Vexercise 3 Drops! Rhythmic Editing 🥁

[lola]

Hi all! It's time for Vexercise 3! This vexercise focuses on rhythmic editing -- making those vids that make you want to move with them. Just a note, because this comes up sometimes -- rhythmic editing can be faced paced, sure, but you can also do slow and intense/intentional rhythmic editing. It's up to you and the audio you choose! 

Here are the details for this vexercise:

3) Rhythmic Editing

Produce a one minute video edit where you focus especially on rhythmic editing. Try your hand at time remapping at least once in this video. Choose an audio track that has a clear rhythmic pattern or interesting rhythmic progressions to make your editing experience easier. Reference the wave visualization of your audio track to help guide your editing choices. (If you’re up to it, make 2 versions, one that cuts primarily on the beat, another where you try syncopated editing (cutting on the *and*) and for extra special credit, an extra one that cuts on other instrumentation/vocals

Some examples & explanations/tutorials

Example of emphasis on on-the-beat editing
Example of emphasis on syncopated editing (warning for flashing lights)
A short video on syncopated rhythm (warning for flashing lights)

A short video on time remapping in Premiere
Lim on time remapping (or velocity vidding) in Premiere.
Short video on time remapping in Davinci Resolve
More advanced version for greater flexibility in Resolve

Extra: Examples of instrumentation editing

Iscariot (My Country: The New Age)
Overcome (Star Wars: Rogue One)

Have other videos to recommend for examples of rhythmic editing? Mention them in the comments and we'll add them to the post! 

Comments

[trickybonmot]

I had a good idea for this one so I did it yesterday in like 13 hours!

Jiukuang 酒狂 - The Untamed

I used a piece of classical Chinese guqin music and I had an absolutely wild realization and coincidence which is that the show contains a reference to THIS PIECE OF MUSIC?? I wrote a twitter thread about it.

[nu_breed]

Oh I loooooove this!

[trickybonmot]

I had so much fun making it!! ...But I also realized my bluetooth headphones have a little delay that was definitely going to mess things up if I used them ;_;

[lizardjay]

That is SUCH a cool little detail. What a find!

Also, I really like your video. It has a very enjoyable sense of timing!

[extrapenguin]

OMG. That is one great coincidence! Your vid is extremely thematic. I liked the way you matched all the pillow-hitting-head to the beat at the end, and the chickens were hilarious.

[aurumcalendula]

That's delightful!

[trickybonmot]

Also this is a good excuse to rec this amazing vid: The Untamed - Xap

[nu_breed]

Thank you! I'll pop this in with the instrumentation examples :)

[extrapenguin]

I did not try velocity vidding, as that's harder in kdenlive than it seems to be in Premiere (and I don't think there's actually a way to do smooth slowdowns/speedups?), but other than that, this is very much within my vidding style – I like cutting to the beat. I tend to go a bit long on clips, though, so I intentionally decided to try out rapid cutting, and made sure I was cutting on 2, 3, and 4, not just always on 1. I even put in a few syncopated/off-beat transitions.

Still using Star Wars: the Old Republic as my source. This time, spoilers for the entire Jedi Consular story. As this vid uses the Big Idea I had for the Consular storyline, I made a full-length vid instead of limiting myself to 1 minute:

Leave This Place Alive

Also, it's over 30°C here, and I and my computer both hate it. I peeked ahead for the next vex (kdenlive is terrible at text) and it seems Blender has better performance, so I think I'll swap to that for the future vexes.

[lizardjay]

I got so excited when I saw all the fast cuts at the beginning. This is so cool! You blend those fast moments well with longer shots. It really makes me want to know what's going on, though you convey enough of the story to get the general idea. The whole section from around 2:10 to 2:38 is especially good!! So dramatic and with a great build of tension.

[extrapenguin]

Thank you! I'm happy to hear you got enough of the story to get the idea. I think with fast cuts vs slow cuts my philosophy ended up being that clips that have a change of state (a hologram turning on/off, people entering/exiting the scene, etc) could go on for longer than ones where the action was "static" (people walking, zoom in on a face, etc) because those were, like, clips that had two things vs just one? I'm also glad to hear that the tension-building section worked, since that was one of the last ones I laid down - I knew what I had to do for the refrains, but that was mostly open space.

[lizardjay]

Mine is here

This was a lot of fun, though I kind of went rogue on "where to cut" :D

[nu_breed]

Oh this is gorgeous - the flow of it is just so satisfying and you really make the most of the breakbeats here. Love it!

[lizardjay]

Thank you, I'm glad it worked!

[unavee]

I love this! The way you used certain graphical matching moments along with the rhythmic cuts was so good. And I've been realizing that even with these short vids, I still don't know how to end things, so I really appreciated how well you edited Hinata standing back up at the end.

[lizardjay]

Yeah, endings are really hard... I edited the song in a couple different places so I could use both the actual beginning and actual ending of it, because without a solid ending to the song I get really adrift and can't stick the landing.

[extrapenguin]

Ooh, I love how well the rythmic editing went! Especially with the tears at the start.

[lizardjay]

Thanks! Yeah, I had fun with those :D

[nu_breed]

Here's mine: Love SOS 3 ways (on-the-beat, syncopation, and using other instrumentation/vocal.)

I think I like the 3rd one best!

[lizardjay]

I like the third one best too!

[nu_breed]

Ideally if I was going to do the whole vid (which I may) I think a combo of the syncopation and the third edit would work quite well.

[extrapenguin]

The first one (on-beat) feels very sharp and clean, but somehow the syncopation cutting one ends up feeling more natural? The last one then feels more flow-y.

[nu_breed]

Yeah I think for the figh choreography the third one works best but I really like cutting on syncopation at times - feels way less deliberate :)

[unavee]

It was fun to watch all three and compare! I like the third one, too; it does feel flow-y. But the syncopation one was interesting because it was the one that made me want to tap along with the beat the most.

[aurumcalendula]

Here's mine! Dark Side (吸血鬼鬼盲盒 | The Vampires)

[extrapenguin]

I like way you do more major sorts of cuts on the major beats and cut between more similar footage on the less noticeable beats! It really enhances the effect.

[aurumcalendula]

Thank you! (tbh, that was more of a happy accident than consciously done)

[unavee]

So pretty, and I like how atmospheric it feels with the song choice!

[aurumcalendula]

Thank you!

[lizardjay]

This is so cleanly done! I really like the slow blood drip near the end surrounded by all those faster and more dynamic shots, it's a really nice push and pull of tempo if that makes sense.

[aurumcalendula]

Thank you!

[marah_sarie]

Here's mine! Again for Miss Sherlock, content warnings and info on AO3:

[Vexercise 3] - gimme gimme

[extrapenguin]

I really like the cutting forward into the same clip! And the bit with everyone going down at 0:52 was great.

[unavee]

Here's mine (for Seventeen again): Exactly how I feel

I tried cutting in different places on the beat (with the instrumentation, with the lyrics). Also, since I didn't do the second VfXercise with transitions, I tried using some here. And I learned how to use the tracking tool so I included some unnecessary text tracking :D

[annathecrow]

Mine: Tatooine

Very moody, slow vid set to a beautiful instrumental guitar piece by Andy McKee. I used time remapping (although just one true speed ramp effect), and even had to do some color grading on one clip to match the color palette. I made a conscious attempt to cut syncopated instead of going by the feel, no idea what that did.