‘MRS ROBINSON’A Step by Step, illustrated guide detailing my editing process

Step 1: Open a new Project To edit my music video I will use Adobe Premier Pro. This is because I used it for my AS prelim film, ‘Illusion’ and my two minute film-opening ‘Mobster from Manhattan’. It proved highly successful because I was able to easily edit my footage with numerous uses of pace. Furthermore, I incorporated various techniques within the cutting of my footage that enabled the film to depict my chosen genre. With its quick and easy-to-use interface I am able to navigate the timeline efficiently and, because of the fast-paced nature of my song I can also use fast cuts to match this rhythm.

To open a new project, click the ‘New Project’ tab at the bottom left-hand corner of the splash box.

Step 2: Enter viewing formats

Next I selected my capture format. ‘HDV’ stands for High Definition Video and, because I filmed in High Definition, this was the suitable format for me. It is best to select this option to give your video the best quality possible and this will allow the audience to enjoy it more.

I then specified which folder I wanted to save the video in. This is highly effective because I can easily manage the location of the video for future use. To make this happen, I called it an appropriate title.

Step 3: Preset configuration

Step 3 consists of selecting the preset you want for your film. Aside form the audio rate, it also lets you decide what display ratio and quality format you would like to export the film in.

I chose AVCHD 1080p25 because this is one of the best qualities available. Since I used the Sony NEX-EA50 and the Panasonic HC V550, I will make use of the High Definition capability.

Step 4: Import the footageTo import the footage into the timeline, click ‘File’ and ‘Import’. This will prompt you to select the relevant files you wish to include.

Once the footage has been imported, they will be listed on the left-hand side of the display along with their frame rate to help gauge the quality of the video.

When I put my footage onto the timeline, I clicked ‘Scale to Frame Size’. This keeps the aspect of the original clip and formats it to a 16x9 resolution. Therefore, the display remains at the highest possible quality and because I filmed at 1080p, this will be reflected in the final video.

All the footage has to be rendered so that they can be viewed smoothly. Once all clips are rendered, this will be indicated by the green line at the top.

Step 5: Import the music track

To insert the ‘Mrs Robinson’ track into my video, I downloaded a full version of the song from YouTube, after making sure it had a good quality audio. I used the website ‘YouTube mp3’ as it downloads videos from YouTube at a very fast speed, thus making it highly reliable.

After downloading, I inserted the track into Premier Pro and it appears as this on the timeline, showing the relevant pitch and peak alterations which helps me keep track of the tone of the song during editing:

Adjusting the brightness Because I filmed into different light for some shots (that need to be in sequence), I had to adjust the brightness of the final footage. To achieve this, all I had to do was select my desired clip, press the drop-down arrow in the ‘Brightness & Contrast’ tab and adjust accordingly. I found that the further I decreased the brightness, the more the contrast had to be increased to correctly balance out the light.