We didn’t start the fire

a music video for the iconic song ‘we didn’t start the fire’

The project overview

We didn’t start the fire is a song written and performed by Billy Joel- the song was released as a single on September 18th 1989. For this project i had to take the song and edit my own music video for it showcasing all the separate events that were mentioned. The software i used for this project was IMovie.

The process

For the approach to this project my A-level class was separated into two groups each with three people- in those groups we decided which verses we would take and we gathered enough images to make the song. After this we all individually edited the song using the shared file to access the pictures we collected all together. This was rather annoying as when it meant we did not have full control over our project before creating the actual music video but it definitely made an already time consuming task a shorter one to Handle.

After collecting all the photos i began by finding two old videos of firemen, one was a vintage video of firefighters at work and the second was an old fashioned training video for firefighters. To start the music video i placed in two cuts of both the videos i just mentioned, these videos were also later alternated throughout all my songs choruses. To begin with i placed in each image individually and fit it where was played but i managed to develop a much quicker process. I ended up just placing in all the photos- not shortened just so they were all in the song and I wouldn’t have to keep switching between my files and the editing software- and then i placed in clips from the videos i previously downloaded. Then one by one i shortened the photos into place. I would then follow this up by editing the videos to a place i liked them because i always wanted the screen to have something immersive or engaging being displayed.

Finally i watched the video through to make sure i was happy with how it looked, i had to remove all transitions between scenes to make sure that the scenes transitioned quick and on beat. When i watched the end i realised there were a few places i forgot to remove this transition so i went back and edited them out but that was the final step in finishing the music video.

Overall

overall I’m happy with the outcome of this project, although i don’t think it is perfectly timed and the editing seems choppy as i could not include transitions because of the time they took compared to how short some of the words were that i needed to clip images for i think it went well, especially for my first time editing something on iMovie - of which i found to be quite a confusing software. So i am pleased with the outcome.