Production Blog - Editing Unveiled

         Hello Blog! Since the last time you heard from me, I have endured so much stress. It all started when the editing process had begun. As I sifted through clips I noticed a lot of fundamental scenes such as the beach, biking, and coins had not yet been filmed and specific shots at the library were not taken. This anomaly between the storyboard Janiah and I created and the shots taken immediately put me in distress. 

In a professional case, we would re-film and go back to our set, but as busy teenagers, we knew this wouldn’t be possible. Now in editing, Janiah and I have decided to make some creative and necessary changes to the storyboard. 

Starting with the opening scene. Initially, we wanted to have both Janiah and me in the opening but quickly realized with time restrictions this was not possible. Despite this factor, Janiah still wanted to film shots of me which is why some of the pre-planned segments in the storyboard weren’t included. This disrupted my process when editing because some of these clips didn’t exist. Nonetheless, there were plenty of different angles and camera movements as I emphasized filming different versions of different scenes so we could be sure we had adequate camera techniques used. This move of mine came in handy later when piecing together the final product. 

Moving on to some logistical concerns of the opening segment. The first difficulty occurred when placing clips in chronological order. The reason was, that Janiah had changed her hairstyle mid-filming from an up-do to being out loose. When we filmed I let her know this would be difficult to edit so I urged her to put her hair back up for filming. She didn’t want to because her head hurt, understandably so, but now it poses a disruption in the music video. Instead of being a clear, clean transition from clip to clip, there were random parts where her hairstyles were different. I had to play around with the order of clips so then this transition of hairstyles is less apparent. 

On a similar note, the opening sequence includes a book prop. When filming we used one clip of a high angle and then another at a lower angle as the page flips. The issue is in the high angle the page can be seen and in the low angle clip, the page flips onto that same page. At first, I wanted to have the high-angle clip followed by the low-angle but this slight difference in page characteristics led me to not use this sequence of clips. Since it makes sense chronologically to have the scene flipping to that page and then show the high angle that is what I decided to include; though this altered my idea for the overall scene it was a necessary change.

 In general, the opening scene was very difficult to edit. At first, the compiled clips from the library alone stood at 18 minutes. Given the set limit of being 1:10-1:15 in total length, I was left with a lot of media that needed to be cut out. I started cutting down by removing any clips of me, clips where you can hear the overlay of my voice directing, and any other general clips that were unusable for any circumstances. After this point, the total time had been cut down to 5 minutes. This is still far from the ideal time of 10-15 seconds for the opening scenes. 

Onwards, I spent a lot of time meticulously cutting down clips to meet these time constraints. This repetitive process took me a long time and was mentally taxing but it yielded significant results. I made sure to take breaks so I could clear my mind before entering the editing process again. To anyone who may be continuously editing: make time for breaks. 

With 40 seconds worth of clips left, I was given the brilliant idea to slightly speed up the clips. This way, time could be cut down without cutting out valuable clips. To the naked eye, no one could tell if the clips were sped up but it would help with the overall video significantly. When deciding how to navigate the speeding-up process at first I was going to use a free app Janiah had introduced me to called Slow-Fast Motion Video Editor. Before I could get started my study buddy, Peyton (who also served as a background character in the music video), informed me how CapCut had this same feature. Since I was already using CapCut as my editing platform I could quickly change the speed of the videos to 1.2-1.3x the original video. 

To check if this sped-up portion was noticeable I sent the video to Janiah to review, not telling her about the sped-up part; she did not notice. This gave me the green light to move on. But, before that, Janiah asked for 2 clips to be removed since she didn’t like how they looked. I removed these clips which also helped bring down the time of the segment. 

The yellow circles show the buttons that must be pressed in order to speed up a video on CapCut.

A frame from my favorite clip discussed previously. 

I went back to editing shortly before asking for feedback from Peyton. She suggested I cut the first clip down since it was very long in comparison to other clips. I had refrained from cutting down this specific clip since it was one of my favorite clips taken. I was very proud of the outcome but for time's sake, I had to remove it. The cinematic clip was Janiah walking up the stairs and into a bookcase at a wide angle. We couldn’t speed up this clip since Janiah's walking was very artificial when sped up and we also couldn’t cut out the few seconds when Janiah waits at the top of the stairs in the clip because the editing became choppy. In the end, we kept a very short part of this long clip to act as an establishing scene of the library and still open but it isn’t as significant as I had hoped. In total, the opening sequence has just slightly surpassed 15 seconds and sits in the 22-second range. For now, this timestamp is “okay” but as the documentary-style part of the video starts the opening may need to be tweaked so it's even shorter. 

A bit about the cinéma vérité part of the music video now. This part hasn’t gone into full swing yet. The reason is that we have yet to film the beach scenes. This is something Janiah and I have discussed thoroughly. Since the beach is a big part of the music video we need to include it but Janiah argues against filming this part because she doesn’t know when we film. This caused a small conflict in our process as Janiah disagreed on a fundamental part of the music video. Since there is not much editing that can take place I have only made small tweaks in the video thus far. I have sifted through the clips we have taken put them in a logical order and removed any unusable segments from the clip but “cutting them”. As I mentioned previously, Janiah has not filmed a lot of clips, instead, I have filmed them on my own time, not including my face so it can be from “her point of view”. Though this works I would like some clips taken by Janiah herself. I spoke to her about this and she filmed 3 videos later that day. 

Messages with Janiah about what she has filmed.

However, the clips she sent were edited in CapCut with the 3x speed feature. Janiah and I have discussed how we did not want to use any noticeable sped-up clips so I was confused when she sent me these clips. I asked for the raw footage. She sent me 3 videos, 2 videos were usable but the 1 remaining was taken with the phone upright so it wouldn’t fit the frame of the video. I am happy to see her contribution to the video but I am slightly disappointed with the videos. For this reason, I have told her it is “okay” to simply show up to group filming at the beach (since that scene is of the utmost importance right now). So we will see how the filming goes! 

This whole process was extremely stressful given the lack of planning. Janiah and I have faced our biggest hurdle in creative processes at this point, though it is not major as we are friends it becomes difficult when filming and editing. The whole process of editing down clips was stressful enough but the additional complication with Janiah’s contribution to the music video added another layer of stress. The whole process has taught me a lot about perseverance. Having to step up and take charge of this falling situation was very important to ensure a final product I can be proud of. I am not sure about how the final product will be but I am sure I have done everything on my part to ensure a good music video.