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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Editing a music video for pace

DC Chavez said:
Here is my last big project that was cut to the music. Cars, slow motion and time lapse at the 24 Hours of Nurburging in Germany. 1 man crew and edit.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ12J-wCQVU
Click to expand...


DC, I don't mean any disrespect, but this for me is an example of why cutting to music doesn't work. Fundamentally, driving extreme, powerful, dangerous, sometimes deadly race cars is not something that should be rained in and dictated by a mediocre music track. You've even removed the nat sound. The moment of the intensity of the race should bust through every container you try to put it in. You're the editor doing battle with this wild animal. Sometimes you wrangle it into submission sometimes it beats you. I'd think that would better represent what it feels like to be there.

That's why I never cut to music for anything narrative (unless I want the easy way out because I'm in a hurry) and even with music videos only rarely use the music to dictate the visuals. The music and picture are related and complimentary to each other without one have total power over the other. A technique learned from the legend Pat Sheffield, who cut every great music video you saw in the last few decades. I owe Pat's techniques to one of my cuts being nominated for music video of the year in Canada.
 
Chris Henze said:
DC, I don't mean any disrespect, but this for me is an example of why cutting to music doesn't work. Fundamentally, driving extreme, powerful, dangerous, sometimes deadly race cars is not something that should be rained in and dictated by a mediocre music track. You've even removed the nat sound. The moment of the intensity of the race should bust through every container you try to put it in. You're the editor doing battle with this wild animal. Sometimes you wrangle it into submission sometimes it beats you. I'd think that would better represent what it feels like to be there.

That's why I never cut to music for anything narrative (unless I want the easy way out because I'm in a hurry) and even with music videos only rarely use the music to dictate the visuals. The music and picture are related and complimentary to each other without one have total power over the other. A technique learned from the legend Pat Sheffield, who cut every great music video you saw in the last few decades. I owe Pat's techniques to one of my cuts being nominated for music video of the year in Canada.
Click to expand...

Chris- no disrespect taken, I just don't think you're the target demographic. I don't know how many car videos you watch and how similar race coverage is. This is something different, which has led to a great deal of work for me.

This video was about capturing the minutia that you only see when watching at 240 frames per second. I could have shot at 23.98 and shown the same thing that every other crew there was shooting. I prefer to show the things that we miss when seeing it all in real time. To be honest, during the editing process I saw so many new and exciting things that I missed while filming. Heat trails, tires lifting off the ground, body panels shaking as the car tries to gain traction et. Cars going by at 160mph doesn't really give you time to appreciate these things in real life, nor does it translate via YouTube.

Sound? Should I have played real time sound with slow motion cars? Don't think so. Capture a separate audio track on an H4n and then just put generic sound over the whole thing? Not my style.

So while you are entitled to your opinion of how I should have edited this video, I couldn't disagree with you more.
 
DC - It's a beautiful piece and I can understand how it got you a lot of work. I also happen to be a major motorhead so I know my way around a racetrack both as an observer and driver. In the end just different styles. Peace.
 
Another thing to consider is that with music like Dubstep, it's very simple to just use black frames or repeating motions as a means of reflecting rhythm in the visual - and that can be translated into just about any other music genre. So cutting doesn't always mean to cut away from a particular shot...!
 
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