In this blog you can find the work I did on how to edit with multiple cameras. My group filmed the footage together, but we each edited it alone. My teacher provided a template for the blog post.
What is Multicam Editing?
Multicam editing is the process of editing footage of a single scene or subject recorded from different cameras and angles. Showing the same scene or subject from different angles helps make the video more dynamic and visually captivating for your audience.
Shooting
Our subject , a classmate, stood in the center of the room and did a short performance. My group stood around the subject to record the performance from different angles. You can also see members from other groups because we did this lesson as a class. To make it easier to synchronize our cameras, the teacher clapped at the start of the scene. This allowed us to line up the video in the editing process and ensure that the transitions would be smooth. Without this simple action it would have taken a lot longer to sync the videos.
Upload the videos to the editing software (YOUR SOFTWARE )
Detach the audio of the clip you wish to use in the final video.
Find the ‘clap’ marker on the audio.
Line up the video files together.
Cut where I want the edit to happen
Don’t delete the clip, just lower the opacity. This way it can be used again later.
Mute all clips except for the one you want to use.
( INCLUDE SCREENSHOTS OF YOUR EDITING)
Here is my final edited video:
Reflection: How will this help your project? What did you find challenging? What is there anyway to simplify this process?
- include whether you used phone or laptop and why
This post contains a mini project that helped us learn how to shoot a music video. We shot our verse as a group and then created this post together.
Our teacher gave each group a verse from the song “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles where we had to plan a scene which included various camera work and edits. The goal was to enhance our technical skills through practice and experience so that we have an idea on what we should be doing, learn from our mistakes and avoid making them in the future in order to create a better quality product for our component 3. In addition to that, doing this helps us learn more about each other’s skills and our team’s dynamics so that we can function better when we record our actual music video.
Pre Production:
Our instructions were to create a music video from the verses we were given. We were given 2 verses (both chorus below) and had to consider the instrumentals since we were told to film from the end of the last verse until the start of the next verse.
We started by creating a storyboard that allows us to communicate and outline our ideas
Here is the storyboard for scene 1
Description: The camera would push out from a crowd to a side-shot of the actor sitting down and lip syncing then cut to the front-view as they get up to walk away.
For this storyboard, I (Aurel) thought about a nostalgic approach. This was because, since we had no actual sun due to the rain, I wanted to figure out how I could still incorporate the meaning from the lyrics into what we were displaying as a music video. I thought that a metaphorical sun would work better. I choose to associate this with youth as they are often associated with brightness and cheerfulness much in the way that the sun usually is. Therefore I wanted to make it appear as though it were like the star was reminiscing over their youth. This was particularly advantageous too as we were shooting in a school which made it more easy to make the connection with youth.
Additionally, as this was the first verse, I wanted something that could act as an introduction to the music video and help easily transition into the next verses. I felt like my idea for the scene allowed for a lot of room for whatever could come next as it could look like the rest of the star’s youth days.
However, since we only had 10 minutes to work on 2 storyboards whereas other groups only had to work on one, I rushed mine and tried to get it done as soon as possible as I wanted to focus on communicating my vision. This resulted in my storyboard appearing less professional than I would have liked. I also now realise that perhaps I should have focused on the storyboard more as it would've helped communicate my idea better.
Here is the storyline for scene 5
Description: Actor walking under canopy with a smile on her face, camera turns to reveal rain and irony between song lyrics to mise-en-scene.
Since we only had roughly 10 minutes to storyboard, our sketches were simple and we relied more on verbal communication to discuss our ideas on the acting, camera angle and movement.
Production:
During our production process, we started by shooting the 5th verse as it required the rain as well as less people despite the fact that in the beginning, we were supposed to shoot under sunny weather to correlate with the meaning of the song, the weather had other plans and started pouring. So, we decided to turn the rainy weather into an advantage by playing on that irony to result in a light humorous video, subverting from the song’s original meaning.
We filmed the 1st verse immediately after. For this verse, we gathered a few of our friends to act as background actors, talking and laughing, to create a natural and social atmosphere. This verse conforms to the meaning of the song about hope but later we unexpectedly found that this mise-en-scene made the star appear more isolated and less like the nostalgia approach we had hoped for. If we had the chance to reshoot the scene, we believe we could have overcome this issue by filming outside in the school field as the outdoors often connote freedom rather than isolation.
Post Production:
All the clips we had filmed were piled into a google drive for us to be able to watch through each one together and start the editing process.
Jocy and Regine chose one chorus each and they edited the clips (Regine did the 1st verse and Jocy did the 5th). We noticed that the start of the song (the instrumental at the 1st verse) had to be filled in with a recording, however we did not do that and only filled the singing part of the chorus, so Regine filmed shots of our friends in class to fill in that gap. With the editing itself, we didn’t have much complications other than being in a time rush because we had to retake the shots for the 5th verse a few times, however it wasn’t that much of a problem either as we got the editing done in time and the only thing we had to do over the weekend as homework was this blog and reflection.
Video:
Scene 1:
Scene 5:
Problems:
For scene 5, there were several shots where the timing to which the background actor had to act their part was off. The runner would come on the screen too late from what we envisioned. This may be due to the large distance from the place that she had to start running from, to where she had to be (the spot which was in the frame of the video). Additionally, with the rain, we couldn't risk the runner to sprint because the area was slippery and she ran without shoes (to avoid getting them dirty)
We didn’t manage our time to record both scenes efficiently. During recording scene 5, we spent way too much time there due to the retakes and thus had to quickly move on to scene 1 where we had only little time left to record. This led to a lot of rushing and possibly a lower quality of the end product.
For scene 1, it was quite difficult to direct the large group of background actors. This is as we had to do a lot of coordinating in such little time including communicating the idea and what they had to do, as well as preparing their position in the frame.
Solutions:
To solve the issue in scene 5 with the runner not being able to cross the screen in time, we decided to instruct the runner to begin at a closer distance. instead of running from one end to another, the runner would begin at a midpoint (pool locker room). Moreover, our teacher advised us to verbally send a signal to a runner than to use a hand gesture since the original audio wouldn't be heard anyways. We believe these two combined helped us get our intended shot for the final video by making the directing process much smoother
To solve the issue of directing the background actors in scene 1, I (Regine) found that it was best to explain to the actors our intentions and plans so they can carry it out. Since we only needed them to talk to each other and act like friends, I explained what the idea was for the scene and they picked it up immediately. Everything went smoothly then.
For scene 1, we also did a dual-shoot technique where two phones were used at the same time so the scenes were the exact same during editing.
We completely forgot to film parts to fill out the instrumental section for scene 1 so I (Regine) quickly went out to film establishing shots of the area (school building, classmates, etc)
Next time:
Our main struggle was managing the time to record both scene 1 and scene 5 within the given period of time. Thus next time, in the case where we have limited time but more than 1 task to do, we should prepare a thorough plan and allocate the amount of time we need in advance. The planning should help smooth the process of directing the actors. We should keep track of the time using timers. In addition to that, if possible, we should divide the team members to work on different tasks simultaneously (directors, camera operator, music operator, etc). Therefore, we can more or less finish at the same time, attaining extra time in case there are needs to fix or redo certain parts.
Self-Reflection:
I enjoyed doing this mini project as it gave me and my teammates the chance to understand each other’s skills more. We went through the brainstorming and executing the ideas all together as well, so it was a fun experience for me. I was also able to contribute as a background actor for one of the scenes aside from helping out during the brainstorming process. This mini project will most definitely help in improving time management as I felt how frustrating it was to do things in a rush whilst having to do as little mistakes as possible since there were no time left to do reshoots.
This is the filming schedule for our recording process, outlining specific dates, props that we have to bring, as well as the attire that should be worn to ensure all is communicated clearly between team members and star actor. This spreadsheet is made by Regine.
Here is our filming schedule across November 2024 to January 2025
Self-reflection
Before the project
How will a schedule help you
This filming schedule will help us organize what has to be done each meeting in order to finish before the deadline. This is as there are specific dates that keeps track on when we'll be doing each of the scenes. In addition to that, it also includes the planning of props, attires, and star actor(s) that we need, which are different for each scenes. Thus, this will help us prepare in advance so that on the day, we can avoid delays that may be caused by missing props or incorrect attire.
Is it realistic?
Because we make the schedule at least a week before the planned dates, it gives us the chance to keep a more accurate track of the weather forecast especially for scenes that are done outdoors. In addition to that, the availability of the star actors and the other team members would be planned better as well. This is due to how there may be announcements regarding upcoming assessments from other classes that are usually announced about a week in prior.
What problems might you face?
We may not be able to follow the filming schedule accurately due to unpredictable situations such as sudden harsh weathers as mentioned in the location scout and risk assessment. This applies to the availability of the team members or the star actor as well where they may be unavailable due to upcoming assessments or sickness. This may cause delays in the shooting time where we may have no choice but to extend to another day.
Here are the locations me and my team considered as well as their risks, written by me. I chose to embed the document in order to not ruin the formatting of the table and make the content unclear.
Here is a link to the document in case the embedded link do not work:
Reflection: Making this location scout was not as time-consuming as I thought it was going to be as I've done it multiple times already and I think I have gotten used to doing it to the point that I don't really pay attention to the time whilst completing it. I didn't encounter much problem as well as before I started, I asked clear questions regarding the specific locations and elaborated from there. This will help my groupmates and I in easily coming up with a solution when ever we do encounter any of the risks I thought about as we have already preplanned it before. Therefore, we won't need to waste unnecessary time in trying to come up with a reliable solution.
Here I will be writing down what I have been learning in class regarding technical elements such as camera, mise-en-scene, sound, and edit.
Below are the collection of notes taken from my teacher's explanations in class and videos I watched regarding the topics.
Camera
The different camera angles and movements and their effects towards the audiences
Camera Angles
1. Long shot: A shot in which the subject can be seen from head to toe.
2. Establishing shot: Wider shots of landscapes and shots where the subject's full body appears smaller, often used in the beginning of the film or series to introduce the setting or as a method of making the subject look really small.
3. Medium shot: Shows the subject from head to waist where the audiences are able to see what the subject is doing with their hands.
4. Close-up shot: Shows the subject only from their head to their shoulders. This focuses the audiences on their facial expressions, giving them a better sense of what the subject is feeling or thinking about.
5. Extreme close-up shot: Shows the subject only from above their eyebrows to below their mouth, or even closer. This is to really emphasize on their facial expressions, often making them look more threatening and sparking a sense of discomfort to the audiences due to the proximity.
6. POV shot: a shot from the character's POV, making things look more realistic.
7. Over the shoulder shot: Seeing a subject or an object from another subject's shoulders
8. High angle shot: It is when the camera looks downwards, making the subject look more vulnerable as it is as if we are the ones looking down at them. It makes the audience feel pity or sympathy towards the subject.
9. Low angle shot: When the camera looks upwards, mimicking us looking up towards someone. This makes the subject look more powerful and threatening.
10. Dutch angle shot: When the camera is significantly tilted. This causes a sense of disorientation and uneasiness towards the audiences.
11. Cowboy shot: Shot of a subject from the middle of their thigh and upwards.
Camera Movements
1. Track: Moving the camera towards or away from the subject or to follow a moving object
2. Pan: Pivoting the camera to the side or fast movement sideways in order to follow a moving subject
3. Tilt: Pivoting the camera vertically up or down
4. Hand-held shot: Random camera movements, makes the scene look like a realistic pov.
5. Dolly zoom: A method of zooming in while the camera physically moves backwards
Mise-en-Scene
Arrangement and design of visual elements within a frame or a scene
Mise-en-Scene consists of:
1. Props
2. Hair
3. Lighting
4. Weather
5. Set design
6. Makeup
7. Blocking
8. Environment
9. Costume
10. Color
11. Focus lens
To convey emotion, theme, mood, and character traits. These are factors that helps the audiences accept what's happening.
Sound
Sound can be divided into three types:
1. Diegetic sound: The sound within the world the character can experience
- Chairs sliding
- Background chatting
- Sound of the AC
Effect: Adds a sense of realism, reveals information to characters (and then audience).
2. Non diegetic sound: Sound that the audience can hear but the character can't hear
- Narrator
- Soundtrack
- Sound effect
Effect: Enhance meaning, create an emotional response in the audience.
3. Trans diegetic sound: Sound that starts off as diegetic and turns non-diegetic later on, or vice versa.
- example: Wall E
Effect: Creates a link between the audience and the world. More immersive.
Edit
The process of selecting, arranging, and manipulating footage to create a cohesive and engaging story.
Key words:
1. Shot: Camera frame
2. Cut: Editing technique
3. Sequence: Order the shots are in
4. Montage: Different shots put together
5. Continuity: The flow when you edit one scene to another (it has to flow so it makes sense)
6. Pacing: Duration of the shots
Editing techniques:
1. Montage: Compiling different shots together
2. Non-montage: Just one long shot
3. Parallel editing (cross cut): Shows 2 events happening at the same time in 2 different locations
4. Cutaways and inserts: cuts to reactions, moving to different subjects, or showing of details
5. Match cut: When the cuts have the same compositions
6. Cut to the beat (rhythmic editing): Synchronize the cuts to the music
7. Flashback (analepsis) and flashforward (prolepsis): Adds context or information
8. Continuity: Has to flow to make things realistic and make sense
Reflection: This was really helpful in boosting my memory regarding the terms we learned in this topic as I have forgotten about the effects of some on the audience, where not only will this be beneficial for the making of the project as we have specific effects we want to create on the audience, it will also be beneficial for the theory exam as well as I will avoid cases where I forget about the terms and thus, have to put a random term to fill it in.
To find a star for our music video, we need to conduct a screen test. Here is a video of our class's group audition. We did this as a class. Unfortunately, I wasn't present in the production of this screen test, therefore I will just be analyzing the advantages and disadvantages I can find in a third person point of view.
Here we will look in detail of our song choice 'Catch Me In The Air' by Rina Sawayama (2022) which was done by Regine, Aurel, and I.
Catch me in the air by Rina Sawayama does not currently have an official music video but does have a official visualiser. A visualiser differs from a music video by being less focused on storytelling and instead simply being an abstract representations of music that enhances the experience through dynamic visuals.
1. Song Background; Genius.com, a lyrical database and digital media company, has provided a small description of the song “ 'Catch Me In The Air' is the second single from Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl album. The song details Sawayama’s relationship with her single mother, and how they have supported each other through difficult times." Rina also introduced the song on her Dynasty Tour with "I wrote a very special song and it's about my relationship with my mom who's a single mom. [...] I just wanted to write the fact that we have caught each other when we're falling, and so this song is called 'Catch Me in the Air'." (information found on a website called the Rina Sawayama Wiki)
We can conclude that this song is about the relationship between a single mother and her child as each other’s support system and how their relationship has evolved now that they’re both on their own.
2. Why we choose it The song was suggested by a friend who's a fan of the artist. We liked the song as it had consisted of a narrative that we can easily follow and develop upon. The song is also really heartwarming which will allow us to more easily invoke an emotional response from our audience, making it easier for us to keep our audience engaged as they will have a stronger attachment to our music video. In addition to that, since the artist does not have an official music video, we have more freedom to experiment and create a narrative based on the meanings we capture from the lyric. These reasons are why this song in particular stuck out to us among all our other options.
3. How your music video will be different Genius contributors mentioned the first verse of the song is written in the perspective of Rina's mother but we plan to subvert this idea by exclusively sticking to the artists' point of view. This way, it will put the audience in the artist's point of view and would create a stronger emotional reaction more effectively.
Additionally, we choose to subvert from Rina Sawayama's usual style. In the music video she is seen wearing more modern chic clothes, which is a convention more strongly associated with pop artists, whereas we choose simpler rural-like clothing which is more frequent in indie pop artists. This is because our star's persona conveys her more as a simpler girl, keen on keeping close to her roots. Furthermore, in comparison to how her video consists mostly of visual performances taking into account that it is an official visualizer instead of a music video, instead of following that, we'll be creating a storyline.
Reflection: Again, I wasn't present in the making of this due to my Economics exam. However, I tried to contribute by adding a few bits in the paragraphs such expanding the explanations. This research helped me understand more of the song my group chose such as the meaning behind the lyrics of the song instead of just choosing it and going with it without taking into account what it is actually about.
Here is the process of making the storyboard for my group, which was done by Regine.
A storyboard, defined by Teachfloor, is said to be "a visual representation of a story, often in the form of illustrations or images, arranged in a specific order to show the sequence of events in a film, video, etc."
I had taken the time to learn a little more on storyboards and what is expected through this blog by the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2vrhv4/revision/2 - however my teacher had ended up providing us templates to aid in our storyboard process. It included 2 templates, one wth 4 large boxes for detailed and another with 8 smaller boxes. Our teacher had suggested us to draw out the scenes from a singular location rather than planning the cuts between a performance to a b-roll, with the intention of reducing confusion in the narrative. Because of this, most shots did not have a defined duration, as it can vary depending on where it will be placed in the editing phase.
By the second detailed page, we were asked to show our progress to our teacher and he was able to give us suggestions on our storyboard and narrative. He informed us on his concern over how well we would be able to communicate the different flashbacks/timestamps that were happening since we did not have access to actors of different ages, which prompted him to suggest a different approach of one flashback and a continous display of the artist's journey through her career from the mother's camera perspective. We, as a group, all agreed to this new narrative as it felt as though our message could be delivered more clearly and readjusted our previous planning to fit towards it.
In these first few pages, I had used 2 pages of big boxes to draw out my ideas in detail, however, I will be switching to the pages with smaller boxes moving on to be more time-efficient. Since I would focus less on detail, I will be able to spend more time in ensuring the ideas all throughout the video will be comprehensible (due to the limited space to write descriptions) to both my team members and my teacher. This is the continuation of the storyboard.
There are still some scenes missing, which include the scene from the bridge as my team and I had not been able to have the time to properly discuss our next plan of action and realign our vision. Thus there will be more to come. However, for the sake of the due date, this will be all to submit at the current moment.
Reflection: I didn't really contribute into the making of the storyboard other than giving a few ideas whenever Regine feels stuck on what to do for certain scenes. Though as stated above, we experienced a difficulty in making the flashback and flashforward cuts clear in which this led us to have to modify a bit of the storyline when we thought that our narrative is already fixed. However, it is relieving to receive feedback by my teacher early on in the project as there are always room for us to improve our work before we officially submit it to Cambridge.
This is a lyric sheet that my group used to discuss our vision for each verse.
For this task, we started with a paper of the lyrics provided by our teacher where we discussed the general idea/narrative we wanted. Here are some of our notes from when we did this during class time.
However, we had a limit of 10-20 minutes to discuss this during our class time, thus we decided to continue this at home through Canva. My teammate Regine wrote down her, my other teammate Aurel, and my ideas altogether and gave them some more detailed visuals and wrote them down on Canva whiteboard. This way we could all share ideas and comment on each other's idea.
Although there might be slight changes and features (videos, clear images, comments, and their replies) that can only be seen in the embedded link, I also included our whiteboard in the form of images.
Aurel had commented some great questions and ideas to add on the whiteboard, however most of our discussions were done within our group chat on WhatsApp. Despite this, I felt as though we were able to expand a little bit more on our idea. Not only will it make our music video stand out, but also ensure our vision is aligning as a group.
Reflection: The annotating process on this lyric sheet was quite fun as my group and I got to brainstorm multiple ideas for each verses of the song. However we experienced a few difficulties on what to do on certain verses as what was important to us was making a clear flow in the narrative we want to create taking into account that we are including flashback and flashforward cuts. Thus, we had several discussions in our WhatsApp group chat to come into a conclusion as well as asking our teacher for feedbacks regarding what he thinks would be fitting to do for the verse.
Here is the mood board my group had made to aid in aligning our visions with one another. We had made 2 pages of the mood board as there will be 2 very different settings that we plan to have. The first pace is set in a rural area (village) while the second is in an urban area (city).
Reflection: Creating these 2 mood boards was really fun as all my group mates and I had to do was search for images within one aesthetic in Pinterest. I can use this as a guidance as well to what overall look and vibe my group and I have to follow in my music video, such as specific color grading for the different locations and timeline.
In class today, we studied the Theory of Stardom by Richard Dyer. Here are my classroom notes about the celebrity, Beabadoobee, as her songs are within the same genre as my team's music video song, which is Indie Pop.
This will help me in my music video because I need to create a persona for my artist.
I did this work with my team mate Regine and Aurel.
