Evaluation of Rough Cut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQG0PiZrDa8

Once we had shot all the footage, it had been digitized and captured onto ‘Final Cut Server’ we were ready to start logging. We went through the rushes reviewing it all. Where we had done several takes of one particular shot we would decide which was the best and then log that shot into the corresponding bin; be it ‘Narrative’ ‘Leith Hill’ or ‘Council Estate’. Each shot was labeled with the type of shot, who it was of and the movement during the shot for example one might be:
Guitarist – Close up – Pan down threat board.
Drummer – Mid Shot – Focus pull from face to cymbal

When we had logged every shot, we were ready to start our very first rough cut. We started by selecting the best of the wide shots of the band and dragging that down onto the timeline so that it would act as the shot we could always cut back to. We had to sync this up with the music. We found that the best way to do this is to find a significant beat in the music, usually the easiest is a bass drum beat, and put a marker on the timeline then find that same beat in the footage and align the two up so you get a synced sequence. This is what they do in films to sync the audio and image using the clapperboard.

Once we had our wide shot down on the timeline we went about re-creating the very basic cutting sequence that we had on our storyboard. At first we decided to stick very closely to the structure we had created through the storyboard in the pre production stages. However as we began to watch it back with the actual footage rather than drawings we decided that the order and sequencing of the shots was wrong so we decided to not base the edit so tightly on the storyboard and instead just go with what looked and felt best for the sequence to make sense. One example is in the storyboard we had the establishing shots of the council estate then cutting to shots of Leith Hill, which didn’t make sense so; we changed it to only introducing the council estate when we saw the female walking through it so as to not confuse the viewers.

So basically we began by sticking closely to the animatic storyboard however we felt that as we had got many more and vastly different shots from what we had storyboarded; and especially as we lacked on narrative footage and had so much good performance element we chose to just go for it and edit in the same basic way as we had storyboarded but not shot for shot.

I feel that the strengths of our rough cut so far are due to the strength of the performance element. The type of shots, style of shots and variety in shots has provided a very strong base for the video through good use of the performance. I feel that we have successfully achieved what we were aiming to when we set out to shoot artistic shots using shallow DOF and low lighting from one side of the face, as this is definitely one of the main strengths.

However the problems with it at the moment is it needs to include more of these great artistic shots, we need to work more on creating a stronger narrative that runs through the video. There are some drum parts, which go out of time, many of the shots go on for too long and there are some cuts, which don’t work to the beat. The ending is too dead and something needs to be done to make it much more impacting.

The feedback received so far from people watching it (they are our target audience) has been that they have really enjoyed it and its style. They feel that the narrative kind of gets lost in the video and doesn’t get fully understood; which we totally understand and agree with. To change this we need to work on linking the couple together better throughout the video so that they feel more like a couple who have split up not just two random people. We have had slight issues in that the target audience and us as the editors like all the moving and zooming shots as we feel it adds to the artistic style of our video however the ‘teachers’ who are acting as the record company disagree and say that they feel it makes it look too amateur.

Once we have made the changes I mentioned above in the paragraph about what is wring with the video at the moment, we can put the final cut into AfterEffects. We still need to add in the breathe into the scenes of Leith hill and turn the whole project black and white. However we have decided to add a slight tint of blue into the final color cast as it adds more interest and brings out some of the background detail rather than leaving it as a boring and rather flat image.

Whilst editing we have been influenced by many videos and films, these have helped us to shape the way that the final video looks. For example the black and white effect was influenced by these two videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_AFilMn3fA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APLOFNMIabM

The way in which we added the breath was demonstrated through this video:
(Video shown to us by matt… www.?)

The set is influenced by:
(Video of everyone jumping around the room… www.?)