Digipak Research - Analysis of Vampire Weekend's Album Cover

Digipak Research - Analysis of The Vaccines' Album Cover

Digipak Research - Analysis of Bombay Bicycle Club's Album Cover

Digipak Research - Mood Board

Ancillary Task - Iconography Mood Board

Main Task - Final Cut

Main Task - Final Cut Construction

There is perhaps a dramatic difference between our second and final cuts, mostly down to the addition of a narrative. We realised that our 'montage' section just wasn't effective enough and seemed to let the whole piece. However, the addition of the narrative, alongside perected cuts, institutional logos and titles I think that the whole thing has really come together. The 'cherry on top' was the colour grading which really gave the whole music video life.

Main Task - Post-Production - Second Cut

With our second cut we managed to increase the number of cuts in time with the song as well as replacing weaker-framed shots with better shots. We also made sure that these cuts were in time to the music, thus making it seem like a much more 'flowing' music video, rather than shots just complied together which can appear jarring to the audience. Following from this, we began to experitment with our editing techniques. A key experiment being with the split screen. Initially, in the planning we wanted the whole music video to be in split screen, but we realised that this would perhaps with a performance based music video and can also become, very easily, confusing. The concept of having a split screen did seem to be quite exciting however, on reflection having a split screen placed randomly throughout the music video did look a little odd. Nonetheless, it was interesting learning how to complete a split-screen in Final Cut Pro - quite easy as it turns out. The last thing we advanced on was removing the weaker wider shots. This made the whole thing look a lot more continuous, presenting the music video as a flowing piece, flowing well from shot-to-shot.

In order for us to advance and make sure that the amount of cuts correlated with the tempo of the music, we constructed a graph displaying the tempo clearly throughout the song:

We also created a check list of things we wished to do in order to ensure an effective music video:

Main Task - Post-Production - First Cut

Editing initially seemed like an easy task, however, the more and more hours we put into the more complications seemed to arise. Our first major problem lay in the fact that there is a drop in tempo around three quarters of the way through the song which we couldn't seem to find anything that 'fit' properly. Firstly, we though it may be a good idea to put a montage in this section. However, it did not look entirely right and appeared a little out of place. This was a little bit of a panic to us as we struggled to find an idea that would work. In the end we decided to write down of thing which we wished to change and what needed doing. Really though, for our first cut we just wanted to put down the first layer and see how it would look. It was also interesting to see how our shots turned out. Luckily, we were pretty happy with most of our shots and most seemed to fit the genre and feel of the song.

After completing our first cut, we realised that it was very rough. This was OK since we really only needed to get the basis and first layer down first before we could progress. On reflection, we realised that there was not nearly enough cuts. Also, the cuts that were there were slightly out of time with the tempo and rhythm of the song. We also thought that some of the shots we were using were too wide for intimate points in the song. Similarly, we needed to make sure that weaker shots were not used, unless it was absolutely essential. Perhaps our main problem lay in the fact that we could not really find what belonged in the 'slower' section of the song, the point where the tempo drops. For the moment we decided to add a stereotypical montage, however, we agreed that this was not the greatest decision.