Editing and Cinematography for Music Videos4 Lessons

We know how to film and edit don’t we?

You have learned how to film and edit but…you learned this skill for making films. Music videos are very different.

How is the editing and cinematography in music videos different to films?

On a piece of A3 paper write down all of the ways they are different.

Now lets analyse some of the best music videos to find out what we should be doing.

Editing

The following Videos won or were nominated for best editing in the 2012 MTV VMAs

Beyoncé — "Countdown” (Editors: Alexander Hammer and Jeremiah Shuff)

ASAP Rocky — "Goldie" (Editor: Samantha Lecca)

Gotye (featuring Kimbra) — "Somebody That I Used to Know" (Editor: Natasha Pincus)

Jay-Z and Kanye West — "Paris" (Editors: Alexander Hammer, Peter Johnson and Derek Lee)

Kanye West (featuring Pusha T, Big Sean and 2 Chainz) — "Mercy" (Editor: Eric Greenburg)

Task – Pick out Editing Techniques

You will be given a piece of A3 paper with each of the videos on.

Write down all of the editing techniques that you see

At the bottom tell me why you think that the music video was nominated or won the award.

Special Effects

Special effects have increasingly found their place in music videos. This music video won best SFX at the VMAs in 2012 – Skrillex

Want to see how they create this magic on another video? Click here

Cinematography

The following Videos won or were nominated for best cinematography in the 2012 MTV VMAs

M.I.A. — "Bad Girls" (Director of Photography: André Chemetoff)

Adele — "Someone Like You" (Director of Photography: David Johnson)

Coldplay (featuring Rihanna) — "Princess of China" (Director of Photography: Stéphane Vallée)

Lana Del Rey — "Born to Die" (Director of Photography: André Chemetoff)

Drake (featuring Rihanna) — "Take Care" (Director of Photography: Kasper Tuxen)

Task – Pick out Cinematography Techniques

You will be given a piece of A3 paper with each of the videos on.

Write down all of the camera shots, angles, movements that you see

At the bottom tell me why you think that the music video was nominated or won the award.

Now we need to learn Adobe

Tutorials

The following link has screen shot guides of how to do the basics on adobe.

http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/premiere/pro/

Task

We are going to film a section of lip syncing and I want you to try some new things on Adobe to create a 1 minute music video trial.

If there are some techniques you have seen in our analysis that you are considering using in your music video, now is the time to try these out e.g. slow motion, split screen.

Work in groups to do this task.