Arranging video clips to match sound : AVID Editing Tutorial

Avid Xpress Pro Tutorial

Arranging video clips to match sound in Avid Xpress Pro

Rambabu Dhanisetty
Arena Multimedia Dilsukhnagar
Andhra Pradesh, India

©2006 Rambabu Dhanisetty and CreativeCow.net. All Rights Reserved.

Article Focus:
In this article, Avid editor Rambabu Dhanisetty demonstrates arranging clips to the beat. He finds this shortcut helpful while creating promos, etc.

All right here it goes:

First, import and arrange the required audio and video files in the bin.

Edit your audio into timeline as per the requirement

Now we'll have to arrange the video clips. You need not arrange them all one by one…. This tutorial is to eliminate that particular task. So, here goes the shortcut for that entire process.

Map the 'replace edit' and 'add edit' buttons to keys.

To do that, click the SETTINGS tab from Project window.

Double click the "KEYBOARD".

Virtual Keyboard

Now you get a virtual keyboard.

Then go to TOOLS menu and open command palette, (or press Ctrl+3). Then you should get the screen like this:

Now click on the EDIT tab from the Command palette, and click the "Button to Button reassignment" (the one on the bottom left of the Command Panel). That turns to Purple.

Click and Drag "REPLACE EDIT" button onto any key you desire... (in my case here, it is "Y" key).

Likewise, you also need to assign "ADD EDIT" button to some key also. (I've already assigned it to 'H' key in my case).
Now we've got "REPLACE EDIT" assigned to 'Y' key, and "ADD EDIT" to 'H' key.

Now press "ACTIVE PALETTE" (in the bottom middle). It turns to Purple now.

Now close both the "KEYBOARD" and the "COMMAND PALETTE" windows.

Now deselect only audio track. (By clicking on the name of the track).and select one video track where you want to edit your video segments. Here I've taken V1 track.

Listen to the audio track twice or thrice, to get an idea of the tempo.

Now is the time to add edit points on V1 filler.

Place the position indicator at the beginning of the track.

Play. And keep hitting "H" key (ADD EDIT), according to the beat. This creates edit points along the timeline.

You should be able to see the black lines in the dark gray area (The V1 track).

Place your position indicator at the first edit point in the timeline.

Load your required footage into source monitor,

Move your position indicator to the point you want to edit (in the source monitor).

Now press "Y".

This will insert that particular clip's point into the Timeline; and it will be 'filled' until the next "EDIT POINT".

Now click on the Composer Window to activate and Press "S" Key from your keyboard, to send your position indicator to the Edit Point.

Repeat steps 18 through 20 until you 'fill' the required space on the timeline.

This is my finished project

Hope this tutorial was helpful.

Please mail your Comments to:
ram_babu6@rediffmail.com
Or post your comments in the Avid forum at Creativecow.net.
Thank you, have a nice time.

Rambabu,
Faculty of Video Editing and Compositing.
Arena Multimedia, Dilsukhnagar,
Hyderabad, INDIA

If you found this page from a direct link, please visit our forums or read other articles at CreativeCOW.net