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Cutting Pictures to Music

Sometimes you may need to cut pictures precisely to music or to a beat. Here's a quick way of achieving this on Avid.

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1. Place your sound or music track on one of the audio tracks, but leave the video track blank.

2. Select the video track you want to use, and start the timeline playing the audio track.

3. As your soundtrack is playing use the “Add Edit” key on the keyboard and press it every time you want a shot change (for example on the beat of the music).

4. After you have finished you will find that there will be ‘cuts’ in the video track where you have pressed the Add Edit key.

5. Now press the ‘T’ key on the keyboard, which will place an IN and OUT point between the first two cuts on the timeline making a clip length.

6. In the viewer window, select the first shot that you want to use, marking it with an IN or an OUT point, and apply it to the timeline in the normal way.

7. You will find that it will fit exactly between the first two cut marks. Repeat this process for your other clips.

Providing that you got your timing correct when you pressed Add Edit, your video clips should be exactly the correct length and change at exactly the right time.

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Learn to identify bars and beats and break down music for scripting in Breaking Down The Music, browse our Avid courses, learn about post production in this free online course.

These tips are from Simon Fox, a Production Specialist at the BBC, concentrating on the delivery of desktop editing training. He is currently working on attachment for English Regions New Media as Producer and Video Editor of Your Stories, the BBC interactive television service. Your Stories shows short films made by the general public through the BBC Video Nation and Digital Storytelling projects.