Editing a Music Video? Follow This Step-by-Step Guide!

One of the most challenging stages of making your own music video is the edit. This is the moment you take the footage you’ve worked so hard on and start shaping it into an impressive music video. It’s a tough job, but the end result can be stunning — and a real calling card for your band. You can make the process easier by following the step-by-step plan in this article!

Vision

The art of editing is a matter of fingerspitzengefühl combined with a clear vision of what the final result should look like — and, above all, how it should feel. When director George Lucas finished filming his (at the time very daring) sci-fi film Star Wars, he took the footage to the editing department with the message: ‘Make it a fast, punchy whole’. But in the first cut Lucas saw, there was very little spectacle. A scene where the heroes fought the enemy on board a spaceship dragged on. The edits were far too long, so there was no sense of speed or excitement. If Star Wars had been released with that edit, the film would have been a huge flop. Lucas fired his editors on the spot and hired two young editors who did exactly what he wanted: short cuts that made the viewer feel like they were right in the middle of the firefight. With Star Wars, Lucas not only introduced a new genre, but also a whole new way of editing. This example clearly shows that an edit can make or break a video. Because George Lucas had a clear vision of what the film needed to be, and he could already see it in his head, he was able to create the right feeling at the editing desk.

Before you start editing your footage, listen to the music for the video several times. Let the feeling, rhythm, emotion and sounds wash over you. That way you can capture the essence of what the music is about — which emotions and images are important and which you want to show. You’ll also get a grip on how fast or slow your editing should be. Then watch all your footage and select the shots that matter. Slowly, a vision starts to form, along with a picture of how you want to edit the film.

Shot log

One of the most important starting points when editing is, of course, the script/scenario and storyboard. You wrote these before you started filming, and now they’re essential for putting all your shots into a logical order. Organisation is the key to a great video.

Whatever you (or your camera operator) did during filming, you should also have kept a recording list or ‘shot log’. This includes all takes with a description, and which shot and scene they belong to. When filming, it’s common to shoot multiple takes and angles for a single scene. Every take should be described with a timecode, plus notes on which takes are the best. Back in the studio, you can then quickly and clearly see which takes belong to which scene. The scenes are, of course, in your script/scenario.

Without a shot log, the edit becomes chaotic and time-consuming, because you’ll have to sift through all your footage — including the takes you already knew you’d never use. In the shot log, the best takes are already noted. If it turns out those selected takes aren’t good enough, you can always go back and check the other takes from the same shots and scenes.

These days, with so-called metadata tagging software (and a reasonably advanced camera and workflow), you can log takes automatically during recording. On your computer, the takes are then registered automatically. Still, it’s smart to keep a paper version too — it remains useful alongside metadata. Make sure your shot log clearly shows the scene, shot, take number and time. It’s also extremely helpful to organise your folders properly on your computer. It’ll save you a lot of time searching.

Rough cut

Once you’ve sorted and selected all your footage, and your vision for the video is clear, it’s time for the next step: creating a rough cut.

The first thing you do is use the song audio as your foundation and place it on an audio track — this is your ‘timeline’. Put all the footage you want to use into the timeline in the order shown on your storyboard. However, each separate clip still needs to be made to fit — i.e. cut to length. With the shot log and storyboard, you know where each cut goes and how long it should last. Naturally, you’ll shape each cut to the beat and vocals of the music.

If you’re making a video where you don’t show the band or artist playing or singing, editing is relatively simple. You only need to use the beat or rhythm as a reference for each cut. You have complete artistic freedom to edit however you like. Especially if it’s your first music video, this is the easiest approach — and it gradually eases you into the fascinating world of video.

Synchronising

It gets a bit trickier if you want to edit a story with spoken dialogue — and even more difficult if you show the band playing and singing in the music video. Then you need to synchronise picture and sound.

For this you’ll need at least two audio tracks. While editing, you want to hear the music as well as the sound recorded during filming, so you can line up audio and video. The easiest way is to place the on-location audio onto an audio track as well. During filming you likely used a clapperboard. To sync the footage and audio, line up the ‘clap’ sound and the image of the clap at exactly the same point. Another way is to look at the waveform of the audio tracks — you can see the similarity between the location sound and the music.

At this point it becomes very clear how important it is to play the song during filming if you want to record the band playing and singing. In your storyboard, shots of the band performing will return regularly, and you may have filmed the band in multiple ways and angles. To keep the edit simple, it’s smart to restart the track for every new shot and let the camera roll until the music stops. The big advantage is that you can sync these takes easily on your computer: stack all recordings on multiple video tracks, sync them, and everything lines up in one go. After that, you can cut and edit freely to the beat, rhythm and vocals of the track.

If you have an up-tempo song, short and fast cuts create a powerful effect — but don’t do it constantly. Use, for example, a bridge or musical interlude to make a slightly longer cut. Variation is important in a music video. With a slower song, you can use longer cuts, but it can also be great fun to suddenly use very short cuts where it fits. Here too: if it feels right, it’s usually right.

Crossfade and dissolve

Once you’ve placed all footage into the timeline, synced audio and video, and edited your shots to the right cuts, you move on to the next process. Depending on the music and the feeling you want to create, you’ll choose certain ‘transitions’. Transitions are the changes from one cut to the next.

You can choose no transition at all, so the images follow each other quickly without any ‘delay’ or ‘fade’. This is common with up-tempo songs and fast edits. You can also choose short white or black transitions. If you want to show a romantic mood, the effect of shots blending into each other — a ‘dissolve’ — can be beautiful. Every video editing programme offers various transition options. Play with them and watch the effect.

Colour correction and effects

Raw camera footage often doesn’t deliver the feeling or professional look you want. That’s why your shots usually need colour correction. Every film or video you watch uses colour correction to add intensity and to pull the viewer into a particular atmosphere. Colour correction matters.

Orange is often used to create more sunshine, or to make the image feel a bit more romantic. Don’t forget to boost the ‘Brightness’ slightly and reduce ‘Contrast’ a little for that romantic look. Doing the opposite gives a sense of power and energy. Blue is associated with night and can create a raw, cold and uncomfortable atmosphere. Experiment with colour correction, but be careful: image quality can suffer, and too much correction looks unnatural. Colour correction is an easy way to add emotion and feeling to your music video.

As a final touch of creativity, you can add special effects such as sunlight or ‘flares’. Want a shot to look old? Add ‘scratches’ and ‘noise’. Here too, subtlety is key if you want a natural effect. Adding a ‘wide screen layer’ can help create a professional cinematic feel, with black bars at the top and bottom. Of course, there are many more ways to make a great, eye-catching music video. The sky is the limit and your brain the free creative spirit.

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