Reversing footage experimentation

One of the key post editing features that I will include in my video is the use of reversing my footage to convey time going backwards. It is used in videos such as Alt J's Breezeblocks, showing a man attacking the person he’s cheating on, which you only find until the end why he has good reason to do so. Like this example, the video also shows its footage in slow motion that elongates the actions and gives you time to really understand the narrative of the story. I intend to use both these editing techniques to the best of my abilities to convey the breakdown of the couple’s relationship, and create an awkward situation for the audience to be in when they have the argument. This not is seen as a great reaction to want to get from a music video, but it will therefore become more memorable.


The video I then created shows my experimentation with revering footage, as well as the speed necessary for my video to look professional. I took a piece of text footage I have previously filmed in the city, showing numerous people walking past with music playing in the background.





I started by simply reversing the footage. This obviously messed up the audio to sound particularly strange, but the people in the frame clear moved in reverse as if it was normal.

 

I then kept it in reverse but played it at 75% speed. This slowed down the motion but didn't affect it too much. You could obviously tell it was slightly slowed down but didn't look too different to the usual reversed footage. It also didn't drag out the motions enough to what I wanted it too, so decided to change the speed.

 

I then reduced the speed to 50%. this dramatically changed the pace of the movement, making everything slow down and elongate greatly in a way that was noticeable an affective.it really made features I hadn't previously caught on to noticeable, for example, the man dropping his cigarette and then blowing the smoke away, which in reverse was mesmerising watching it fly back into his hand. I wasn't sure if this was then two slow for my piece so I thought I’d experiment with a speed in-between.

 

Changing the speed back up to 60% was interesting, as it still showed everything clearly but at a speed that was obviously different to normal and slowed down actions. It didn’t make people walking appear to judder so much, and they instead flowed across the screen much better. However I still think it could have been a little slower, possibly depending on my footage.

 

I then decided to take some of my test footage which I intended to use in the official video I would create, showing a picture of the couple slowly burn. I started with 50% speed however I felt even though the flame created a cool movement action; it went on for too long. I had to consider a shot like this would only stay on the screen for no longer than 5 seconds, and the burning of the paper in slow motion wouldn't work in that time. Therefore I changed it up to 60%. This resulted in a quicker burning action, that although was still in slow-motion took less time to burn, with it still achieving the whispy flow of the flame around the paper. I therefore decided to keep this speed when editing my actual footage for my video.

 

Experimenting with reversing footage and speed was very interesting in my development of knowledge for the effects on my video.  It showed me that certain shots depended on different time scales to provide a better image and to make the affect noticeable. doing it with the different speeds let me make a decision of what works and what could be improved on, which all helps with the development of my editing skills.