In this presentation I look into the various editing techniques I have used in my music video, and give my reasoning behind them.

1. Editing Decisions For The Music
Video
By Matthew Haddock

2. Use Of Fast Cutting
• In the scene where the politician character begins his
mental decline fast cutting is employed from the
period between 55.35 seconds to 58.33 seconds (7 cuts
in 2.98 seconds) in conjunction with David Bowie’s
drawn-out and torturous screaming of the word
“Heaven” to create a stressful effect. The scene
features intercut uncomfortable close-up shots of the
character’s face, with a stressed expression, these
shots are from various different angles, some with the
camera rotated at 180 degrees. This is to create a
disorienting effect and visually show the breakdown of
the character’s mental state.

3. Use Of Fades To Black
• There are many cuts to black throughout the video, to convey
confusion, as rhythmic punctuation and to show the passage of
small amounts of time.
• Fades to black are only used when large amounts of time pass.
These are only used in two shots: to end the shot of the assassin
breathing deeply after purchasing a gun online; and to end the shot
where the main character's wife is in bed alone.
• These are used as the shots that are directly after these shots take
place the next day.
• This adds to the visual language of the video, fades to black are a
part of the visual vocabulary that exclusively communicate gaps
between large passages of time.

4. Use Of Cuts To Black
• I have used cuts to black throughout as rhythmic punctuation, and to convey a
short gap of time.
• Cuts to black are used between the three on-beat shots of the main character lying
down and sitting in his loft, these both function as rythmic punctuation – they
occur for the duration of the offbeat – and to convey short gaps of time, as each
shot sees the character in a different position.
• In the aforementioned sequence the cuts to black illustrate the fact that the main
character has spent a long time in his loft, his changing positions implying that he
has had a lot of time to adjust to isolating himself in the loft. This adds to the
narrative element of the main character’s period of self-imposed isolation.
• Cuts to black are heavily present during the confrontation in the final scene in
order to communicate to the viewer the confusion felt by the characters in the
scene.
• This confusion is a result of the cuts to black restricting information from the
viewer, raising questions about what they are not seeing.

5. Use Of Editing To Build Suspense
• Editing can be used to control the amount of information given to
the audience. The more narrative threads that are left dangling, the
more suspense and intrigue the audience will feel.
• In order to create an interesting narrative I cut shots in an order
that would provide an unanswered question that is eventually
resolved later in the music video.
• An example of this is the sequence of shots that show the politician
finding out via the newspaper that he has killed an innocent
hostage in a drone strike.
• I chose to show the politician looking at the newspaper, dropping
his spoon in shock, and sinking back into his chair before showing
the newspaper headline, all of these preceding shots serve to
provoke intrigue as to what is the cause of the politician’s distress.

6. Use Of Cutting Techniques In The
Dream Sequence
• I employed graphic match cutting to introduce the dream sequence.
• I cut from a dark and grainy close-up shot of the politician lying in bed to a bright,
high-definition close-up shot of the politician lying in a desert, the same area
where the hostage was killed.
• I employed this cut to shock the audience. The sudden and drastic change in
scenery would provoke intrigue and the fact that the first shot sees the politician
lying in a bed would make it clear to the audience that the explanation for this cut
is that he is asleep and dreaming.
• Following the close-up shot in the desert, I cut to an extreme wide shot of the
politician standing up, the desert and sky taking up most of the frame, the
politician in the centre being very small and far away from the camera.
• This was done to create an impressive “widescreen” feeling to the shot by
contrasting it with the previous close-up. This is the most extreme long shot in the
entire music video and serves to show the politician’s paranoia revolving around
the decision to carry out the drone strike.
• His position as being very small in the mise-en-scene reflects how powerless he
feels in the face of his declining mental stability.

7. Use Of Cross-Cutting
• I used cross-cutting to emphasise the different situations of the politician and the assassin. This is
to emphasise how important the two characters are to the narrative, giving them equal weight in
the cross-cutting as well as their differing emotions at the same time in the narrative.
• I employed cross-cutting most noticeably in the sequence where the politician is paranoid and
walks out to his balcony whilst the assassin is simultaneously purchasing a weapon online. The
sequence cuts from the politician in a place of instability and distress to the assassin in a position of
calculated control.
• The worried expression of the politician and the shakiness of the camera as he walks out onto the
balcony contrast with the deliberate, intensely focused expression of the assassin and the
completely static camera. When the politician is on the balcony, long shots that show almost the
entirety of his figure are employed, he is relatively small in the mise-en-scene, showing that the
world around him holds dominance over his thoughts. This contrasts with the cuts to the assassin
as they are close-up shots of his face and extreme close-up shots of his hand using his computer
mouse as well as the computer screen. This means that the assassin and his possessions are
dominant in the mise-en-scene, showing the control and intensity that the character is feeling.

8. Use Of Graphic Match Cutting
• At the end of the scene where the politician finds out that the hostage had been killed in the drone
strike, the last shot is from within a cupboard, his wife closes a cupboard door leaving the screen in
darkness apart from a line of light shining through the gap at the edge of the door. This cuts to a
close-up shot of the edge of another doorway, that perfectly aligns with the line of light at the end
of the previous shot.
• I am very happy with how this cut looks, as the lines align so well that the cut appears completely
seamless, the sequence traverses from one space to another in one fluid cut.
• Another use of graphic match cutting is the cut from the politician’s wife in bed to the assassin
waking up the next morning, the bed in the first shot is on the left side of the frame, while the bed
in the second shot is on the right side of the frame. Both shots show a bed from similar angles, the
bed tilting toward the centre of the frame with the characters in the bed close to the centre.
• The shots are similar, however the fact that the beds are on different sides of the frame
emphasises that these characters are very different, the politician’s wife is annoyed that her
husband is hiding in their loft, while the assassin is waking up, ready to find out information about
her husband so that he can kill him. The characters do not know each other, and the differing sides
of the frame that the beds occupy reinforce that these characters occupy completely different
social spheres.
• The chiaroscuro lighting of the first shot contrasts with the bright lighting of the second, this is a
lighting change that is functional for the narrative, so that the audience is aware that the first shot
takes place at night, while the second takes place in the morning of the next day.

9. Use Of Shot-Reverse-Shot
• Shot-reverse-shot is employed in the scene where the politician is having a conversation with a
colleague and experiences a paranoid hallucination of a man in a balaclava appearing behind the
colleague.
• I used the technique as it clearly shows that a conversation is occurring, due to the audience’s
familiarity with shot-reverse-shot in conversation scenes.
• I subverted its usual use, however, by having the hallucinated figure appear behind the shoulder of
the colleague, taking the audience’s focus away from the colleague’s face, and towards what would
normally be negative space. The jarring nature of this cut preys on the audience’s expectations for
how a shot-reverse-shot sequence should progress.
• This technique was also useful for showing the audience that this was clearly a hallucination, as
after the reverse shot of the politician’s reaction to the hallucination is shown there is a cut back to
the shot of the colleague’s face, he turns to look behind him and the place where the hallucinated
figure appears is back to being negative space in the frame. I used shot-reverse-shot in this instance
to show how the politician perceives the world when hallucinating, as well as how he sees it once
he has snapped out of his hallucination.
• After the shot of the colleague turning, confused, to see nothing behind him, there is a cut to a low
angle shot of the politician trying, nervously, to come up with an excuse for his behaviour, this
breaks the shot-reverse-shot sequence to create a jarring and uncomfortable feeling that replicates
how the politician feels in this instance, while low angle shots are usually used to make the subject
seem large and imposing, his colleague is shown as larger in the frame, although not much of him is
seen. This dwarfs the politician, making him appear small in the face of his growing mental
problems, creating a purposeful end to the conventional shot-reverse-shot sequence.

10. Use Of Lyrical Match Editing 1
• At several points in the music video I cut shots so that their content would match with the lyrics being sung at the
same time.
• When the politician is getting dressed for work, he forms a silhouette in front of his curtains, at the same time the
lyrics “Silhouettes and shadows” are being sung, this is an example of mise-en-scene and lyrics matching.
• The visual of the assassin shouting at the politician over the telephone is accompanied by the lyric “Watch the
revolution”. This equates the assassin’s desire to take revenge on the politician with an act of political revolution,
and justifies the politician’s fear that there are serious motives that would lead someone to kill him.
• As the politician seems to undergo a breakdown, and several rapid cuts of zoom-in shots of his face are shown, the
lyric “No more free steps to Heaven” is sung. This is a verbalisation of the politician’s fear that his actions have
caught up with him, he has killed an innocent man by ordering a drone strike and will now be held responsible, he
no longer has an easy path to Heaven.
• The lyric “I am bored” plays as the politician stares at his television, dropping his remote control, this matches the
fact that the politician seems to be listlessly watching television, but is in fact undergoing severe mental stress and
cannot concentrate.
• During the sequence where the politician looks from his balcony to see a hallucination, the lyrics “I really don’t
understand the situation” play, showing that the politician does not know how to deal with or comprehend what
he is seeing.
• When the politician jerks up in bed, awakening from his nightmare, the lyric “Couples ‘gainst the target” plays. As
his wife is in bed with him, there is a literal couple on-screen, and the description of couples as “’gainst the target”
relates to the strain that the politician’s deteriorating mental state is having on their relationship.
• When the lyric “Throw a rock against the road and it breaks into pieces” plays, the assassin is planning the
assassination of the politician, and mimes the second half of the line while looking at a newspaper clipping of his
father’s picture. Here I have used the line to function as a metaphor to express the idea that actions have
consequences, the assassin’s vengeful glare showing that the “rock against the road” was act of drone bombing
that killed his father, and that the violent revenge against the politician will be the consequences, the politician’s
safe world “break[ing] into pieces”.

11. Use Of Lyrical Match Editing 2
• When the lyric “Draw the blinds on yesterday, and it’s all so much scarier. Put a bullet in my brain, and it makes all
the papers” plays, the politician is seen leaving his bedroom, looking up at his loft door and breaking down, before
entering his loft. This sequence matches the lyrics in that the politician is shutting out his problems in a manner
similar to “draw[ing] the blinds on yesterday”, he hides in the loft of his house to escape from his worries. The lyric
“put a bullet in my brain, and it makes all the papers” relates exactly to the politician’s paranoia that someone will
try to kill him for his actions, and that as he is a relatively famous figure, there is an incentive to kill him in the
form of the notoriety one would get if they were to carry out the action.
• When the politician is seen walking into his meeting, the lyric “So where’s the moral” plays, this has a connection
to what is happening on-screen as the video seems to be set up so that the politician will give his speech, it will be
well-received, and he will lead a better life, free of paranoia, however this is not to be as he is assassinated at the
end of the video. This is an example of lyric matching for the purpose of misdirection, the audience would expect
a “moral” to be at the end of the story, making this sequence seem like a fitting conclusion when in fact it is the
precursor to the final events of the video.
• When the other politicians are seen applauding the speech of the politician who is the main character, the lyric
“To be insulted by these fascists is so degrading” plays, this is an ironic lyric match, as the character is not being
insulted, rather he is being praised. There is no suggestion that the characters are fascists, and the politician is
pleased with this response, he does not find it degrading whatsoever. This lyric match uses irony as the applause
of the politicians will do little to save the main character from his eventual assassination, as well as to create an
interesting and possibly humorous juxtaposition of lyrical content and mise-en-scene.
• When the assassin is being pulled away from the politician by other politicians after he tries to strangle him, a
yelled “Shut up!” plays, to tell someone to “shut up” is to try and subdue their influence in a conversation, relating
to the desire of the other politicians to subdue the assassin and stop him from causing any further harm. A
second, cut-off “Shut u-” plays when the assassin shoots the politician in the final shot, this relates to the
assassin’s desire to subdue the politician by shooting him, getting revenge for the death of his father, and the fact
that this “Shut up!” is cut off at the end by the sound of a tape stopping matches the abrupt end of the politician’s
life once he is shot.