I practiced directing, filming and then editing my friend Lip syncing to Maroon 5’s song, Payphone. Before filming, we were able to look the lyrics up online just to ensure that there would be no errors. I then played the song out loud and filmed my friend lip syncing. We learnt from our first try, that singing the lyrics out loud, instead of mouthing the lyrics, helped to ensure that there was no unnecessary exaggeration from the mouth during the singing which would look unprofessional and unrealistic. Furthermore, singing the lyrics out loud ensured that there would be less hesitation for the lyrics and would help with the continuity. After filming I edited the piece using Adobe Premiere Pro 2. For editing, I imported our recorded piece along with downloading the song from online and having the song in a separate attachment. I then dragged the filmed piece into the title video 1 so that the piece is laid out ready to edit. Directly underneath my filmed piece the sound levels of what I had filmed appeared in audio one. I needed to mute the sound of my friend singing along with any additional backing sound so I adjusted the sound levels by moving the yellow balance line to the bottom to mute all the sound. Underneath audio one I dragged the song that I wanted; 'Payphone' into audio 2 row. Furthermore, I was able to use the razor tool to cut the part I didn’t want at the beginning of the piece and further move audio 2 sideways in order to match my friend’s lips to the correct time in the song. Undoubtedly, this took a couple of tries in order to match the words effectively and correct however I was able to pause the sound and then play in order to match and move the sound with the visuals.
What Have I learnt?
From filming my friend Lip
syncing I have learnt that in order to make the piece effective, the lyrics
need to be known completely along with their correct timings. This became
particularly evident during my piece in editing that there were a lot of unmatched
lyrics that were slightly off the beat. In order to ensure that this will not
happen with my music promo I will shoot my piece sections more than once to
ensure that during editing I have all the footage that I need in order to
complete my video. Unfortunately, at times there was also hesitation of the
lyrics. In order to avoid this happening again, before filming, the lyrics will
need to be learnt fluently by our actor. Additionally, during editing I
practiced using Adobe After Effects in order to create some transitions for my
piece. I practiced using a square zoom that brings the image further in the
foreground. I decided a good time for this transition was at the lyrics 'You'
as it brought an intimacy between the audience and the artist and may be something I choose to incorporate in my music video. 