First Draft

After finishing my first proper edit of the music video, I finally had what you could call a first draft. At this point the timeline was clean, the clips were in order, the lip syncing matched the lyrics, the shots were color graded and the overall story made sense. Basically, it was a complete video from start to finish.

Naturally, I felt quite proud of myself because editing three hours of footage into a three minute video is not exactly a relaxing activity.

However, when I showed this version to my teacher, the feedback was that the video felt a bit too simple visually. While the narrative and pacing were working, it relied mostly on straight cuts between shots without many visual effects or stylistic elements.

This made sense because a lot of contemporary music videos tend to include things like overlays, transitions, or visual effects that make the video feel more dynamic and stylised. Compared to that, my first draft felt a little too straightforward.

So although the structure of the video was working, I needed to go back into the edit and experiment with different visual effects that could enhance the emotional tone of the video and make certain moments stand out more.

In other words, the first draft wasn’t bad it just needed a bit more personality.