Editing and Things Changed

Editing has generally gone well and I have been able to stick to my storyboard quite well apart from changing the last 'expectations vs reality' scenes from the study room scene to the scene where Katie is waiting for a friend to turn up so they can go out, the friend turns up in her expectations but in reality she bails on Katie with a lame excuse. I have also added more shots of Katie lip syncing to the song as advised by my teacher, to make it look more like a music video instead of a short film.

There were two main issues I found when editing, the first being the split screen. When I had filmed my original footage, I had made sure that all the action was in the center of the frame in case the split screen cut off the sides, therefore my shots looked like this:

Before


After


Before


After


Before


After

I felt this only really affected the study room scene, especially in the shot where Katie is meant to look like she's sitting on her own with everyone talking with their friends around her. As the split screen cut off most of the people sitting around her I felt it didn't give the same effect, and with no time to re-film I decided to cut it from the video and only use this footage in the flashback montages. This, thankfully, did not affect the music video that much in the end as by the time I would have added that scene I would have run out of song time to use it anyway. I replaced this scene with the scene where Katie goes out with a friend in her expectations but in reality is stood up.

Another issue I faced was not being able to use transitions moving into the split screen scenes or after. When trying to do this, I was able to add the transition but it just ended up being a grey box on the editing screen and wouldn't work in playback. After researching, I found that this was not a bug or a problem with my iMovie but just the way it has been made. This unfortunately is very limiting for me, as I would have liked to use a cross blur, dissolve or circle open transition before and after these scenes to show they were flashback, however I have made sure to use the black and white effect on these scenes to make it clear to the audience that they are flashbacks.

I was able to use transitions in normal scenes however, such as a lot of flashing transitions made by using the 'fade to white' transition to use Goodwin's theory of matching the lyrics to visuals e.g. "When your life flashes before your eyes will it be beautiful?".

I also felt the 'singing in the field' shots didn't stand out enough, and so have used a vignette effect to make them darker around the edges, making Katie stand out more and making the shots look more dramatic.

I have also added the "Expectations Reality" titles to the split screen scenes, making the font white in order to stand out with the black and white and also to go with my house colours of white, black and green.

Lastly, I decided to speed up the 'twirling round the field' shot and splitting it into 3 sections, making the first clip 70% speed, the second 160% speed and the third 250% speed. I did this so that it sped up with the music using Goodwin's theory of matching the visuals to the music. I also used a 'dream' effect on these shots to make it seem almost as if Katie is glowing, giving it an angelic, supernatural feel which I felt went well with the soft music that went with that shot.

Hopefully the next thing I post will be my finished music video.

Things Changed From Storyboard

I changed the last 'expectation vs reality' scene. Originally it was the study room scene, however as I have stated earlier I had editing problems with this scene and therefore replaced it with the scene where Katie gets stood up by a friend. Also, upon showing my teacher the footage I had first filmed in the field, she advised I get some more angles. Therefore I have more angles for the lip syncing scenes than is stated in my storyboard. I have also added lip syncing scenes in between shots for the 'expectations vs reality' scenarios so that it still looked like a music video and not too much like a film.