FINAL CUT EDITING PROCESS

Marvelous Gateb
 WHAT’S ON THIS?

This post will show you the editing process of my final cut for my
A2 Media music video. This post will include how I manipulated
my footage as well as why I did it by using examples from other
successful music videos. Furthermore, it will also show why some
things such as effects works with my music video or why they do
not work out.
1A. IMPORTING CLIPS

The first step I took into creating my final cut

was to create a new project for me to work
with. I then imported the clips I have
recorded. These are the clips that I will be
working on to create my music video.

Although I was able to import all the clips I

needed and recorded, I had problems with
importing some of the clips as they were
recorded in a different format such as AVI.
Fortunately, I was able to convert the file
from AVI to MOV further allowing me to
import the clips that I wasn’t able to before.
1B. IMPORTING THE SONG

Another early step I took into creating my

final cut was to import the song which was
similar yet slightly different to importing
videos.

Before importing, I needed to have the song

first which was available to download from
their SoundCloud. However, instead of
downloading the song I was able to connect
with the band and asked them if they could
send me a high-quality audio file of the song
in which they ended up emailing me.

As the quality of the song was high, it took

some time to import into my project.
2. VIDEO & AUDIO L AYERS

For me to be able to put the clips on my timeline, I needed to have

video layers to work on. For this, I added 10 video layers and 10 audio
layers. The main layer I ill be working on is video layer 1, this layer is
also the layer at the bottom meaning that layers above it will overlap it.
 3. MARKING THE BEATS

To make a successful music video, you must edit to the beat of the music. For this, you must find
where those beats are. I was able to do this by using the “Marking tool”. In order to use it, you
need to press “M”; this will mark wherever the cursor is.

I played the song multiple times to try and visualise where the beats are. As you can see from
the screenshot above, the green marks represents the beats of the song. The marks will help me
with the cutting of my footage in order to be able to edit to the beat of the song.
4. INITIAL EFFECTS AND
CUTTING OF CLIPS

At this stage, I started to manipulate

my footage by changing the video
dimensions to fit the canvas. As seen
on the left side of the screenshot, I
increased the Scale size from 100(%)
to 110(%) so that there are no black
bars on the edges.
With the marks on the beats already in
place from the previous stage, I started
to jump cut the clips into the beat.

The first is just an example of where I

will be cutting. With this editing
technique, it will be evident that I will
have jump cuts throughout my music
video.
5. CUTTING TO THE BEAT OF
THE MUSIC (JUMPCUTS)
After cutting multiple clips that shows
jump cuts in each one for series of
beats, I arranged them in order with
every 3-4 beats changing to a different
footage with a different camera angle.
This pretty much applies to most of the
clips with them having jump cuts in for
3-4 beats then changing.

I was able to do this by using the

cutting tool which allowed me to cut a
starting point and a finishing point. The
excess footage is then deleted and the
clip I need from the footage is kept.
This creates a jumpcut as the clip is
jumping from one sequence to another
without seeing the process of
movement.

As you can see, the cuts are aligned

 6A. TEXT

For some sections of my music video, I

decided to have text pop up that reads
out the lyrics of the song. Evidently, it
only reads out a word of which what
you hear. “Free”, “But”, and “Hollow”.
The lyric “Maybe we should figure it
out” is also seen as a text in the music
video with the same format of seeing a
single word on its own.

I did this by adding a title > dragging it

to the timeline (video layer 1) > double
clicking it and adding the text. The font
I used is DABRUSH and set the size to
250px
 6B. TEXT MANIPUL ATION AND
TEXT TRANSITIONS

For text manipulation, I decided to that

text should have a little movement to
give it the effect that it was recorded
by hand. I used pre-sets within Adobe
Premiere Pro to add the text
movement.

Furthermore, I decided that it to have a

fade out to black transition after the
text. However, in the software I was
using, the transition effect is called
“Dip to Black”, though it is the same
principle.
7A. EDITING “COMPLETION” &
RE-FILMING

The screenshot on the left shows me

finishing the initial editing of my final
cut. As you can see there are gaps.
These gaps are for the clips that I
recorded later on after completing the
first set of editing. The clips in which I
have recorded are for the sections that
are empty.
The screenshot on the left shows me
fininshing the initial editing of my final
cut. As you can see, there are gaps.
These gaps for the performance part of
the music video that I have recorded
during the overall editing process
 7B. FINAL FILMING &
RESUMING OF EDITING

After filming the performance

part, I imported the clips and put
them each one of them in their
own video layers.

Before editing, I needed to make

sure that they all sync up so that
it is a lot easier for me to edit
and sync the video to the song.

To sync the footage, I found a

point where the song will start
playing in the footage I am
performing in. This became the
starting point of all of the
performance footage.
 7C . P L AC IN G P E RF ORM AN C E
FO OTAGE & P H ASE ON E E D ITIN G
C OM P LE TION
As the previous stage stated, the
performance footage are synced,
I picked out the parts in which in
stage 7 had blanks in them, and
filled them in with performance
footage.

As I have 9 different performance

footages, I am able to pick
different ones to fill in the
sections which were blank with
different clips so that each
performance section of the music
video is not the same as other
sections.

With this editing technique, I am

unable to create a continuity
between scenes as they are all
different but they do have some
8A.PHASE TWO – FOOTAGE
MANIPUL ATION
After compiling the footage
together, I decided to export the
project so that I have a raw and
unedited copy of the music video
without any effects on it.

When exported, I created

another project and imported the
unedited music video to the
project ready for editing.

Similar to the early stage, I made

multiple video and audio layers
as my workspace

The first thing I did after adding

the video to video layer 1 was
add the “Color Balance (RGB)”
effect. This will allow me to
manipulate how much of the
colour I want to be seen. I also
8B. L AYERING & THE USE OF
COLOUR BAL ANCE

After applying the Color Balance

effect and changing the blend
mode, I duplicated the video
twice and placed them on top of
each other. As the effect allows
me to manipulate the
percentage of colour that can be
seen, for each video layer, it will
only show one set of colour, red,
green or blue. Video layer 3 will
show only the red, video layer 2
will show the green and video
layer 1 will show the blue.

(overall effect continued in the

next slide)
8C. SCALING & POSITION

After assigning the color balance

to each video layer, I changed
the position and the scale of
video layer 3 to distort the video.
This effect makes it seem like
that the device which the video
was taken from is old and
malfunctioning which is what I
desired my music video to look
like.

I did this by changing the X axis

from 960.0 to 965.0 and leaving
the Y axis to 540. I also changed
the scale from 100(%) to 101(%).
This only applied to video layer
3 and left video layer 2 and 1 to
their default scale and position.
This gave an overall look of
 9. BL ACK BARS

As I was going for a vintage look,

I decided to add black bars as
most vintage videos are filmed in
the aspect ratio of 4:3. As trying
to match the aspect ratio using
the black bars would mean I
would lose a lot of the video, I
decided to tone it down and only
added a good enough amount
that I wouldn’t lose a lot of my
video yet gives that vintage
element to it.

Other similar music videos that

has black bars is Finesse by
Bruno Mars (feat. Cardi B). The
music video is visually based in
 10A. ADJUSTMENT L AYER –
LUMETRI COLOR

The adjustment layer allows me

to add an overall filter on all of
the video layers that is below it
without “damaging” the actual
footage. This allows for easy
editing.

The lumetri color effect is a

colour correction tool that allows
me to manipulate my footage
tone-wise. As I am going for a
vintage look, I manipulated RGB
curves and experimented with it
to get the desired look I want.
The blue line indicates the
default settings whereas the
white, curved line represent what
I changed it to. This effect
changed the contrast and
 10B. ADJUSTMENT L AYER –
NOISE

Another effect I used on the

adjustment layer is noise. Noise
adds distorted pixels onto the
footage and with this effect, it
adds more of a vintage effects to
it.

Adding the noise was difficult to

control as I needed to make sure
that I did not too much to the
point that the video is
unwatchable. I added 7% which I
believe is the best setting for it.
Anything above 10% distorted
the footage too much. However,
if there wasn’t enough there
would be no point of adding
11. LIGHT LEAKS

Adobe Premiere Pro comes with

plugins which further adds to
their range of effects. One of the
plugins that Adobe Premiere Pro
can come with are light leaks
and other similar effects. I used
these effects throughout my
music video as they are common
with old videos. This idea came
from another visually interesting
music video by The Academic
called Mixtape 2003; where light
leaks are seen at the start,
throughout the music video till
the end.
12. DUST & SCRATCHES

The last and final effect I used on

my music video is dust and
scratches. Dust and scratches
adds dust particles on the screen
like it is being projected using an
old film reel projector. Although
the effect I am going for is VHS,
adding dusts on mine would add
some age to my music video.
Finally the scratches, this effect
goes perfectly well with the
theme I am going with. The
scratches is also easily
manipulated so that I was able to
change it to look like it was an
interference.
The only problem with this effect
that I encountered was there was
no way to separate the amount