Professional Practice: Uploading my Video to Youtube & Vimeo

Using the new Final Cut Pro X, I was able to simply export my video straight to Youtube and Vimeo. This is a really easy tool to use and very useful, rather than export the video as a large file, then having to compress it, loosing quality of the film. Here are screenshots showing how the video is presented on both sites.

My client now has a copy of the video and this will be encoded into his website within the next few days.

Professional Practice: Presenting the Video to my Client

I have talking all week with Adam about the video and now it is finished, we decided that it should be uploaded onto an online platform so that it was able to be viewed by other people within the company with ease.

I have had some great feedback about the video, which is always good to hear! Both Adam and Jed are really pleased with the overall look of the video, telling me it was just as 'slick' as they wanted it. Adam agreed not to use the GoPro clips if they didn't match the overall tone of the piece, and after showing him the footage, we both agreed that some of the background in the shot were unsightly. Adam also commented on the text and headings, noting that they match perfectly with his website.

I am really pleased to get some positive feedback, and am pleased that I have managed to make a good quality film, even after leaving such little time to have it shot and edited. I have learnt from this project that I should enable myself to use the full time I have to push my projects that step further, knowing that if I had more time, the video may have been even better and I could improve things like the saturation and colour correction could be enhance a little more. Overall, I am pleased with the finished product, especially having edited it using software which I am completely unfamiliar with.

Professional Practice: The Finished Product

Here is the finished version of my Professional Practice Commission Video which I was commissioned to make by Adam Chandler at '28 Events'.

Professional Practice: Finishing the edit & Exporting

Now the video is finally edited and finished, I was able to export the video. Using Final Cut Pro X meant exporting differently from what I am used to with Final Cut Pro 7. The export menus are easy to use on the newer version and made things really easy. The video didn't take long to export as a quick time file, but took longer to share to my youtube channel straight from Final Cut, which is a new feature which I thought I would try out. This worked well, and once I had logged into my account, my video uploaded straight onto it! I was then able to use the video manager on youtube through my account page to edit the video, titles and description. Im really pleased with the final outcome of the video, especially as I have had such a quick turnaround from my shoot to the finished edit. 

Professional Practice: Transitions between tracks

I spoke to my client and about the transitions between each track and we decided to opt for a dissolve from one shot into another. I made sure that two of the same shots didn't dissolve into one another and didn't look like a jump cut. I used a cross dissolve between each track, adjusting the length to what look best. I also faded out the previous track and brought the knew track in. I kept the fade out quite slow, and the fade in for the new tracker is a bit quicker. This gives a really nice effect within the video. I have showed my client what the transition between each track will look like, and he agreed that it looked good.  These images show the first shot, during transition, and the out shot.

Professional Practice: My client's typeface and style

Once I had finished the general cutting, syncing and correction of my image and audio, I then started to look at Font and Typeface for my opening titles and astons. I had agreed with my client that I would use the same font which matched with the font used on the website where the video would be displayed. Adam was very useful, as he had built the website himself and knew exactly what the font was called, I was then able to download and install the font on my Mac so that I could use it for my text.

We had agreed the the opening title would read - "Acoustic Band - featuring Adam Chandler & Jed Sharpe". We had also decided that we would have an aston for the start of each song which would display the title and artist of each track. Using Final Cut Pro X, gave me great options as to how i could display my text and I am really pleased with the outcome. I put drop shadows and glows on each of my text clips so that they were easy to read when displayed on a white background, as the text itself was kept white.  I like the look of the text and think it looks very slick and professional, which matches well with the brand image. Here are some stills which show the titles and also a screen shot from the website where the video will be encoded, showing the matching typeface.

Professional Practice: Colour Correcting the Edit

Although, I am really pleased with my shots for the video, I was a bit worried about the colour of some of the clips. The white balance was very hard to set in the studio as the lighting kept changing, knocking the WB out of place, and also the movement within the studio meant that the WB sometimes looked blue. This is hard to see on the viewer on the camera and I was only really able to see how blue some of the clips looked once they were uploaded onto the iMac.

These two shots show the difference in colour when compared to one another. I was struggling to find a quick way to correct each shot, and sat down with our 'man in the know' (Fergus) to try and sort the colour. He showed me such a simple way to change the colour of the clips using the software 'Colour'. This blew my mind at how these clips could be enhanced within seconds (albeit by someone who knows the software incredibly well), but in the long run, would take far too long to export all of my clips as XML files, colour correct them, render them back through and import them back into Final Cut. This process would work out way too long and just wouldn't be viable for the turnaround in which I need to have my edit finished.

So...I found a colour match tool in Final Cut Pro X which would allow me to match my colour to another shot. This didn't work very well and I ended up with really dark shots and shadows. After this failing on me, I decided to try and have a play around with the colour tools on Final Cut Pro X, which I hadn't used before, and to my surprise, I was able to alter the levels I needed to correct the colour. From the software Fergus showed me, I knew that I needed to increase the red within my shot, just to add a bit of warmth and take away from the harshness of the blue. I also needed to bring the saturation up a tiny bit, just to bring the colours in their clothes out a bit brighter. I was able to do this after about an hour playing around with different tools and waveforms which I wasn't sure how to use! Now i know my way around the colour correction pallet which will definitely help me in future projects. Below is a screen shot in which you can see how I have altered the colour. I am pleased with the final colour of the clips and relieved that I was able to modify them within the short time I had left myself.