Post Production
Post-Production was an area that fell entirely under me (ah yes, who doesn't love this much pressure?). I would like to thank Tashfa for bearing with me during my 3 A.M breakdown texts. The process of making the music video was quite long, and entailed much more than simply synching the footage with the song and calling it a day.
45, Selecting the footage
Selecting the footage to use for our video may have taken me longer than making the video itself, because I made the wise decision of taking 260 shots on our shoot day. I had to comb through all of the footage to filter out the best clips to use, and I made a separate folder in my laptop to store all of them so I remain organised.
I sorted the footage based on factors I listed in my Camerawork post in the production category. Many shots I took did not make the cut:
1, The corridor shot below did not get selected because the lights were on, which made it brighter than I wanted it to be and wasn't adding any depth, therefore this shot was retaken with the corridor lights off.
2, In the shot below, Tashfa was placed in the middle of the frame which was not as effective as her standing in 1/3rd of it, especially because this was already inspired by a René Magritte piece which also used the rule of thirds and was not centered. Additionally, the frame had a glass layer which made my reflection visible so we took it out to take more shots.
3, This shot was an extreme closeup and the face was not fully in the frame, therefore a better alternative was chosen.
4, This shot was a random shot I took outside and it didn't add anything to the video, therefore it was not selected. I may have selected it if there were more birds flying outside.
5, The following shot had extremely high exposure which would have made it harder to edit and the framing was not ideal either.
6, The shot of opening the book was quite shaky and had a rather awkward angle, therefore it did not make the cut.
7, This shot required multiple takes because I was going to cut the same shot 4 times and in a few of them the camera either lost focus, or tashfa forgot to try to open one bookcase.
8, These shots had more alternatives with a better angle and framing.
I ended up shortlisting 56 shots, and 47 shots were used in the final cut of our video (not including the stop motion pictures).
46, Stepprinting (a new avenue)
Stepprinting was an idea that Tashfa pitched (lord knows she is the biggest Wong Kar-Wai fan in existence). Stepprinting is a technique used in his films, such as ChungKing Express and is essentially the duplication of a frame to make it look disoriented and in slow motion. I wasn't entirely certain that I would be able to pull it off, so I watched a tutorial before our shoot to know if there is a particular type of shot I need to take. The only requirement was taking a shot that was long with a good amount of movement, so I took a hand-held shot which was around 22 seconds long.
Here is the tutorial I followed:
I used Premiere Pro to do this considering it was much more advanced than Filmora and had a wider variety of effects. i had to add the Echo and Posterize Time effect on the time line and edit them according to how I wanted the video to look. I increased the number of echoes to 9 and kept the echo operator to maximum. I also decreased the frame rate to 11 in the Posterize Time setting.
Here is what the clip looked like before I edited it:
Here is what the clip looked like after editing:
47, The Roughest of Rough-cuts
Editing the video began with an overwhelmed Esha who did not anticipate how long 3 minutes and 22 seconds truly are (but she was able to combat that well). I opened a new project with a 16:9 ratio and 1920x1080 size and began editing. Most of the shots were slowed down to increase stability and make the shots more visually appealing. The following is what the final timeline looked like:
I chose to overlay the production logo and the text "A Moonage Records Production" on top of the first shot. so I ensured it was dark enough to have them be visible. I used the evaporate effect by Filmora to have the production logo appear with a smooth transition.
Each shot was colour corrected differently according to the lighting and colours of the shots. I wanted to ensure that there are no extreme colour filters to make the video as natural looking as possible. This was important to make viewers have a more realistic experience while watching the video. I added a black vignette on top of the entire video to ensure that there was more focus on all our shots, which also made it aesthetically pleasing to watch.
The frame shot used the pan and zoom effect so that the shot is zoomed into slowly, which increased the dramatic effect this shot had. Additionally, I applied the VHS Rewind filter on top to add more dramatic effect with the use of flickers.
This was one continuous shot of Tashfa attempting to open 4 bookcases, therefore I used jumpcuts which changed the bookcase with each cut.
I knew I wanted to invert a shot to add to the feeling of disorientation, and I opted for the shot of this vase which I turned by 180 degrees. I also added the Bokeh Blur 1 effect by FIlmora to it to further the dream-like effect.
The refection in the mirror shot was achieved by cropping one shot with no reflection in the mirror and overlaying it on top of the shot where Tashfa's reflection was visible and adding an evaporate transition to it. Watch the video below to see how it was achieved:
The corridor shot was reversed so it appeared to track backwards instead of forward.
I overlaid a shot of Tashfa attempting to take off the blindfold on top of a stationary shot of her to add dramatic effect. This shot had an opacity of around 38.4% so that both shots are visible. I also added the glitch blocks effect on top to match the beats of the song which increased tension further.
I also added the VHS Rewind effect on top of the stepprint and planned to add borders. I was conflicted so I consulted Tashfa and we decided it was better not to have them.
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The stop motion of the blacked-out pages included 9 Images which were 0.2 seconds each. I ensured to keep the order of the pictures accurate so that the text becomes visible in the correct sequence.
These are correspondences I had with Tashfa whilst I was editing. She wasn't well-versed with a lot of technical elements and was occupied with working on the digipack so she had limited input (input=saying "slay" whenever I sent her something).
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If I had a penny for every time Tashfa said slay, I would be able to buy a yacht.
Translation: "crusty halaat" refer to me editing the video whilst moving houses.
Presenting the first draft of Muddy Waters:
48, My Sound-mixer Era (Part 1)
I wanted to mix the audio and make it shorter, because the song felt quite long to Tashfa and I, and we wanted to ensure that we could retain the interest of our audience. Videos longer than 3 minutes and 30 seconds tend to be quite boring for general audiences who lose their attention span, which was something we could not afford because the scene where mrs. midas takes the blindfold off was towards the end of the video. The following is the timeline for the edited audio:
I split the audio around 27 seconds in and trimmed a section to make it shorter. I used a slight fade in for the along with the sound effect 8 so that it sounds seamless and hard to detect that the audio has been edited.
I had to make the ending shorter as well, therefore I split the audio and trimmed a section, and joined them back together using fade in and out, but the beat didn't entirely match, so I added sound effect 8 in another layer to make a smoother transition.
Here is the link for the YouTube video I took the sound effects from:
The following is the mixed audio that I used for our first draft:
49, The Salvation Plans
There were quite a few issues I noticed in the first draft of our video that I wanted to change. I had a conversation with Tashfa where I told her said changes and planned to make some edits. The following is a list of things I wanted to make different:
The song still felt slightly long, and the ending felt a bit abrupt, therefore I wanted to mix the audio again and remove another section from it.
The clip of Tashfa playing the piano did not go with the beats of the song, so I planned to either change it's pace or remove it entirely.
The video felt too bland therefore I wanted to add more transitions to it.
I did not add the title of the video and the artist in the video, therefore I planned to add those as well.
Some shots, such as that of the inverted vase felt too long, which would be boring for viewers, therefore I wanted to shorten them.
Yet another "slay" by Tashfa and a "hey, I want to change the entire video" by Esha.
50, My Sound-mixer Era (Part 2)
The first step in changing the first draft was to make edits to the audio. I brought back the original ending of the song, and took out more segments from the middle of the song to ensure it remains shorter and does not have an abrupt ending. Here is the timeline:
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I split the audio in 3 places in total. I trimmed the song after hearing it (a million times) and matching the beats and lyrics. I used the sound effect 8 (from the initial YouTube video) and reduced it's volume to make sure it transitioned well.
I took out a third section and faded the ending slightly to make everything tie up seamlessly.
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Here is the final audio I ended up using:
51, The Final Cut
I began editing the video again to make the changes I had planned (one more night of lost sleep).
I added the text "muddy waters" and "mrs. midas" as titles. My Filmora did not have the same font we used for our social media and digipack, so I ensured to keep a similar serif font with a light black border so it's relatively easy to read.
I added the swipe transition instead of having simple jumpcuts in the scene where Tashfa attempts to open the bookcases because I knew that our video lacked transitions. I also added the white flash transition in two more places in the video.
I shortened a few clips and added new clips that were not present in the first draft of the video. Because I changed the audio, I had to move around quite a lot of clips to match the beats of the song.
I increased the duration of the last clip so that the ending does not seem as abrupt as it did before and added a dissolve transition in the clip before it as well.
Presenting the final music video for Muddy Waters:
52, Self-Reflection (and not the kind in the music video in-front of a literal mirror)
A lot of thoughts were running my mind after I finalized the music video. There were quite a few things I liked about the video, but there were also areas I felt that I could have improved in.
Here is a list of things I wish we would have done differently:
1, I think if we had an external actor, it would have been much easier for us to incorporate more shots of the artist. Additionally, if Tashfa wasn't acting, she could have helped me with the shooting process more and we wouldn't have had to focus on acting.
2, I wish I used a Gimbal for the tracking shot of the hallway, but I could not acquire one and renting one was out of our budget.
3, I wanted to take more creative shots like burning the blacked out pages, but they were a safety hazard and we could not carry them out at our location due to their rules.
On the other hand, here is a list of things I really liked about our video:
1, I liked that our video had several intertextual references, adding to our own music video's identity and making it much more engaging for audiences.
2, I was mildly surprised that I was able to achieve the stepprinting effect and I did not expect that I would have been able to edit it accurately.
3, I liked that a lot of the shots I took had an aesthetic appeal to them. I would say that I generally did a good job in the camerawork area.
All in all, I would say that our project turned out to be very successful, and there is always room for improvement in everything, because nothing is perfect in itself.
53, The Intertextuality Parade
This post is written by Tashfa reflecting on the intertextual references (the love of her life) in our music video:
54, The Fan Following
Because we had to engage with audiences as well, I thought it was a good idea to ask my friends for their opinions on the video just in case there was something they didn't like, so I asked them (read: bullied them) for a review. It's safe to say that they liked it. Everyone had a different interpretation to the video as well, which was exactly the target Tashfa and I wanted to achieve. Here are my favourite reviews:
