1. Rough Edit Evaluation
By Daniel Hopkins
The following is an assessment of the rough edit of my music video. I will be looking at
mistakes involving colour and the length, quality and professionalism of various camera
shots. I will then subsequently discuss how I will improve upon the mistakes in my rough
edit.
The first shot I have in my music video is of cars on a motorway, complete with traffic audio,
before the song starts abruptly with shots of trees. I think the transition between the audio
is too sharp and doesn’t give the edit a professional flow as the sudden switch can be quite
jarring. I will therefore make an audio transition between the cars noises and the song,
where the former will decrease in volume before being replaced by the song, which will gain
in volume. This should hopefully make for a more smooth flowing sound.
A few of the shots throughout the video, mostly free hand shots of trees are wobbly and
very unprofessional. Though free hand gives a good, primitive effect in some cases, in others
it is clearly apparent that the camera-handler at the time is having difficulty keeping it still
and the resulting shots are shaky and generally poor. For some shots, I will be able to
replace them due to the number of takes we took while on others, I will bring each clip into
the software programme After Effects. One of the effects entitled ‘Warp Stabilizer’ enables
me to do exactly that- stabilize the footage. I think that it can only help for mildly wobbly
shots, as stabilizing others may take away some of their quality and leave patches of the clip
blurry.
Another problem with some of the footage in the rough edit is that it is out of focus. Though
it only effects two pieces of footage, it is clearly evident that they are out of focus as the
quality, compared to the other clips, is very poor. For this, I may replace the clips with better
footage, possibly of another take or more shots of the surrounding foliage. If this isn’t
possible due to timing in the video and continuity problems, I may put the clip into after
effects and attempt to make it resemble the quality of the other clips, using various effects.
Some of the shots we took had zoom problems, which was due to the poor quality of
zooming on the canon cameras and lack of communication between the actor/s and the
camera operator. This becomes apparent in some shots as the zoom seems to stop and start
as the camera operator attempts to keep up with the speed and direction of the actor. To fix
the problems, I may use alternate shots or cut the zooming process, so the pre-zoom and
post-zoom parts of the footage become separate clips. This should hopefully make it a
smoother transition.

2. On one shot the actor is clearly seen to be standing still, as awaiting his cue to begin.
Though it happens momentarily, I will cut the clip to allow for a more fluid flow in the video.
During the flashback scene in the music video, I use a black dissolve transition between past
and present. I may change the colour and length of the transition to suit the pace of the
video, as it seems too fast and unstylish.
In one scene of the video, the actor (Daniel Harrison) trips and falls, but the footage I cut as
his legs are about to hit the ground. The continuing shot after that is of him lying flat on the
ground. This is because I cut the falling shot too short and so will have to extend it to correct
the continuity. In another scene Daniel was supposed to run directly up to the camera with
the next shot of him running away from it. However, he is looking into the camera, which
ruins the video on the whole as, apart from one other scene which shows him closing his
eyes, it effectively breaks the fourth wall due to no reason for him looking at the camera.
For this I will either find a replacement shot or cut the footage out of the clip where he is
looking into the camera. I may also need to fix continuity as his movements in-between
some shots aren’t full coordinated.
After the running scenes, Daniel approaches a small pond and following that, approaches a
tree. The continuity in-between him getting up and approaching the tree are slightly off-
balance and I may look to correct this by editing the size of the footage appropriately.
A further thing I will have to edit is the colour on the final party clips at the end of the video.
The footage was shot on a darker day than the rest, and it is very prominent in the shots, as
they have a much darker colour tone than the rest of the shots. I will have to put the clips
into after effects, where I will then use a variety of colour correction methods including
brightness and contrast. This should hopefully brighten the part of the video and make it
more characteristic of the rest.