Sound-Driven Editing Techniques for Social Media Videos

Editing techniques inspired by sound design: flicker fast cuts, environmental interactions, close-up sensory moments.

### Enhancing Video Editing with Sound Design Techniques
* 🎬 **Flicker Fast Cut:** Utilize a page flipping or flicker sound effect to guide the pace of quick cuts in your video. Adjust clip durations based on the sound's waveform, delete gaps, and **add motion blur effects** for seamless transitions.
* 🌬 **Moment to Breathe:** Create contrast by **extending a wide shot with atmospheric sound design** and a cinematic hit before a **slow, deliberate cut**. Use **optical flow** to maintain **smoothness** when extending short clips.
* 🌊 **Enhance scenes where the camera interacts with the environment** by modifying audio to simulate effects like **going underwater**. Use EQ effects to create an **underwater sound**, adjust audio timing, and add **subtle sound effects for realism**.
* 🔍 Close-Up Sensory Moments: Highlight **extreme close-ups** with high-quality sound effects, even if they don't originate from the same object. Adjust the **speed of sound effects** to match clip lengths and maintain **pitch consistency**.
* 💡 "**Sound design techniques** can greatly enhance the impact of your video edits, creating a **more immersive and engaging viewing experience**."
* 🎶 "By syncing your edits to sound effects and music cues, you can **elevate the emotional resonance of your content** and **keep viewers captivated throughout**."

so recently, I've been seeing this editing style all over social media where the sound design dictates the [Music] [Music] cuts. So I wanted to share four different editing techniques inspired by this style. The flicker fast cut. So for this technique, you're going to need a page flipping sound or a flicker sound effect. Drag the sound into your timeline. So now the audio waveform will give you an idea of the rate at which you should make your cut points. So bring your clips into the timeline, highlight them, control-click, change clip duration, select frames, and make an estimate of how long you think each cut point's going to be. For this specific sound, I think it's going to be super quick, around three frames each. So now highlight all the clips, go up to edit, delete gaps, and now they'll be in a tight sequence like this. So drag all of these in sync with your sound design. Now add in your music with the drop lining up with the last clip. So now we're going to go to effects, search for adjustment clip, and drag it.

above your first clip extend it one frame. Like this, in open effects search for transform and drag it onto the adjustment clip. Hover the playhead to the start of the adjustment clip ke frame the zoom. Now hover to your cup point and change the zoom value to 1.3. Scroll down to animation and increase the motion blur all the way. Now we're going to remove that extra frame on the adjustment clip. Select it, hold option and duplicate it above all our other clips. A quick side note: this technique works nice with my camera flash transition which you can download at the link in my bio. And voila, here it is, a moment to [Music] breathe. So for this, you want to find a wide shot with a large open space in it. So bring the clip into your timeline, search for an atmospheric sound bed. This one doesn't really work. You want something with a deep rumbling base. This one sounds great, let's bring it in. Now you're also going to want to find a cinematic hit not [Music].

this one sounds clean. Let's add it in a frame or two before the cut point. And one of the keys to this technique is to let this shot hold for a few seconds longer to help create that contrast in the pacing. So this specific clip is pretty short. So here's a trick I use to extend the clip to last longer. Control-click on the clip, change clip speed, change to 30%, and drag it out. But now you see when you play it back, it's pretty laggy like this. So select the clip, go up to inspector, rtime and scaling, and change the rtime process to Optical flow. And voila, it's super smooth now. So here's what it looks like paired together with the Fast Cuts technique and music. [Applause] [Music] Added environmental interactions. If your camera ever interacts with the environment, say the camera is moving through leaves or sand or water, that's a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the sound design. So in this specific edit, we have a couple

Clips where the camera seems to duck underwater for a moment. This is the perfect time to get creative with the sound design. So first, find the clip which ducks underwater and then chop out the audio for this clip. Drag it onto the layer below. Now we're going to go over to the Fairlight audio tab and go over here to where it says A2 effects EQ Au low pass. And then drag this point to around the middle here. Now when we play this back, this part of the song will sound like it's underwater. So now go back to the Edit tab and adjust the fading and timing between your two audio tracks to time it up better. Finally, we're going to add in some extra splashing sound effects to top this off. Make sure to turn down the sound of these so they don't overpower the scene. Close-up sensory moments. It works best if you have extreme close-ups of specific objects in your video. Make sure you find high-quality sound effects that are clear. The sound effect doesn't always have to

be coming from the same object though. For example, right here I have a gun revolver spin sound. Sound like this fishing rod reel. I'm also going to bring in this sci-fi whoo sound effect for this casting line throwout. But if you notice here, it doesn't line up perfectly in terms of length. So what you can do is control-click on it, change clip speed, and adjust it to 200%. Now as you see, it fits perfectly. The pitch correct is turned on, so it'll retain the same pitch level. So ultimately, don't be afraid to mess around with the speed of your sound effects as well. So here it is with just the sound effects, and now here it is all together. [Music]

4 Sensory Editing Techniques

Will Byrne

Sound-Inspired Editing Techniques for Social Media

Use a page flipping sound for the flicker fast cut, adjusting the clip duration based on the sound's waveform and adding motion blur for effect.

Create a moment to breathe by pairing a wide shot with an atmospheric sound bed and a cinematic hit.

Consider incorporating a camera flash transition for added impact, and you're all set!

Tips for Creating Cinematic Contrast in Video Editing

Using the "Change Clip Speed" function can help extend short clips for a more dramatic effect.

Switching the "Retime Process" to Optical Flow can significantly improve the smoothness of a clip.

Environmental interactions, like camera movement through leaves or water, provide great opportunities for enhancing the video with sound design.

Creating Underwater Sound Effects for Video Clips

Find the clip with the underwater moment and remove the audio.

In the Fairlight audio tab, apply the low pass effect to make it sound like it's underwater.

Adjust the timing of the audio tracks and add subtle splashing sound effects to enhance the scene.

Adjusting Sound Effect Speed for Perfect Synchronization

Matching sound effect speeds is crucial for seamless transitions in audio production.

By adjusting the clip speed, you can easily align the sound effects, while retaining the same pitch level.

Experimenting with sound effect speeds allows for a more polished and professional audio outcome.