Update on Post Production

Now that we have everything shot, I thought a quick update was in order to let you know about how the post-production process is going for Kira and I. We're at the stage now where we can confidently say that the music video is near finished and the promotional material is taking shape nicely and shouldn't require too much work to get it looking great! We've been using Final Cut Pro on the Mac Pros in the editing suite at college to put together our music video. The software, once you know your way around it, is really easy to use but effective too. I've really enjoyed taking on the role of editor and have learnt so much about the software, editing techniques and effects.

This year, I think the post-production on our work has gone a lot smoother and the quality just isn't comparable to my AS year; we've come leaps and bounds. Though the edit for our 'Lights' music video is one of the biggest edits I've done, I feel like I've learned the most from it.

We've achieved everything we set out to do regarding the edit; all techniques, effects etc. but having really good footage from the shoots to work with makes my role a lot easier. This year, every single shot is colour corrected which makes a huge impact on the quality of the piece as a whole and polishes it well.

Techniques such as syncing diegetic sound with non-diegetic sound of about 8 different shots and lining them all up in the timeline was one of the hardest things about the pre-production and took quite a lengthy amount of time but I feel that without taking the time out to do that, the whole process is made significantly harder.

Overall, our edit has come a long way from a bundle of footage in the 'bin'. Kira and I are really proud of it and it only needs a few tweaks before it's debut on the blog! We showcased the video to an audience last week and the feedback from them, though mostly positive, was really helpful and constructive - it definitely told us what needs to be changed in order to make it appeal to an audience and idealistically (in the real world), the consumer.

As far as the album cover and magazine advertisement go, I'm really proud of these too. They really represent GLITTERKNIGHT well and build up a star image nicely. Previously studying graphic design, I'm quite experienced in photoshop and know my way around the program well which helped us a lot with being able expressing our ideas accurately and Kira's learning really quickly; the graphics she produces for her media blog and general technique are getting really strong.

You can see from previous images and ideas on my blog that we've utilised Photoshop CS3 to keep the look and feel that was created with our music video regarding the band. We've shot the photographs using a digital stills camera and they're looking lovely. We've cut around ourselves using the 'lasso' tool, feathered it by a few pixels and layered it onto the bokeh styled lights featured in our pop promotion. The typography, with the glows look really effective too.

We've had a few bumps in the road in our post-production, such as Kira's inexperience with Photoshop and my reluctancy to sync all takes up at once in the timeline in Final Cut but we've moved past these, made decisions as a group and either found alternatives or worked through the problems until a solution was clear. I think Kira and I work really well and the post-production of our task proves this really well.