Best way to cut video to music? video for school event

[Viddy]

Hello.

I am cutting a video to show a school outing and have an MP3 sound track for it.

What's the best procedure to do this smartly?

Can I make marks on the soundtrack timeline, and then insert clips at each natural transition point in the music?

I am not sure what's the "best practice" for this, as I am doing it but in a very inefficient manner (razor blading the video on the timeline to the music, and then inserting another clip, and razoring that, etc.)

This this is FCP, I am wondering how to do it better since the way I am doing it is not unlike iMovie.

Thanks!

 

[turkeyjerky]

first, make sure the audio tracks are in wave view.
whenever I've edited to music (non music video style because that's a whole other beast all together), I just use pretty much all overwrite edits to get a rough outline. then go back though and do rolls or razor blades to get it to sync exactly as I want

 

[CCF]

Lay down your music first (obviously, since it's going to be driving your editing). If you have multiple shots/angles for the same part of the music then I suggest using FCP's handy multiclip feature. It allows you to edit between angles in real time just by clicking on icons in the viewer. Once you get the hang of multiclip editing it's really easy and can save a lot of time editing individual clips. You can always tidy up the rough spots at the end with the roll tool or something too, so real time multiclip editing is a nice way to get your rough general edit done.

If you don't have different clips for the same length of time then I suggest the plain and simple, go with your gut. And after you edit take a break and come back in a day or two (taking a break will help you get the song out of your head and you'll come back with a fresh pair of eyes to see where it needs tightening up or whatever).

 

[Viddy]

OK thanks guys; I will try your suggestions.

Cheers!

 

[BenB]

Also remember that FCP does not support MP3 very well, so convert it to an AIFF first.