Editing

[kye]

Just watched this and thought it was really interesting - I haven't seen this mentioned before anywhere.

I've played with editing to music and was never sure if I should put an edit on the nearest frame before or after the beat, but never thought about moving the edit point deliberately away from the audio queue.

It was an interesting aesthetic, even through YT compression.

What did you see?

[herein2020]

10 hours ago, kye said:

Just watched this and thought it was really interesting - I haven't seen this mentioned before anywhere.

I've played with editing to music and was never sure if I should put an edit on the nearest frame before or after the beat, but never thought about moving the edit point deliberately away from the audio queue.

It was an interesting aesthetic, even through YT compression.

What did you see?

I found this by accident on my own. I got rid of Premier and learned Davinci Resolve in 1 week, but in that week it was just the basics. My very next project was a music video so within Davinci Resolve I did not know how to nudge the audio track or video clip by just one frame so a few cuts were off by a frame or two. During playback I was actually surprised how some of them looked better that way. In the end I ended up leaving some of them like that.

 

I do think the "off center cut" as I call it does not work all the time. The contents of the clip, the type of song, and especially how close together the beats are will determine how effective this is so I use it sparingly even though I am aware of it. While experimenting I discovered that if there is a subtle underlying beat and it is close to where you want to cut with the primary beat it is better to make the cut on center with the primary beat otherwise it will look like you tried to synch with the underlying beat but missed the proper spot. I also have yet to find a time where cutting one frame late looks good.

[fuzzynormal]

32 minutes ago, herein2020 said:

yet to find a time where cutting one frame late looks good.

I've used it in a horror movie to put people on edge a little bit.

[Nmccarthy]

To go even further, I always think about this interview/post from Hans Zimmer whenever I'm editing.

"Of course you want to hit the cut! But... Sometimes you want it to be a little more relaxed and let it breath a little, so you go a few frames late. Or there is a big sound-effect on the cut, like a gun-shot. If you go a frame late, you'll get to hear both the impact of the sound-effect and the start of your music.
If you want to jolt the audience, be a frame ahead of the cut. Works great in action scenes. But if it's a more 'poetic' scene, be late to the cut. 6 to 12 frames late make a huge difference to the "feel" of a scene.
But you do need to start with software that makes it easy to scroll by frames, so that you have the artistic choice of how to approach the cut..."
-Hz-

[kye]

I've played around with timing quite a bit and found that I prefer to cut on a balance of the on-beat and off-beat and also in-between.

I used to write electronic music, and found the timing to be a very similar exercise - you want variation in timing, you can push ahead of the beat to drive things forwards, behind to slow them down, at various "off" beat points to surprise and be more whimsical or jittery - the combinations are endless.  It's kind of syncopation in the timing.

An edit on a softer beat of the music can create a less emphasised edit, the opposite of an edit on a big hit..   In a sense I kind of hear/feel the edit points, maybe that's because I'm used to music instead of visual mediums.

This might be interesting:

 

[kye]

The plot thickens....  YT delays the audio by an additional amount, and at the lower resolutions delays the audio by more.

Turns out that due to YT delay, the video above from John was actually one frame ahead of the beat and TWO frames ahead of the beat.

John has this followup, which includes an adjusted comparison, and I think there's much more of a difference now: