Video Editing (Oblivion Trailer 4)

I am not much of an editor. I made a couple videos (insert link to channel) which required not more editing than a little finagling with timing.

The idea of a mash-up of the trailers for Tom Cruise's upcoming movie Oblivion with Anything Box's Living in Oblivion sounded like a fun idea to poke fun at how serious Tom Cruise takes himself.

But what is the best way to do this type of editing? But, first, let me clarify. I don't mean, 'how do I use this software' but 'philosophically or, maybe, artistically, how do I effectively cut up the video and audio'. Let's assume we know all know how to work with the software. I just learned how to use 'PowerDirector' with a lot of trial and error.

Should I also mention, again, that I am not much of an editor? If you know a thing or two, this stuff might be at best, amateur, at worst, wrong. My original intent was to start writing and then edit a little and write a little more and edit a little more. What actually happened was that I got into an editing-groove so I am writing this post-project.

Before I get too far, I do recommend you watch the short, final video entitled Oblivion Trailer #4.

My first inclination was just get the introduction down. So I started off with a couple seconds of the song and trailer, being relatively untouched. This would give me at least a basic starting point.
Now, to actually do something: the shot of Cruise throwing his hands in the air as he says "Touchdown!" seems like it would work with a sound. How about a drum? With the correct timing, it did. Boom. One second down.

Fortunately, for me, by cutting up the sequence of him doing that, the shot of a dog barking fell near a similar drum. There you go, another bit down.

I didn't really too much pay attention to what I put in between these two shots. I just tried to follow the general chronology of the video and, to my realization, this trailer (and I suspect all trailers) follow a set rhythm not unlike a song. Why? Everybody is conditioned to respond emotionally to music so it is an easy way to build suspense or horror or excitement. The rhythmic pattern of cutting lends itself very well to what I was doing. I just had to get the trailer's song, if you will, to match Living in Oblivion.

My overall idea for the trailer was to have a lot of scenic shots almost to say, Tom Cruise is living in his own little world of himself. But, my fiancée suggested that it was a little boring with only scenic shots.

Do you cook? I don't, but I watch people who do. You know how they try a dish and say, "Huh, it could use a little <spice>..." they try it again,"...and maybe a little <other_spice>." They just play with the tastes in a directed fashion until they have a tasty dish. That's what editing this video was like. That is, I had the basic idea for a rhythm and, from there, I just played unto either I thought of a shot or one just fell into a convenient place.

For example, I thought the line "You can't hide the pain" seemed appropriate for the slow pan up of a beaten up Tom Cruise. As a result, the shot of Morgan Freeman lighting a match just happened to line up with the line "I can see it..."

To summarize this perhaps rambly post, my experience with editing this video was marked by experimentation with the natural rhythm in mind and serendipity. In the future, whenever I make a similar video, I will try to make another one of these posts.

Please let me know if I can clarify or expand on anything I have mentioned. Thanks for reading and watching!