Actor acting up

One problem I'm not sure I can fix using editing magic, is at some points in my footage it appears as though jacks mouth is hardly moving. This is due to Jacks inability to enunciate. However I can't fully blame him, the day we filmed was absolutely freezing so the last thing on his mind would've been "I hope it looks like I'm really singing for Cal's coursework to look accurate."

With the deadline approaching and exams closing in, I don't think I can find time where everyone will be willing to come back and re film. However now I know this can be an issue, in future projects I will ensure that the footage lines up with the sound before it's too late to re film.

Furthermore I have realised that the version of the song we played during filming for Jack to sing to (karaoke style) plays at a slightly different speed than the audio track I have used to edit the clips together. To compensate for this I adjusted the speeds of the clips to either speed them up or slow them down to fit in time with the audio.

I will be asking Jack to re-sing the song so I can have his voice instead of Carly Rae Jepsen.

Final cut faff

The timings of some of my clips are slightly off, therefore I had attempted to change the timings of my clips to fit the audio of the song. I have the original music video as the bottom layer when I am editing on final cut, I then place my footage on the layer above. This means I see my footage but I can hear the song playing so I know when each clip needs to start and stop.

So far this has proved effective, however some of my clips are either slightly too fast or too slow, but I could not find out how to edit the timings of clips. Right clicking on a clip shows the option change duration, however this doesn't seem to actually do anything at all. Another member of my media group had a similar problem, so we googled it and found out how to do it. 

Now that I know how to do it it's incredibly simple, you just need to select a clip then click the speedometer symbol. This opens a sub menu where you can change the percentage of the speed of the clip. 

One of my clips actually needed to be slow motion, so I just reduced the clip speed down to create this effect. I don't know whether there is a slow motion setting which can be applied to a clip, but the way I used worked just as well.

Final cut filters

I googled and found out how to add filters to clips and how to change saturation etc. I have added a filter to all of my footage which adds the effect of artificial light. This is an attempt to replicate the filter from the original call me maybe video.

The filter gives my footage an aesthetic quality which makes it stand out from other home made movies. It makes my footage look more professional and more accurate to the original.

The original video seems to have a yellowish hue, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this is, however it makes it look warm. This is the opposite of the weather we had during filming, so I have used the filter to make it look like a sunny day.

Editing with Final Cut Pro

I have edited on iMovie before for the project I did last year in media, my opening title sequence. I had never edited before, all the skills I acquired were self taught with some insight from peers. For this project however I have decided to use Final Cut Pro which is a professional editing software. It is far more complex than iMovie, and I have a again taught myself how to use all the basic tools required for editing.

So far I definitely prefer Final Cut to iMovie, it has a more professional feel about it, I feel as if I am producing a reasonable quality media product, as opposed to a slightly above average home movie with my mates.

Due to its complexity I have had a few issues with Final Cut, and there are easier ways of doing things which I am finding as I go. One thing I am still struggling to find is how to add effects to clips e.g saturation and contrast control, filters etc.

Filmed

Yesterday on the 3rd of December I managed to get all the filming done for my first edit of the music video. I still need to record the sound which will be Jack singing to Call Me Maybe, and add that in in the editing stage. It was very cold but we still did all the outside shots in the same outfits as they had in the original video. Safe to say I now have a cold.