Editing Techniques For Ten Years Pop Promo (My Contribution)

Editing Techniques I shall be using in this pop promo:

As this pop promo will be a hardcore/rock pop promo, most of the shots are going to be fast paced and quick cuts, this it because this genre is full of energy, although conflicting the music video (mentioned below) by playing energetic music whilst showing a peaceful, slow paced, slo-motioned video may create a bizarre yet good effect, this option may be taken into consideration.

Our story may be as simple as just one scene, and then I could just split it, use shots from the same scene at different places of the video. If I have several scenes, I don’t necessarily have to arrange them according to the real-life time. Instead, I can crosscut between these scenes and other non-plot shots.

My aim is to make the viewers feel the atmosphere and emotion, not to describe the story. Telling the story clearly like a drama does, will throw away this aim by forcing viewers to think logically.

Cutting back and forth between different places and time is most commonly used in pop promos for today’s audience. They seem have much higher tolerance when watching music videos and don’t expect traditional visual experience at all.

A close up shot has more visual impact than any other shot. It gives the audience a chance to understand what is going on in the video plot wise or story wise.

But I can always follow the pace and rhythm of the song. It’s not always necessary to cut to the music though. I can make the pace of visual and music conflict to each other. For example, while the music is very fast and dynamic, I could use slow motion with cross fade. High tension will be created, if that is what we want.

All kinds of jump cuts. Similar framed shots, say close ups of the character from different scenes. Different segments from the same shot and same take. Shots that break the screen direction.

I should consider using it constantly so that it can be seen as a style. If I just use a jump cut once in a video, it will be regarded as - a jump cut, or in the pop promo world, a technical fault.

Using jump cuts is common state in terms of editing music videos. But it is more suitable for fast pace videos.

In a typical music video, more than 95% of all shots are moving. Tracking shot, crab, pan, tilt, zoom in or out, character movement, whatever, and just make it moving in some manner, preferably by camera movement.