This week I teach you how to edit to the beats of an audio file! Lets do this!

I'm back for another blog, where I teach you how to do stuff! This week we are gonna focus on editing to the beat of an audio file, particularly a song. Now I have chosen a song I am very familiar with that also has a little bit of a slower tempo, so that those of you who want to follow along and edit as you read can have an easy start. I picked the song "A thousand years" by: Christina Perry. Now I am gonna tell you all the directions for a Final Cut Pro edit, because that is the software that I use and understand. So first create a new event and place a new project in that event. Next up you are gonna want to drag your song file into the timeline and click on it.

Now the next step is very important in keeping the video in sync with the audio. So with your selected track on the timeline, go through and listen to the beat of the song. Now whenever the beat is hit the M button and it will place a mark on your song like this. This process may take a while to get the beats just right, but when it is correct it will have a great effect in the audience.

Next step is to identify the photos you want to use in your video, these should flow seamlessly into one another and all have a common theme that makes the video theme understandable. The next step is to import those photos and lay them out in the timeline. You will want to make a layout that seems logical. Now make sure your snapping technique is turned on and it looks like this on the final cut software (It's the blue highlighted one).

Now you will want to drag the photos to the beginning of the clip or wherever on the timeline you want to place the clip as long as it is between two marks on the song. Now make the clip length the same length as the length between the marks. Repeat this process until your video is done and boom, you have just edited to the beat of the music. I hope that helped someone out and I will join you again for another blog later. 

We're all in this together!

Hey all I'm back with another blog post! This time I'm gonna talk about myself and review the quality of the work that I put into our all school video. Now the whole theme of the video was talking about how after the tragedies of last year we would come back stronger and as a united school, one that is all in this together (get what I did there?).  Anyway we filmed one Thursday and edited the footage by Tuesday for a short 90 second video. I had volunteered to do the card dumps throughout the day which was a lot of fun and I will talk more about later. I also stayed after school that Friday to help edit. Overall I spent many hours at school working on this video. I have linked the contest version here and the full version here.

On Thursday we started at 6 AM, but I was excused from band at 8 and I headed straight for the video room. I got there and helped as they finished setting up the computers to receive footage. We got the footage as second hour started and thats where the craziness began. We rushed to get nine computers of footage imported, favorited, and key-worded. This lasted the majority of hour and I got a camera that was on a monopod moving around the gym. I had some very interesting shots, lots of close-ups and artsy shots. We did this same race against time every hour until sixth hour when we had to go set up for the assembly.

I helped to transform the gym from a filming zone to the pep assembly set up. I helped carry the track and then I got set up for band to play in the assembly. The assembly went well and afterwords I went home for the night. The next day I came in as soon as my flute lesson was over to help out with the crunch edit for the contest video. I had changed computers and was editing a different POV of footage. I was told to make a highlight reel of that computer for the entire day and I got to work. I worked for about an hour before we took a break for dinner. After that I worked for another couple of hours before another desert break. Finally I did a little more work before we took a final break and called it a night. Overall I was there from 3 PM to 9:30 PM.

Now let me talk about how I think I did. Overall, I joked around a lot. I feel like I could've done a lot more had I been more on task and focused on my work. I also know that part of my distraction was the fact that I was surrounded by hilarious great people that are my friends. That is to no fault of theirs however I need to learn to better manage myself and my time. So I think throughout the project I could've been more help if I had focused more myself and my energy towards the project and less towards socializing with my friends. So in general I am proud of the work I put into the video and I think I did well.

No Film School. Complex Transitions. All in a days work!

Hello I am back yet again this time to do a review of an article I recently read on No Film School. Click here to see the actual article and without further ado I will get on with the technical stuff.

This article uses the filmmaker Matty Brown's video Playground Italy and the Story & Heart video in which he describes the process of a beautifully executed transition. First we are gonna talk about the video Playground Italy and how he used complex transitions throughout it. The entire video is about Italy and extreme mountain biking throughout the country. His video is excellent and I would highly recommend checking it out. Anyway he uses a wide variety of transitions throughout his video and then, lower down in the article there is a video where he gives us some tips of how to create complex transitions. Now I loved getting to hear all the great advice and I will talk about that a little later on, but first I want to give my opinion of the article itself.

Now I thought the article was very interesting. The article is mostly the two videos and some text describing the importance and difficulty of transitions. They start off talking about the importance of transitions and how overlooked they can be. However the article then talks about how a seamless transition can make a video amazing. Now I think that the article around the videos is excellently written to highlight what makes these transitions so important to videos. They point out the complexity of the transitions and how much time they take, but that the benefits are well worth the work. I also think that the video they picked to write about is a great example of they point the article is trying to make. Overall I was very impressed with this article and I learned a lot from it.

Now onto the video and what I though of it. I thought that the informational video was exceptionally made and really taught me what the directer, Matty Brown, thought was important about creating complex transitions. I will just highlight the main ideas of the video but again go check it out on the link to the article, it is such a helpful video especially for new film editors or those who want to expand their knowledge. Matty defines what he thinks transitions are, talks about why they are important in videos, and the gained experience for the viewer that these complex transitions add.

Well thats all for now folks! I will see you next time for another blog!