Song and Dance routine number 2 :-)

Okay, here it is ... more like a music video? I hope it's getting there :-)

Thanks for looking:

[www.felliniesque.com]

are you asking if the compression is better? a little yes, it seems like it may be...

as far as content goes, the other version was better - but only slightly. in the old version you saw her hand him a cd and head in to the booth. here you cant see that its a cd shes giving him and she just suddenly is in the booth...

i really dont get any kind of connection between the studio footage and the two club kids hippie dancing on the street??? the song has a definite sense of urgency to it. and the two dancers look all sedated as if theyre rolling or something.

Yeah, I can see your point. You know, the two scenes had nothing to do with each other. I was trying to do something like a music video. At least that's the impression it gave -- the first movie clip I posted.

I suppose I could go nuts and cut it as a fast paced music video, throwing in all kinds of effects. I don't know where I'm going with this...

I think I'll just quit at this point and go on with shooting my movie. I'm sort of floundering at this point...

I don't agree with Wayne. I think this version is better...some of the details (such as the tattoo) are better placed. However, I think what he's getting at is that the editing logic is still befuddled. It still looks like you have a bunch of footage and you're putting it together without a script.

I believe what you need is to give the footage *meaning*. In my years of cutting student projects, one of the things I learned is that often you can't let the footage determine what the story is. You often need to let the footage inspire you to write a story. You come up with the story beats. *Then* you go into the footage and figure out how to combine the footage to achieve every one of the story beats you need. Basically, Eisensteinian theory.

I edited a similar music video several years ago:

[www.derekmok.com]

The director, Kate, had 70 hours of footage following a band on tour. Our first cut was performance-only; our second cut incorporated some documentary footage. It was kinetic, but people watching it didn't get what the point was.
So I sat down and wrote a script, regardless of what footage we had (she had such a tight deadline that I didn't have time to watch every minute of the raw footage), and the third cut got much, much better structurally.

Back to your video. For example, you have her entering the studio. The singer is attractive and seems to have a good presence both onstage and singing in the studio, but where's her entrance? This is your star, but she just pops in out of nowhere. Do you have footage of her arriving? The studio people talking about her? Build anticipation for her appearance. Also consider using the *least* revealing shots of her as she enters, then choose a moment -- end of Act 1 -- to reveal her face. Maybe even ADR dialogue of the technicians -- "Where is she?" Delayed reveals are effective.

Or, start on the couple in the costume instead. How'd they end up there? Is there a more interesting way to begin their story rather than "they're just there"?

As she starts the song, you have to figure out how the dancing relates to the singing and the performance. Is it surrealistic? A reflection of what the singer is saying? Is there a way to tie the two together -- for example, the singer exits her performance at Knitting Factory and runs into the dancer?

One good way I found while cutting the video above was to force myself to type out every single word, repetition, and chorus in the lyrics. Even though at that point I had already cut the video twice and remembered most of the lyrics in my head, forcing myself to type everything out allowed me to see the structure visually -- like beatsheet cue cards in screenwriting. Then, on the same page, I typed out what footage I'd already seen would fit each section of the song, and came up with where there were holes for which I needed to find the right documentary footage to convey the idea.

The sync is off on the performance footage as well. The best thing to do is LOOK AT THE DRUMMER. When they're starting the song, it looks obvious to me that he's not doing the count, and then his playing doesn't match up to the music. Unless it's an internet playback issue. Do this: Mark down the drummer's first crash-cymbal hit as well as his first snare hit -- use Audio Scrubbing and/or waveforms in the Viewer and apply markers to those sound spikes. Now go into your scratch sound if you have any and mark those same sounds. Now it should be easy lining those two sync points up. If you have no scratch sound, gauge as best you can when his arm is actually hitting the cymbal, and line that up with the first crash hit. If you tried to use the bass player, the singer or the guitarist to do this, you'd go crazy because it's nearly impossible to tell when exactly the note/chord was hit. I've been there.


www.derekmok.com

yeah derek, you got my point. but my initial complaint is that in the first version you saw that she was handing the engineer a CD and then being sent into the vocal booth.

in the second one you just (kind of) see her hand him something - is it a check? some drugs? a summons? and suddenly shes in the booth.

in the first version i kind of got the point that there was some kind of contention between the singer and the engineer - second version not as much. i think maybe if you put some kind of color effect on the outside dancing footage, it might reinforce the seperation and make it feel more deliberate and metaphorical.

> yeah derek, you got my point. but my initial complaint is that in the first version you saw
> that she was handing the engineer a CD and then being sent into the vocal booth.
> in the second one you just (kind of) see her hand him something - is it a check? some drugs?
> a summons? and suddenly shes in the booth.

I think we're two diagnosticians looking at different symptoms from different angles. (Been on a "House M.D." fix for the past little while!) There's an underlying disease bigger than the symptoms we're looking at. The video has a bigger problem than whether we see her hand (your objection) or how we see details like her tattoo (my approval). It needs an opening that tells us something, contextualizes, builds, anticipates, rather than just "some girl walks into the room". Then it needs an Act II than details and explores the themes, actions and movements of the song and visuals.

> i think maybe if you put some kind of color effect on the outside dancing footage, it might
> reinforce the seperation and make it feel more deliberate and metaphorical.

I agree, but before he can do that, he needs to figure out what kind of relationship he wants between the dancing and the singing/performance. There's also an issue -- the dance shots are shot very documentary-style, which doesn't lend itself to hyperstylization well. There wasn't enough directorial imperative when the dance was shot. Almost all the shots include the people on the street, hence the "camera on the street" look.

I'm also doing an ultra-low-budget music video right now (not done yet -- when it is, I'll also post it on here for scrutiny), but when I was shooting, I was already thinking ahead to how I can interject more surrealistic footage with the "follow the musician around" footage. Editing isn't everything -- the shooting also has to be narrative and purposeful, because one thing editing can't ever fix is angles.

If the budget and effects talent allow, I'd suggest treating the street-dancing footage so that the crowd is blurred but the couple is in focus. The theme being they isolate themselves, and they only have eyes for each other.


www.derekmok.com

Well, I'm glad you guys are discussing this further. There are always going to be differing interpretations of this kind of footage. I see Wayne's point. I kind of liked the singer taking a moment and giving the CD over to the producer. I'm definitely going to go back to that when I cut the scene for the movie.

I think also that the outside dancing footage needs to be differentiated from the studio footage. Of course, the only reason the two sequences were intercut was to create a short program for posting over the Internet. I am shooting a feature film, not a music video. So this is more of a promo than a music video, or even a short film. It's definitely not intended as a short film or music video for that matter.

I don't agree to well with Derek after all is said and done. I think Derek's approach to this clip is that it sould've been something else. What it could've been is a bit fuzzy. I don't think that Derek likes this footage, and probably the whole project. It's maybe a matter of a different mindset.

What I like about the dancing on the street is the felliniesque nature of it. If I blur the people on the street then it becomes just like a scene shot with a blue/green screen and the street crowd added later. I wouldn't have hired the hundreds of extras, the police and the firemen and blocked off the street if I was going to do that. LOL.

Seriously, though, another thing to keep in mind is that I'm not doing a formula movie. I've been through all the film school stuff already (I was one of the best film talkers in my day :-), but I had to unlearn a lot of the stuff because in the end it leads one to artistic sterility. Too much theory makes any movie too boring to watch, especially an experimental or felliniesque style movie. There has to be some organic elements to a music video or even a musical movie clip. And there are music videos that are totally effects driven and there are those that are simply a band playing and a camera shooting documentary style. There are really no rules to it. I've seen all types of music videos, as I'm sure you have too, and there are good examples of all styles, and still new innovations to come.

I think that showing films on this forum and having a frank discussion is very positive, however, and I value the advice and the criticism. Even if I don't agree with everything, I still learn how to pursue my own vision better after having heard the different perspectives. Thanks for taking the time and for the interest.

I don't think that Derek likes the felliniesque approach to filmmaking ... and as Seinfeld says, "and there is nothing wrong with that" :-)