Music Video Remake: Editing

It has to be said that, as a music video remake, the editing process was different in many ways. Instead of creating something new and original, where artistic decisions could be made at all stages, I was replicating a pre-existent product; working to a predetermined model. In some ways, this made the editing easier, because I didn't have to decide what shots to use where; I just had to have the footage ready, and cut the shots together as shown in the original video. In others, the process was constraining, because there wasn't much freedom to stray from the path that the original video dictated.

The original shot.

The new footage, imitating the original shot.

Intuitively, I took advantage of multiple video tracks, running the original video above my own footage so that I could time the cuts between shots as accurately as possible. Essentially, I was reviewing the original video, and aligning my own footage to it to create the remake. Whilst it wasn't difficult to time the cuts correctly, timing the pace of the performance to the audio track was much more of a trial-and-error procedure. To get the pace as accurate as possible, I began by watching the footage with the audio track and estimating the phase difference between the two. I then moved the starting position of the footage the appropriate amout to compensate. As it gradually became clear that the audio and video track were close to being in-phase, I moved the starting position back and forth in smaller and smaller increments, until the video and audio track worked together well.