Hi all, I’m Jack Clough and I make a lot of the videos here on the Skins website. I’ll also be one of the judges of the Skins Mash-up competition.
As I said in my mash-up intro, I thought it would be a good idea to let you know of a few things worth considering when you are editing.
Starting point
A good place to start would be to just play the clips we’ve given you at the same time as the track you want to use. Watch it carefully and you’ll be surprised at how some clips will just seem to fit the music as you watch. Remember these moments as they can often be a good starting point. You’ll also see how much each track affects the mood of the clips. You also don't have to use a whole track, you can cleverly cut out a verse or fade it out early.
When putting together your mash-up, listen to the beat and key moments of the tracks and try and find clips that match camera movements, character action and emotional moments. Also, if the music is building up to a crescendo, think about how you can mirror that with the clips you choose. In other words you could build up to something, too; Naomi and Emily’s first kiss, a fight or a rave. If it slows, try and match that too. This really helps give a structure and a purpose to the mash-up and stops it from just being a random collection of cool shots.
The video clips
The video clips we’ve provided are in 6 parts. Parts 1-4 are mpeg1 files that you can import directly into most editing programs and will work in Windows Movie Maker (which is on most PCs). Part 5 is a collection of series 3 clips (again in mpeg1) and part 5b provides the dialogue in these scenes in an mp3 format. We would have given you more dialogue but, Skins being Skins, there is very little talking without music playing somewhere and we didn't want anything to clash with the tracks you're cutting to.
I could go on for pages and pages about how to use editing programs, but your best bet is to google user guides to the editing program your computer comes with (Windows Movie Maker for PC's and iMovie for Macs).There are loads of them out there and they can really help if you get stuck with something, or you want to know how to do an effect.
Anyway, that's all from me, so good luck and I hope you have fun with the clips! We can't wait to see the results...
Jack Clough,
Online Video Editor and Director
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