Technology and Innovation

Buyout music is the obvious choice for most video projects. There are no copyright issues and plenty of variety, and most vendors offer full- and broadcast-length edits of each piece. But what if the supplied versions don’t suit your project? Thai’s where music editing comes in. Most popular music uses standard verse/chorus/bridge structure, and instrumental music is no exception. Forget that there are no lyrics, and listen closely to the music. You’ll hear repeating sections, themes and hooks. Your first step is to identify and mark the beginning and end of each.

After transferring all of your footage to your edit computer, you sync each of your video streams at the beginning and roll all simultaneously. Your computer is now effectively a live switcher and you are the technical director, “cutting” from wide-angle to close-up shots on the fly. In the end, you should have a finished product, less possibly some graphics and music.
While there are not many unique aspects of editing a vidcast, several workflow habits will make your job easier when editing episodic shows. First, be sure to establish a consistent filing system. Have video assets you will reuse on each show, like your open, graphics, music, credits and any other transitional elements, all in one directory. This will greatly speed up your edit session. Next, create and stick to a consistent project naming system. There’s no need to get creative here; clarity is far more important. The episode number and date work well if used like this: “2007_Ep_45_5-01″ [signifying episode number 45 was shot or will upload on May 1, 2007]. This way, when you go to sort your project files in the same folder, they will be in order even across multiple years.