Editing Diary

The editing software we used to edit our music video was Sony Vegas 11 Pro. The main reason we used this software, rather than Pinnacle Studio which the school provided, was simply because some of the members of the group are a lot more familiar with Sony Vegas, rather than Pinnacle.

The initial start to editing was simply just cutting down the clips. This is what took most of the time as cutting down 10 second+ clips into the 'commonly used' style of rapid editing takes a lot longer than we thought it would. Although our song is quite slow, we still initially wanted to use rapid editing as most music videos tend to have this style of editing. As we started to edit the music video, it was slowly becoming clear that rapid editing really didn't fit with the slow song we had chosen. After some trial and error, we then went with the slower editing which almost told a story within the video. This was easier as its what we originally wanted to do with the shots we got.

Overall we used barely any effects in the video because as a group we decided effects in a video where it's supposed to tell a story wouldn't send out the right image to the audience. We used one effect where the bass dropped at the beginning which was just a simple flash. It was used as a transition from the main character walking past the underpass with the two hooded figures, to him walking in it while it's clear. The flash was used to show time has past and that he's waited for the two boys to move before getting to where he wanted to go.

One shot at the beginning was of a basketball backboard with council flats in the background. This originally was a still shot. I simply just added a pan effect in Sony Vegas so it wasn't just a still shot which didn't fit with any plans we had made. At the time of shooting this basketball backboard, we did actually want to have a shot where we manually pan the camera but with the tripod being unstable, it was quite difficult to get what we wanted. We just stuck with the still shot and then did the pan on the editing software.

To make sure the song was synced in with the clips, I played the song on Sony Vegas and used markers where there's a kick drum. This made the clips easy to place on the timeline as we didn't film any singing so there wasn't any lip syncing to do. With music videos that aren't professionally choreographed, it's hard to get lip syncing perfect. We thought that if we avoid it, we can't then get the lip syncing wrong.

Finally there was a clip of traffic which originally we didn't actually plan to capture. It was just an idea of which we had while filming on our third day. It represents time passing by as the the clip is sped up. It originally was 1 minutes worth of footage which was sped up to the quickest possible, which we thought, still wasn't quick enough. So once rendered, the sped up version was then sped up even more to get the 5 second clip we wanted.

The whole music video is supposed to be edited in a way, that shows the main character is 'getting nowhere'. It simply starts of with some shots of his local and everyday surroundings, then started to show little parts of his life. These being, him walking in the underpass, the drug deal, waiting for a bus, in the basketball court and other clips of him. It then towards the end, looks as though he could be making small improvements as he walks past the two boys in the underpass, which previously in the video, he didn't do. But then as the song title says, he doesn't get anywhere and goes back to drugs and then eventually lives on the streets.

By Charlie Head