Editing Our A2 Media Coursework

Once we had finished filming our coursework shots, I had to edit them to create our music video. I decided upon using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to edit due to my familiarity with the software, due to my previous editing tasks in school, and also that it is a professional software that I knew would help me achieve a high level of quality in the editing stage.

Before opening the software, I had to export the clips from our SD card onto the computer. I imported these onto a shared folder so that our group could access them whenever we want and that we wouldn't have to be on the same system. Once I opened Premiere Pro, I had to import all of the footage that we had collected in the past few days so that I could start editing. However, before adding any footage to the sequence, I imported the track of 'Not Afraid' so that I could align all the lip syncing performance shots first, over the music. This helped in the long run as it left me specific gaps in between the choruses that I knew I had to fill with the shots of narrative. It also gave me a specific time scale of how long each verse will be and also how long each shot should be so that I could fit them in the relevant spaces, so that it would flow into the performance perfectly. I tried to edit with the beat of the music as much as possible, for example when our character punches the table, it matches the sound of the gunshot that is in the song.

As I edited the clips, I decided that it would be best that I rendered the music video as I went along. This is so the frames wouldn't keep pausing mid edit and so that it was a smoother process, although arguably more time consuming.

During the filming, I had to add some effects to certain shots in order to make the video look more professional. For example, I had to speed up the shot of the lift numbers going up, due to the fact that they were far to slow in real time and therefore overlap onto the performance shot, which wouldn't work well.

Once editing had finished, I then had to export  the music video as a high quality format, h.264, so that it would look professional and not pixelated or in a standard definition format.

In conclusion I think that the editing process of the video went well. I feel that this was down to a number of factors. Firstly, I feel that by using a professional software such as Adobe Premiere Pro helped, as it had all the necessary features that I needed, and more, which would allow me to edit to the standard that I wanted. I also feel that another factor of the success of the music video was that I was able to edit the video individually so that I knew what I was doing constantly and what also had to be done in the future. This may not have happened if our whole group was to edit, as I wouldn't know what parts have been edited, cropped correctly or also if they were done to the same standard that I set myself. Finally, I think that another successful factor was that I used the music track as a guideline to edit on, this meant that everything was perfectly aligned and in the correct place.

Filming Our A2 Media Coursework

Due to different school schedules within our group, we had to spread our filming between different days. For filming our A2 media coursework, we had to borrow equipment from our school in order to film in high quality. The equipment we borrowed were:

• A camera - in order to film the coursework but in a high quality
• A tripod - to keep the camera steady in specific shots
• A spare camera battery - in case the current battery ran out of charge, we took a spare one so that we could carry on filming if this happened

Filming Day 1
On day 1 we decided that we would complete all of the shots that were local to us and needed little props, such as the walk home from school and the walk down the alleyway. This shot only required the props of school clothes and bag, which we already had, and also a school setting, which we was in. We decided to film during our media lesson so that the street would be quieter but also so the school would be emptier due to students already being in their lessons. Filming our local shots first allowed us to save time in the future of travelling back to school on a weekend, as we were already there ready to film.

Filming Day 2
On the second day of filming we decided that we would go to Lakeside shopping centre, a local shopping centre where we could get the necessary shots of the rooftop car park and also film him entering this parking lot. It was also a good location to film the performance shots due to its good background scenery and also its relevance in the narrative.

Filming Day 3
During our half term break, we decided that we would do more filming so that we would comfortably have time to meet the deadline set but for me to also edit to a high standard. We decided that the shots that we would film would be the ones in Nicks house. Once we had finished at Nicks house, we then travelled to Lakeside Shopping Centre where we would continue filming part of the narrative to the story.

Once filming had finished, it was then my job to edit.