1. Samantha Jewiss& Louise Heathorn
Development Diary
Once my partner and I had all of our filmed footage for our music video, we used
Final Cut Pro to piece together our music video. As we had already completed
an Edit Decision List and had our chosen useable clips, we started piecing
together our narrative and music video following our storyboard. As we deviated
from our storyboard due to weather conditions, our music video does not exactly
portray the narrative in the same way. For example, due to the wind we could
not light the sky lanterns so therefore switched this scene to sparklers.
To begin, we double clicked the
clip from the browser so it would
appear in the viewer. We
watched the clip and decided
what certain parts we were
going to use from it, if not the
whole clip. To trim the clip or
select particular sections, we
pressed ‘I’ to show where the clip
would begin, and then pressed
‘O’ to show where the clip would
end. Once we had the section we
wanted, we dragged the clip
into place in the sequence.
We thought it would be best to piece the whole narrative together
before we added any effects to the clips. To put our clips together
without any spaces that would lead to black screens
we made use of the Snapping Tool, which helped our
clips link together completely. This ensured that the
clips transitioned smoothly into the next. As some of
our clips overlapped one another, we had to place
some clips above the main narrative so they would
overlay and smoothly transition into another. To
make this look more effective, we added a Fade In to
make the transition look smooth. To do this, we used the Pen Tool. By
placing two dots near the start of the clip, then dragging the first down to
the bottom of the clip we have altered the brightness of the clip. As the
brightness line starts at the bottom (black) then increases to the top (normal
brightness) this achieves the Fade In effect as the light increases as the clip
progresses. We can also apply this to the end of the clip to achieve a Fade Out,
but by simply reversing the position of the dots placed by the Pen Tool.
Fade In Fade Out

2. Samantha Jewiss& Louise Heathorn
As our music video features a mixture of the present and flashbacks, we wanted
to add fade ins to make sure the audience would know that there was a
difference in time. By adding this smooth transition instead of a cut, it shows
passage of time and also makes it appear more like a memory that a character is
thinking about. Instead of using the Pen Tool to create the Fade In effect, we also
used different dissolves. For ours, we chose to use Cross Dissolve that achieves
the same effect as a Fade Out.
To further edit our music video, we used the Slice Tool to chop up our
clips to create a section featuring multiple quick cuts that aim to follow
the beat of the song. We sliced two clips into sections, and then pieced
them together so the narrative would alternate between the two scenes.
To help us place the cuts to the beat of the music, we pressed ‘M’ at the
desired place along the sequence to place a marker. By placing a marker,
it allows us to position a clip exactly where we have marked – the beat of
the song. This helps the narrative fit well with our chosen song.
Furthermore, we wanted to slow down the speed of some clips to
make them appear in slow motion. We did this for the beginning clip,

3. Samantha Jewiss& Louise Heathorn
in addition to other clips that fell on the chorus, more notably the line “I will try
to fix you”. This emphasized the main lyric of the song, as the emphasis is placed
here. To edit and alter the speed of a clip, we first right clicked on the clip we
wanted to change. We clicked on Speed… that opened another small window.
To make the clip change to slow motion, we reduced the speed to our desired
number. For this particular clip, we reduced the speed to
45% to make it noticeable to the audience. We also
experimented to see what it would look like if we reversed
the clip. To do this, we simply checked the box next to
Reverse. We didn’t like the effect of this so therefore we left
it unchecked for all the clips we used.
After we had pieced all our music video together, added the
required transition effects and cuts we wanted to alter the
colour of the flashbacks/memories so it would make it more obvious to the
audience. As we produced the idea, my partner and I know the narrative
however we were a little concerned that new viewers may not be able to follow
the narrative. To make it more obvious for the audience, we used Colour
Corrector to edit the colours of the clip.
Firstly however, we had a clip of Covent Garden that we wanted to appear darker
so it would portray an evening time. We used the 3-way Colour Corrector to
darken the clip and reduce the bright tones as it was shot during the day. By
changing the ‘Blacks’ of this clip, we were able to make it appear as if it were
more like
evening as
opposed to
early
afternoon.
To edit the flashbacks and memories, we wanted to achieve a more vintage
effect. We tried using Black & White by reducing the saturation, however we did
not feel this worked for our music video. As a lot of music video is based on
flashbacks and memories, the majority of it was black and white. We didn’t feel
this portrayed our music video in the best way, so we tried to find different
colour effects that would help distinguish between the present and previous
memories.
We searched how to create a vintage effect on Google. We used the 3-way Colour
Corrector. We altered the blacks by making them more yellow/red, and also
adjusting the saturation. This gave use a more yellow/sepia toned effect for our

4. Samantha Jewiss& Louise Heathorn
flashbacks instead of black and white. Once we had our desired effect, we wanted
to apply these to all of the flashback scenes. I either copied the filter from the
previous slide using the arrow tool below (with 1) or I dragged the filter (middle
tool) onto the slides that I wanted. This helped ensure all the flashbacks had the
same effect on them, helping to reduce any continuity or editing errors that may
be noticed by the audience.
For one of our scenes we wanted to cut an actors face out of the corner and place
the emphasis on the other character. To do this, we zoomed in the actor’s face by
making the clip bigger. As a result of this, we lost our horizontal black frame
along the top and bottom of the clip. To ensure that our music video stayed
consistent throughout, we inserted two black rectangles that would act as the
frame.

5. Samantha Jewiss& Louise Heathorn
We ensured that the rectangles
were the same size as the
previous clip frames, to reduce
any continuity errors. We placed
these rectangles above the clip
that needed it to ensure it would
show when the clip without the
frame was played.
Additionally, we wanted to zoom in to one of our clips to create a close up shot of
the footage we had. We trimmed the clips so we had the long shot first, and then
trimmed a close up version. We had to time the two separate clips right so that
they flowed into one another without any continuity errors.
We zoomed into the original clip by making
the image bigger. This helps show to the
audience the emotions of the actors much
more clearly than the long shot. Similar to the
previous clip, we had to use the rectangles to
again create a frame around the clip.
For the final details of our music video, we added text to conform to the
conventions of a music video. The text will inform the audience of the song title,
band name, and production company/distributer.

6. Samantha Jewiss& Louise Heathorn
To do this, we selected the text option that
allowed us to insert the text we wanted
where we wanted. We clicked on Controls
and typed in the text we needed. We then
dragged it down to the sequence and placed
it on top of a clip. We placed the text at the
beginning of the video and at the end,
conforming to your average music video. To
make it appear more fluent and smooth, we added a fade in and out so the text
would gradually transition onto the frame. We could also cut down the text
duration and move it to the desired location on the screen. This final detail will
hopefully make our music video look more professional and provide a finishing
touch for the whole overall project.