Editing Animatic

The group and I went up to the media suite to edit our Animatic. An animatic is an animated storyboard put together with editing. This was edited on Final Cut Pro. As well as cutting the storyboard to the timeline we had created, we also had to match it to the song as well.

Our first attempt was very rough and basic. Our shot duration was way too long and it was hard to picture what the music video would look like frame by frame.

So we started again and with the editing skills of Ben, we made something special...

I feel that after making the animatic we need to create more shots in order to fill up the video with a wider variety of shots and prevent the audience from getting bored. If I needed to change one thing it would be to cut between shots more to show the hectic manner of the song, as it is a dance song, and I would want to add one more set.

In the actual shoot we will focus on getting the main shots (wide, close ups, mid shots e.t.c) of both the Artist, DJ and the dancers and then after this will shoot more creative shots in order to make the video more entertaining and fun to watch.

This animatic has been very useful for our music video concept as it has allowed us to visualise what the shots will look like and we can see whether or not they work with the set and song e.t.c. We have identified that progression of pace with editing will look effective in our video because there are multiple moments where the pace of the song changes. 

Feedback we received from our animatic:

An idea for our editing was to use letter boxing however when doing this we have been advised to record percentages of how much we cut the screens in order to make sure it is the same for every shot, making the process more time efficient and looking more professional. 

Using strobe randomly without it being in the whole video can be seen as desperate and is a common device used when there is no other options. 

If we use letter boxing there needs to be progression as well as progression with editing making the piece more chaotic as it goes on.

Putting our lead Genny on another set will give us more to work with in editing. One of the big problems we have had with the storyboard is that we did not have enough footage in order to make it fast paced and an exciting piece like the song.

Credit: Ben South