Why am I a Composer?: Editing Trailers to Music.

AFX Industrial (film scores)

If you're not editing your trailer to music then what are you editing it to?

So far in my career one of the most successful trailers I've worked on has been viewed an astonishing twenty three million times on You Tube alone. But why are some trailers viewed millions of times while others get only a few hundred views? As the composer behind this trailer I'm very familiar with the music and this puts me in the unique position of being able to analyze just why this trailer has been so popular.

Every film maker wants to make an awesome, influential trailer so let's consider some of the fundamental qualities that transform a mediocre trailer into an awesome one.

Approach I. Editing to silence

After many years of watching mediocre and amateur film trailers I can usually spot the trailers that have been edited in silence and had music added on top afterwards. The major problem with editing to silence is pacing. Have you ever noticed a metronome on top of a piano? A metronome simply helps a performer find the pace of a piece and the interval of the metronomic clicks are divided into BPMs (beats per minute). Of course, if a piece of music is played at the wrong speed by the performer then it leads to audience dissatisfaction ...

One of the first things I discuss with any musician or composer I collaborate with is the speed or pacing of a piece of score. And, it is well known in musical circles that the rhythm of a selection of notes can often overshadow the importance of the actual notes themselves.

So here you are with a stack of footage for your trailer all shot in lovely high definition, but where do you start? How do you divide this footage up into specific chunks of time with the sole intent of pleasing an audience? You may decide to chop it into five second chunks, or you may not have a system at all, either way if you're editing to complete silence how can ever you be sure that it will have the impact you're looking for?

What if you enjoy editing to background music (like the radio) and you inadvertently cut a few edits to the beat without even realizing it? The trouble with editing to your favourite radio station is that when you come to add music later, no matter how hard you try, the new music may not make any sense in conjunction with your trailer's pacing. Now let's look at the alternative, which is editing your trailer to music.

Approach II. Editing to music

Earlier I mentioned that a composer will often use a metronome to set the pace, and although a metronome can keep perfect time, editing your trailer to a metronome may not result in the desired effect. When music is discussed you'll often hear the words 'feel' and 'timing', when respected Jazz or Blues artists are mentioned it's often with a certain reverence to their sense of timing. For instance, a chap named WC Handy (great name) is considered the 'father of the Blues', but if we played a recording by him (if there are any) alongside a metronome I'm certain his timing would drift considerably.

So, how can we say a great artist has good timing if, in reality, this is scientifically proven to be incorrect? This is one of the great paradoxes of music, when we say a famous and respected virtuoso musician has great timing what we interpret as 'great' is their ability to play around the beat. So, paradoxically, great timing is not the ability to play in time, it's the ability to play out of time in an empathetic, pleasing manner.

Audiences respond to well timed entertainment. Trailers, comedy, music, the list is endless ... and generally if it's well timed then it will be more successful. If you really want to appeal to an audience you can apply a sense of timing to your trailer by editing it to a piece of music that has the 'feel' you are looking for ... Job done.

Of course, you need to have written permission (or a license) to use the piece of music you have chosen to edit to, if you don't (or are not sure) then beware as this may be a pointless exercise!

Please go and take a look at my War Thunder Trailer. Notice how the editor has paid special attention to the timing of the Russian words that fall in and out of the frame. Notice how the words have motion, and observe how quite often the motion itself comes to rest on the beat, rather than allowing the words to appear on the beat.

The editor is not only paying attention to the timing he is also editing around the timing (in the same way our virtuoso musician would play around with their timing). So, this effectively gives you two levels of timing variation. The first one is decided by the composer and is set in stone when the music is recorded. The second level of timing comes from a clever editor, who, much like a musician has an innate sense of rhythm which he uses to deepen the level of interest and audience attachment to the trailer.

Speed of light vs. speed of sound!

One fundamental editing error I see time and time again is the failure to understand that light waves travel faster than sound waves. Next time there is a thunder storm please stand at your window and observe the delay between the moment you see the lightning and the moment you hear the thunder.

Sometimes, especially if it is a very bright flash of lightning, the delay can easily be fifteen seconds or more! Now apply this principle to your trailer editing skills. Of course the delay between the light entering your eyes and the sound entering your ears will be milliseconds, but our senses are very sensitive, even at these speeds.

How does this relate to editing a trailer? Good question! Well, let's imagine you want to edit a few cuts very tightly to a particular beat or sound within your trailer - but for some reason it doesn't seem to have the impact you're looking for ... If you have exhausted all other avenues to get it to work then maybe you need to consider light speed vs sound speed.

Ok, what to do? Right, this is where you need to reverse your way of thinking for a moment. If you want the audio and the video event to coincide at EXACTLY the same time, then you must, effectively, put them out of time to do this!

Now, the theory is fairly simple. We simply shift the audio a few milliseconds AHEAD of the video so now the two edit points APPEAR to coincide. But, like everything in film making it's an illusion, it's hyper reality. Light and sound cannot arrive at the same point at the same time (think how awesome thunder and lightning would be if it did). But, as film makers and composers we CAN make that happen, it's just another tool in our box which will ultimately impress our audience even more.

Try it out on your awesome new trailer today!

Until next time - David.