Music is powerful (Video editing musings)

"Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo" (akioohtori)
01/31/2018 at 10:24 • Filed to: None

I’ve kinda been in a rut since I finished Episode 2 of our overland cheap car challenge road trip video (that was a lot of words...). Shortly after Ep2's release I got through the first day of Ep3 pretty quickly, but I wasn’t... happy with it. It was sort of dead and a little bit (more) boring (than usual) and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

So I left it.

For like... three months.

I finally got back to it this week and time had not sweetened it. The problem was I liked the music and I liked the editing and the content was good. So what should I do?

Burn it to the ground.

Well ok not really. What I actually did was delete the music, trim the narrations down a bit, and sped up the driving footage a bit. Yes, that last part is a bit dishonest, but I’ve found that wide angle lenses really seem to make everything look slower, so I usually give video a 10 to 20% boost to make it seem more like real life. In this case I went up to 150% playback speed (50% increase) which... may have been too much.

Anyway, getting to the point, I also re-scored the sections. Originally the intro to Death Valley and Death Valley Road were the same piece of music. This piece:

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

I like it and I like Audionautix. I think they do good work, even if they won’t return my emails. That said, while it seemed like a good fit for the section, it just wasn’t.

I changed split that section into two with the Death Valley into getting treated to “Good Times”, and the frantic washboard of Death Valley Road getting “Dance in The Desert”.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

It completely changed the mood. For the better. A little over the top? Maybe, but so was “Epic Battle Music” from Ep2 and that turned out ok.

This enabled me to identify where the video clips needed to be tweaked, adjusted, and replaced and also see where narrations needed to be redone.

So I went from being really bummed about a boring piece of video to really excited to get to work on the rest of episode 3.

Blurry doggos for your time.

DISCUSSION (4)

HammerheadFistpunch > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
01/31/2018 at 11:07

music selection is the hardest part of editing for me. A lot of my work it doesn’t matter but when it does, its everything and its horrible.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > HammerheadFistpunch
01/31/2018 at 11:14

Hard, but I enjoy it! There is a certain satisfaction when you find something that clicks really well with what you’re tying to do.

I have found that compiling a medium sized library of “I think I can use this somewhere” music is really helpful and keeps you from having to go back to the well as much.

That said, I wish there were better search tools for creative commons/ royalty free music. Soundcloud’s lack of a browse feature is fairly crippling (though hashtags are making it somewhat better) and FMA is just sort of bad all around...

HammerheadFistpunch > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
01/31/2018 at 11:16

finding music sucks big time, finding music that fits is frustrating but rewarding. I HATE finding music though.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
01/31/2018 at 14:13

Looking forward to it! :D