How do you deal with long instrumentals?

Rozard · Post by **Rozard** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:37 pm

Just continue with the story of the AMV, but instead use the emotion of the music, the highs and lows, the different instruments for charcters or themes. Also, watch a lot of AMVs that are completely instrumental. If you study them and think in respect to your own video, you could probably come up with something for yourself.

SuperFusion · Post by **SuperFusion** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:53 pm

MomochiZabuza wrote:I dont.

x2

Rurounikeitaro · Post by **Rurounikeitaro** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:54 pm

Rozard wrote:Just continue with the story of the AMV, but instead use the emotion of the music, the highs and lows, the different instruments for charcters or themes. Also, watch a lot of AMVs that are completely instrumental. If you study them and think in respect to your own video, you could probably come up with something for yourself.

Sup Sliggity!! Hope your doing well with the Adobe Premiere I gave ya!!

It's best to just follow Rozard's idea. Go through the story of the show to almost make it look like a speedy vid of the entire show, but use fades and stuff too. If possible some lens flares "I love lens flares" also.

Cyanna · Post by **Cyanna** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:58 pm

I don't know...I don't really find breaks THAT hard to work with. It's like "free space" because you can create anything you want. Usually I just go with clips that the music reminds me of.

The FLCL video I made has 2 instrumental breaks.

But since the video really didn't have a specific theme to adhere to...I just went along with scenes that the music reminded me of. One segment is totally devoted to cats and cat ears and the other is just random scenes ranging from "WTF! eyes" to Amaro losing his eyebrow. As it turns out, those two breaks are actually my favorite parts of the video. They're more entertaining then the scenes set to lyrics.

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:09 pm

Maybe its me, but I think its ridiculous that this thread is a legitimate discussion. It seems like a lot of people here think that lyric synching is just "what you do" in editing and if you encounter a spot without lyrics, theres a problem.

Thats a real shame. Lyric synching, or focusing on the vocals is just one of the infinite ways you could edit. To limit yourself that much is just nuts. You could do ANYTHING during an instrimental section. Hit beats, cut scenes, strobe scenes, 5 overlays, lens flares, color changes, contrast adjustments, random madness, christopher walken, the list goes on.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:21 pm

You have a point, Beo. However, not all of us have strong enough concepts, enough creativity, or sufficient skill (etc., etc.) to hold a video together over a long instrumental. I suspect it's one of those things that comes with experience.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:35 pm

Try assigning different instruments.

1) Use the instruments as the chracters... each instrument represents a chracter, or 'type' of scene, and when the instruments overlap, those chracters or scenes are shown together.

2) Go with the mood, and use the section to create a chapter of your story. Faster instrumentals = faster cuts.. slower instrumentals = slower cuts and fades.

3) Combine the two, or use the segment since you said it's at the end, to create either a flashback sequence, or part of some credits.

I've seen some videos Otohiko's Wasteland, in particular that manage to use some very slow and subtle music yet maintain integrity.

OmniStrata · Post by **OmniStrata** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 12:50 am

Beowulf wrote:Maybe its me, but I think its ridiculous that this thread is a legitimate discussion. It seems like a lot of people here think that lyric synching is just "what you do" in editing and if you encounter a spot without lyrics, theres a problem.

Thats a real shame. Lyric synching, or focusing on the vocals is just one of the infinite ways you could edit. To limit yourself that much is just nuts. You could do ANYTHING during an instrimental section. Hit beats, cut scenes, strobe scenes, 5 overlays, lens flares, color changes, contrast adjustments, random madness, christopher walken, the list goes on.

I'm with him on this one. My Anniversary vid, Phantastic Knight uses some of what Fluxmeister suggested. Very flashy and to some tasteless, but at least it was timed well ^_^

Lyrics can guide you but as you progress as an editor they WILL restrict you. Phantastic Knight has some very intangible lyrics. [things you can't synch very well with any footage at all] So sometimes, JUST DEW IT...

[shameless plug]

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... hp?v=65560

NPC3000 · Post by **NPC3000** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 1:35 pm

I personally tend to like editing to instrumental sections more than lyric synching. With lyrics I’m stuck having to find the correct clips for each line. My creativity is often compromised by trying to make visual sense of the words of the song. With instrumental sections I can more solidly tell the story or explore the theme of the video because the only thing I need to synch to is the sound and feel of the music. There’ve been plenty of excellent suggestions on this thread so I don’t think it necessary to try and come up with more but I encourage you to attempt to make use of the instrumental section of the song somehow instead of chopping it down. Instrumental video sections don’t have to be filler. For a number of my own videos they’re the most important part. The possibilities as Beowulf mentioned, are endless so I’m fairly confident you can come up with something good.

Bakadeshi · Post by **Bakadeshi** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 3:12 pm

Kalium wrote:
Fluxmeister wrote:However ridiculous it may sound.... use stills and fades. Pick out images that convey emotions and use them. It's cheating and you save a lot of footage. Frame hold is a good friend. With romance it wouldn't be hard to break up a sequence of events into stills and show progression over the 1:40 time period... maybe even go through a few sequences breaking them up with some kind of interesting visual transition between sequences.
In other words... use visual filler to cover musical filler?

This only works if done right ;p If you do use it, Be sure it doesn't LOOK too obviously that you used freeze frame, unless its supposed to be. sometimes adding slight motion effects, slow pan ins and outs etc on dramatic parts of the music can help, and make sure not to freeze a scene that will obviously look like its frozen , such as a girl crying with a teardrop frozen on the side of her face halfway down. If its part of an effect, like flashing to a black and white picture from a motion scene or something like that, or theres some other good reason to make an obvious freeze frame that the audience will be able to realize just from the video what you are intending by it, then it'll probably be fine regardless.

But I agree with Jasper's suggestion also. sometimes using scenery not nessisarily containing any of the characters, but containaing alot of mood and sentimental meaning could work there also. Ex: scenes of a flower feild with wind blowing sakura petals across the feild, in a romance video, etc.