No sorry. I was far from clear and backwards in the title is misleading.

I want to work backwards from the end of the music track towards the beginning, with all cuts on the video track on the beat, so that the end of the final scene coincides with the end piece of music for great dramatic effect.

If I work forwards from the beginning I will not end up with the end of the video and end of the music coinciding.

Thanks!

First of all, you might want to question whether you want every single cut to coincide with a beat. That gets old pretty quickly, and if your video is more than thirty seconds long, you probably want to break that up a little. However, you have to follow your own artistic instincts.

Every year I film a Nutcracker, and since no dancing is done to the well-known overture music, I create a highlights video at the beginning of the DVD, using that music, showing the highlights from the production. I do cut some of the clips on the beat, but not all of them, but I always end with the same scene, which is most definitely cut to coincide with the end of the overture for that same dramatic effect you talk about.

To make it work, I add or subtract from the pirouettes done during the prima ballerina's portion of the grand pas de deux.until I get the timing I want for the final cut. Here is one of several examples posted on my YouTube channel from this year's performance. Go to a little before the three minute mark and play the last twenty seconds to see what I mean:

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My preferred work flow for this: Place the clip at the end of the music track where you want it, then lock both. (right click, switches, lock). Put all of your other clips on the timeline. Turn on ripple, then play through adjusting the cuts as you go. You can use the waveform to adjust to the beat, but as mentioned above, don't do every cut on the beat. It get's boring fairly quickly.

John, what a lovely piece both as shown on the stage and as filmed. Gorgeous.

Richard

I take the points, watched your video John, and am grateful for the tips.

I am cutting our drive down Las Vegas strip at night (we visit USA every other year and have to visit the holy grail of excess each time, I'm afraid) to Elvis' (of course) Viva LV and American Trilogy. Or, perhaps, Unchained Melody (either his version or the Righteous Bros). Have yet to decide. I'm always looking for new ideas for this, so any suggestions would be more than welcome.

Thanks again. Gosh how I love the help that's always available on this forum! I started editing my Standard 8mm cine when I was 12, 55+ years ago, and have tried to keep up with the technology ever since.

John, what a lovely piece both as shown on the stage and as filmed. Gorgeous.Thanks!

Thanks to Vegas and all the scripts I've written, I shoot the afternoon matinee, and have the multi-camera 5.1 edit finished before I go to bed that night. The highlights take less than ten minutes to do.

As for music, that all depends on the effect you want to create, and how fast you want to cut. For high energy and fast cuts, you could use something like "Misirlou," the music that everyone remembers from "Pulp Fiction." Or, you could go entirely the other way, and present your material "against type," with slow, angelic music in the background, and everything slowed down to half speed. The result could be either cheeky or sacrilege, depending on how you handle it (religious music for "sin city").

Are you trying to emulate the feel of this clip except from Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas Eve/Sarajevo video starting at 0:37.

If I am understanding the problem, then it's simply that you want the piece to end with the dramatic end of the music. You want the music to fit perfectly but you are not sure how to make that happen without starting at the end or something like that.

Your answer is to start at the beginning of the music. Cut the piece on the beat or what ever makes sense to you and see what happens. If the music is too short and does not fit, then lengthen the music until it covers the entire piece, including the big ending. You can lengthen or shorten any music because most music repeats or at least stays the same tempo. It may not be perfect but with some effort you can make it blend or find a way to cover the music cuts with live sound. I do this all the time. It can work nearly seamlessly with some effort. Once you learn to cut music you will be always be able to make the ending come out just right. Vegas actually makes this very easy.

John,

What camera(s) are you using?

it is beautifully shot. I film a few ballet shows like this and always find the lighting to be an issue - too much colour saturation as the lighting tends to use far too much colored washes and trying to convince lighting directors to use white with some colour tints is impossible..

Do you do much colour correction/grading?

Thanks

Stewart

There is only one good way to do this that I know of -- fit the video to the music, not the other way around. You should get permission, or at least give proper credit, when you back your personal video with commercial tracks.

Although nothing like johnmeyer's beautiful work, here is a simple exercise I did a few years back with a pocket cam and a recording of Vivaldi..

"fit the video to the music"
agreed, but please make sure you've edited the music to the right length first. All too often (in my non-commercial world) we see videos where clearly the maker does not have enough footage or a great enough variety of footage for the length of the piece. If the music is such that it cannot possibly be edited (famous classical pieces are good examples) begin with a fade but make sure you end in sync or choose another piece.

Nothing worse than indie feature films and docos for that repetitious or out-of -place backing track. Again, it might give the producer a clue that maybe his film is too long?

I did this one for our club.

Scenes from the dress rehearsal to the Nutcracker On Ice 2014.

I've been out for a couple of days and have just caught up with this thread. I appreciate very much all the advice. Sunday mornings are editing time for me so I will be getting on with this tomorrow!

The video is just for family consumption but, possibly more importantly, for my own satisfaction! I am a terrible critic of my own work.......

Thanks again.