step 5: music video process

Editing and colouring

Editing is the most important step during the post-production workflow. Without editing, there wouldn't be any cuts and there wouldn't be any video. After all the footage has been loaded up into the system, the editor will layer out the sequences on a timeline and will carefully select which part of which sequences will be used to build the final music video.

This process takes a fair amount of time and it's directly proportional to the amount of footage shot during filming, known as principal photography stage.

Once all the shots have been laid out into the timeline, it's time to do some colour correction.

The process of colour correction brings a few benefits to the final cut. Some of these benefits are:
ensure colour found in the selected shots don't exceed the limits set by broadcasting standards;
if desired, increase the consistency of colour throughout the video;
also if desired, create specific looks for some or all the clips on the timeline (high contrast, burnt image, saturated colours, etc.).

Once all the clips that need treatment have been corrected, it is now time to apply transitions and effects.

Transitions are used to join two clips together. Some of the most commonly used transitions are cross dissolve, dip to colour dissolve and fade-in and fade-out. Different transitions have different "meanings" in the language of filmmaking. For instance, cross dissolves can be used to cut between action in present time and a flashback scene. On the other hand, fades can be used to express that a longer period of time has passed between the situations depicted in the joint clips.

Once all the clips have been cut, colour corrected and smoothly joint together using cuts and transitions, it is time to master the timeline.