Crimson Desire: Editing

Editing was by far the most difficult part.

It's not easy to do simultaneously so I worked endlessly alone to create the vision for the video. It's hard to share an artistic vision for a production during the creation process also so it made sense to do it myself first but because of timing it was quite impossible. Quite the marathon!

The girls took charge of cutting out the irrelevant scenes first from the hours of footage to just fit into 5minutes. It took a long while just to get it down to 21mins.

After this I took charge. We did a trial run and realised the most fitting way tod o the video is to have very sharp flashing shots that matches the hardness of the song. THe initial plan also involved the fast rapid sequence.

So cutting down, although tedious, was possible.

After this I had to cut out irrelevant shorts and shorten as much as possible.

Then I edited according to the soundtrack so it matched the changes in tempo. This was hard in the middle parts where we had to do leaps between scenes/years within the same verse. Unfortunately the song and video are independent processes so one has to conform to the other. It worked out okay but not perfect. Some parts however, especially the beginning and end, was a brilliant fit but took very meticulous effort.

Then I added some black and white flashes to match the harsher tones in the song when he is about to take on his first victim, this is to give the audience a hint of the darkness to come.

The saturation of red in the opening scenes also gives some foreshadowing to his bloody nature but the activities are actually innocent ones to create an interesting blend that only hints but doesn't ensure that is a killer movie.

I also played with the speed to slow down some parts (like the Calendar which is important because audiences need to recognise its Valentine's) and speed up others. Sometimes it simulated realtime and sometimes it was obvious as a quick flash.

I timed certain sequences with lyrics too. For instance 'obscure' goes with him covering up his knives and 'hold' goes with him holding the first victim's hands.

Overall I really like how it turned out. The only problem was that rendering removed the very important layer that signified that this was VALENTINES and SINGLES NIGHT at a bar and that's where he goes to prey.

We added whitish highlights to show flashback sequences, to contrast with realtime sequences. We also added more contrast to make it striking and scary at the same time, and to mark this video as an ARTISTIC presentation which was the main idea. It's meant to be very artsy and slightly abstract. The ideas are not always openly interpreted but that is intentional. Different layers are tapped on by different audiences depending on how insightful they are. Basically we do not simplify for audiences. We play with their senses, mix up the narrative sequence, and give some hints to guide them along, and a general plot but the layers (metaphorically) are more intense.

The changes in speed helped to create some variation and excitement, most apparent in the killing scene.


I would have loved having more time to work on this as it took alot of effort but not enough time to perfect. Art pieces are a pride for every artist so it isn't great to do something mediocre. Thus the effort. Still I think we weren't far off the mark. The only problem was the missing banner -- this lost more mainstream audiences from the joys of watching the video.