dolomite13 wrote:my main problem is that I just don't like doing beats and trying to properly match them to the music ... what a pain ...
I still find this to be tedious, but have changed the way I do it, which may help others. I also use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.
When lining up footage and cuts to the natural rhythm of the song (which just makes the whole thing feel more organic and gives it a good flow /opinion) I work with just the song track first. I create a bunch of titles with a big number (1 to whatever, depending on how many scenes you want to mix in the round) centered in the screen and each one a different color, which helps see the transition during testing. Then I drop them into video track 2-whatever and cut them to fit between beats or full measures of rhythm. Do the fine tuning, and in most cases they can be copy+pasted if cut accurately. A little tweaking and mix up of the lengths, and you have a full song with each cut predetermined and laid out in whatever pattern you want, whether it's a static 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5 repeating or more dynamic 1-3-4-2-5, 3-5-1-4-2, etc. At that point you can very easily cut a series of 1's over to the video you'll be using for footage, and using the 1 titles as a template, pick and choose a series of clips and cut them to the size of the title. Now you have a clip that will fit perfectly in the opening you left with the audio track.
As far as beat matching with an added beat, I find this also helps in that you have broken up the spacing and it makes it that much easier to work with since it's a smaller section to fine tune. Once you have one section figured out, copy+paste is your friend! Again, fine tuning comes easier with the cuts already predetermined. Depending on the song, you can often pick out where the beat is by the audio waveform in Adobe Premiere (if the audio is in audio track 1). Zoom in close and you can often pick out when the big beats hit.
This may only work for me, but I thought it might be helpful to hear some techniques that other people use when doing this tedious part of the edit!
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