Thursday 11 October 2018

4 Hour Editing Challenge - Dreams (The Cranberries)



4 Hour Editing Challenge - "Dreams" by The Cranberries

BRIEF AND RESEARCH:
Rather than a film challenge this week, our tutors decided to set us an editing task - this I feel is to help gain confidence within editing softwares (particularly Premiere Pro & Final Cut Pro X). Despite me being more familiar with Final Cut, I decided to opt for editing on Premiere Pro as it can offer me some practice for future editing; especially if macs are not available (due to final cut being an apple exclusive software). It took me around half an hour to decide on a song, I chose "Dreams" - The Cranberries due to its light hearted love message it possess', with the innocence of someone falling in love; another reason I chose this song is due to a cover being featured in the film 'Chungking Express' (directed by Wong Kar-Wai). The cover of this song is covered by the actress/singer 'Faye Wong' who plays a character who has a crush on the local police officer (663) - she cleans his home and looks after him whilst he's grieving over another woman - I felt this would be a good start for some found footage as the storyline of the film can be compared to this song. I'm a picky person when it comes to finding footage and blending them together, although I didn't want a full narrative in my music video, I wanted the footage I was looking for to represent 'love, freedom and youth', as i depict these messages when listening to Dreams.

Inspiration by directors was also taken into consideration when planning. The music video for 'Love' by Lana Del Rey (directed by Rich Lee) was an instant thought, I, myself love the general aesthetic for the video, with the idea of timeless 'retro' love and the shots that carry with it. Rich Lee places the mise-en scene in both real and dream-like settings; a portrayal of how love feels. He casts teenagers/young adults in the video, which to me, captures the innocence of being young and in love. When filming/post production, the video looks quite dated/old fashioned, i'm uncertain on whether he used an old style film camera for this or whether it's digitally edited but either way, I appreciate the concept to a high degree and would love this to be carried out in my own project.

Other clips I decided to use include:
Lana Del Rey's - Video Games (edited by herself) - due to the imagery and old fashioned style clips shown of patriarchal America.
Lana Del Rey's - Venice Bitch - reason above applicable.
Sigur Ròs - Hoppipolla (directed by Arni & Kinski) - this video portrays the elderly to act like children, pulling pranks such as 'knock a door run' and having fun. This concept can be linked to the timeless youth idea I want to portray.
Taylor Swift - Out of the Woods (directed by Joseph Khan) - The cinematography in this video astonishes me each time I watch it, although the storyline is considered to be the opposite of what i'm after, the visuals are somewhat comparable to 'Love' by Del Rey due to the dream-like settings it uses.
Selena Gomez - Back to You (directed by Scott Cudmore) - The handheld footage from an old film camera works with the aesthetic I am planning for in this video, the narrative of the music video follows my concept of love/freedom.
Chungking Express (film - directed by Wong Kar Wai) - Reason stated in first paragraph.

EDITING:
Editing in Premiere was similar to my usual workspace in Final Cut, it is simply placement of certain tools that variate. I used the razor tool in my project sequence in order to cut the clip without removing the whole video file, incase I wanted use further found footage from the same clip. I purposely placed the new video on the beat of the song as this was a requirement for the challenge, it also gives the audience pleasure to watch. On certain clips i changed the speed on the videos (mostly to make the speed slower) due to the tempo of the song - I wanted everything to be seamless.

CRITIQUE:
The critique was positive, however there could be areas of improvement. The tutor and my peers complimented my editing saying it was "to the tea". It was clear that I had spent time perfecting the beginning however, the ending seemed a little unorganised, I think this is because I was conscious of time; I feel that editing will become quicker with more practice.


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