Editing Styles

In this post I will talk about the types and styles of editing we decided to use in our music video. The editing of music videos are important as it makes the video conventional to the genre, so for example with our genre of dance, videos would contain fast paced editing within the video. We will use FInal Cut Express for the editing of our video.

I will talk about 3 types of editing used in our video: Straight cuts/Ellipsis, Fast Paced Editing and Continuity editing.



Straight Cuts/Ellipsis : Straight cuts are where one shots is quickly replaced with another, we used this alot in our video with relation to the fast paced editing. The straight cuts were used throughout the video while following our artist throughout the story, and this is where the editing use of ellipsis comes to play, for example we used straight cuts while our artist walked to a house and then round the back to jump over a fence, and within this action, we used straight cuts to make the action quicker by the use of ellipsis, for example we would cut to another shot of him getting on with another action, like when he runs round a corner, then cuts to him looking over a fence, then straight to landing on the floor where he has jumped over. We used ellipsis to make the shots shorter to keep the audiences attention and interest as it wont be a long drag of the action, while still making the narrative and action understandable.

Fast Paced Editing : This editing style is basically shortening the time between cuts during the process of editing, giving the video a faster tempo and pace, and this is a convention of dance music videos and makes a relation between the sound and the visuals which is interesting for the viewer. This editing style was used in relation to the straight cuts and ellipsis, while in time of the beat, so the cuts would cut on each beat in some places of the video, we used this throughout the video as fast paced editing, however we used it wisely and did not over use it as it can become overwhelming if overused.

Continuity Editing : This is editing style which makes an action look real and fluid during different cuts, shot types and angles. We used this style in our editing as we felt it was compulsory to making a good music video as the narrative must be understood, if actions are not understood throughout our video then the narrative might become misunderstood too. We have tried our best to make actions within our video as real and fluid as possible while using straight cuts, fast paced editing and ellipsis to provide that continuity while also being realistic and understandable.