to create and therefore analysing one of their videos should help to get some ideas and inspire us for camera angles, movement, lighting, sound and mise en scene.

We decided to Analise 'Nothing' because this video represents how some people can turn to drink after a break up. This is similar to the music video we are trying to create but with a drug addiction instead. Although the music is much slower we still feel that the story line will fit into our fast paced song.

The song begins with a guitar introduction, the tone of this is calm which is complimented with an image of someone under water with harsh lighting reflecting on the water. The next shot is set in a club, artificial lighting is used to create the stereotypical club setting. The camera is placed behind the bar where we can see the lead singer Danny and his band mates drinking. The lighting behind them really defines the facial expressions of the band and so the audience watching can easily see the type of emotion being created . The typical music you would hear in a club is not apparent in this video; they silence it and add in the melody of there song creating a calmer atmosphere, the lyrics begin and the first few lines say 'am I better off dead, am I better off a quitter, they say im better off now, then I ever was with her' this is met with an image of a alchol, automatically we realise that the lyrics represent a break up and he is getting drunk to forget about the girl. This video uses a lot of close ups to isolate the facial expressions of Danny, and also means the audience can clearly see how his speech matches up with the lyrics making the video more realistic. The video uses a shallow focuses in order to draw attention to the lead singer, I really like this effect and think it would be effective in our music video. Straight cuts are used to change scenes and a to a certain extent continuity editing is used which makes the cuts un obvious to the audience. After a few more drinks the band make there way out of the club and onto the street, here the lyrics say "'cause im shouting your name all over town" . As you can see the image shows Danny shouting on the street, this is a typical convention of a music video that matches the lyrics up with the visual, which again creates realism. At 1:50 of the music video it incorporates the performance side into it . The image at the beginning of the song (underwater) is referenced throughout the song unobviously. It was only after watching the music video serveral times that I noticed the links to water throughout. When images of performance are shown the lighting behind the band looks like the reflections of the water. This ambient lighting creates helps to draw attention to what the band members are doing. When using close ups the relfection of the water also helps to brighten up the lead singers face contrasting the dark background, this really emphasizes the emotion being portrayed .The next image is of the band walking over the bridge, I really like the lighting used here as you can clearly see where they are and what they are doing, as well as creating a mysterious atmosphere. The two other band members walk off and Danny is left on the bridge by himself; the audience here begin to worry as he is drunk and leaning over the edge. After a few lines have been sung the inevitable happens and Danny gets ready to jump. This shows how much he is depressed about the girl he is willing to take his own life. This is similar to what we as a group are trying to create as the boy will turn to drugs because of the girl. As he jumps into the water the line says 'sometimes loves intoxicating' showing that love can be like a drug and can make people lose control of their faculties or behavior. The music seems to be calmer as they drag Danny out of the water; here the first verse is repeated. The line 'am I better off dead' is emphasized here as the audience know that he tried to kill himself. This image is contrasted with one of Danny walking in the street singing directly to the camera. This is an important feature of a music video which really included the audience and gives the appearence that they are singing to the person watching. It is also easier to see mouth movements and actions when they are facing the camera . The last image of the video is the same as the starting image creating a cyclical structure .

Indie Genre

Our media group decided that we would aim our music video to the Indie Genre. This genre branches off into two different types of indie; indie pop and indie rock. We will be focusing on indie rock. The main reason for this is that we feel the audience age is much more appropriate for what we are trying to create. Our target audience will be aged between 16 and 25 aiming our video and auxiliary tasks at both male and females. Bloc party is a male band and so is more likely to attract more males than females however we do not want to exclude the female audiences and have a wider target audience means there is a wider scope for profits for the band.

Researching into the Indie Genre I came across a website known as UK tribes . This website shows the interests and types of media consumption that Indies enjoy which has given us indications of what type of clothing to dress our actors in and what to include in aspects of our axillary tasks.

As you can see above the types of shops that Indies go to are topshop, urban outfitters and uniqlo which are all typically asociated with the indie population. From the media consumption part of this diagram we can see that they are heavy on internet use meaning they usally will be looking to communicate with friends, shop online and listen to newly released music on sites such as You Tube.

 

Here is a short cartoon clip I created to represent my target audience.