ATOMIC BLONDE: How (Not) To Edit with Music - Sponsored

- [Narrator] This video is brought to you by Music Vine. Get 50% off by clicking the exclusive link in the video description. (gun cocking) So let's look at music in film, or better yet, let's listen. (speaking in foreign language) (gun shooting) Muisc can change the impact of a scene dramatically. (punching and kicking) Which is why in Atomic Blonde, this 12 minute badass scene is cut without any music at all. Elisabet Rolandsdottir, the Icelandic editor, understands that fight scenes flow just

like music. - [Elisabet] I find it easy to edit well choreographed action. But then again I do come from dance background and I have made a lot of short dance films in the past. So I understand the basics of choreography and action is the alpha male dance. You can dance tango or you can dance karate. - This, by the way, is from Steve Hullfish's excellent interview series Art of the Cut. Elisabet and director David Leach, who created an entire 80's playlist for the rest of the film felt that thi

s scene works best without music. (shouting and falling) But they both collaborated on another film. (upbeat music) (gun shooting) This iconic fight scene pulses with the music magnifying the action. (glass breaking) (speaking in foreign language) So when do you pull the trigger on using music in a scene? (fighting) Let's find out. So here's the thing. Music Vine asked me to make a video to show off their new website design and how you can more easily access their tracks. So I thought why not ha

ve some fun with it. I'm going to recut this scene from Atomic Blonde using Music Vine tracks and I'm going to follow three guidelines. Number one, it can be any track, any music genre, because she said herself. - [Elisabet] I like to use music that isn't necessarily on the same emotional level as what's happening in the scene. - [Narrator] Number two, I can not change picture. I have to stick with the edit the way that Elisabet cut it. - [Elisabet] I really believe that there's music in the edi

ting itself and if you get the editing correct you can actually put any music on it and it's going to work. - [Narrator] So whatever changes I will want to do is with the music to fit the picture. And number three, it has to be better than the original. (pen scratching) I'm kidding, that's impossible. It just can't suck. I gotta try and make it work and have fun with it, so here we go. I'm going to put Atomic Blonde into a timeline, so here's my scene right here. At some point here I definitely

want to hear music just like in John Wick. (guns shooting) Let's take a look at some music. This is what the new website looks like at Music Vine. It has all these different categories. Cinematic, promotional, business and industry, indie, wedding, we can try cinematic to see what we find in here. It gives me some more key words that might define what the style is that I'm looking for. Dark would work, high drama for sure, dramatic ending. I like these three. I'm going to start exploring those t

hree. High drama. (slow dramatic music) So I can tell this is a nice song, but slow. So maybe I want to tell Music Vine, give me faster music. And I have some additional filters here. Energy. Let's go with intense. (intense music) Okay, I'm liking this. This is kind of Bourne Identity. (guns shooting) I'm not 100% sure this is right, but for now I'm just going to give it a little marker. I can also create a playlist and I'm going to call it Atomic Blonde, save. Let's listen to a couple more trac

ks before I really decide. (intense music) Ooh, I like this a lot. (slamming) (grunting) Also what I like about this track here is I can tell there are four loops here. Maybe at some point it's a little too big, so then I can decide I just want to use it as an underscore so it's a bit more subtle. (dramatic music) Let's move on. Going back to that question, when should you use music in a scene? I asked Dr. Karen Pearlman, who's an editor and a choreographer and here's what she had to say. Quite

often we won't put music under a whole scene but we'll find that moment where the scene turns emotionally or dramatically. (playful music) And we'll start a music cue from that moment so that it carries forward into the next scene to give it the tone that we're looking for. But to me it's really gotta be a collaboration of the editor's sense of time and movement with the composer's sense of time and tone and that's when it comes together to make a great rhythm. (orchestral music) (gun shooting)

(speaking in foreign language) (intense music) Oh, this is nice, let's see where this goes. Okay, so I found a bunch of tracks here. Let's see if I can find something against stereotype. Let's give it a try, see what happens. What the hell, bubblegum pop. (pop music) (laughing) Okay, this is crazy but I kind of dig it, let's do it. The other thing that I would like to point out is their collections. They're basically curating playlists. And again, I'm kind of looking for something to go against

type so maybe Blissful Ambient could be really fun to try out. (slow music) (guns shooting) - Go! - [Narrator] I like this one. I'll probably go back to the site and see if I can find two or three different types of against type style music. I just want to tell you what happens next. These are all the tracks that I like. I'm just going to download them and start putting them into my editing software. I was listening in on Tatiana Riegel, who's the editor of I, Tonya. This was at EditFest recentl

y and she talked about how she works with music. The first thing she said is be careful with cutting scenes with music already in the timeline because music can mask some of the problems in the edit. (dance music) So cut the scene first, then put the music to it and possibly make adjustments, or not, because you might not need to. (dance music) (applause) The brain will make automatic connections between the music and the flow of the scene. Don't believe me? Go back 20 seconds, turn off the audi

o and play back. I bet you didn't notice that bad edit that I snuck in there. - She's a darling figure. - [Narrator] Another thing that Tatiana pointed out is that she's very hesitant to cut to temp score. (chattering) Because the last thing you want is an unhappy director or producer who fell in love with a music track they can't get. (dramatic music) (door slamming) (guns shooting) Okay, I really like this piece. It gives me a nice contrast. So I've got these tracks in here, I've downloaded th

em, they're free previews that you can use to do your edit. But let's say you're happy with this song. You want to actually use it. What's really great about the new Music Vine is this. There's the song right here and you want to buy it, they now have different types of licenses. Because most of the time you don't really need a full license for broadcast. Maybe you just want to put it on the Internet on YouTube, just like me. So Music Vine figured out a way to structure a deal that is really adv

antageous for you. They have a new license where you can get any of their tracks if you're only using it for personal use, vlog, indie channel, podcast. Only $10 for a song. But look at all the variations here. We talked about this one, wedding, $25, non-profit, $30, student, $25. When Tatiana was talking about be careful when using music you can't get the license for, here you don't have to worry about it. If you're working on a short and you maybe have three or four tracks for probably less th

an $100 you can get the entire score of your film covered. (mouse clicking) (pop music) ♪ I thought that I knew you ♪ ♪ I thought I'd see right through you ♪ ♪ I was gone, I've been gone ♪ ♪ The darkness carries my sight ♪ ♪ Can't fight it, can't beat it ♪ ♪ I think I've been defeated ♪ ♪ Can't fight it, can't hide it ♪ ♪ My heart is stuck on you ♪ Recap, number one, cut without music first. Make sure that all your edits work. But maybe not, I actually like to use music to inspire a cut, but eve

n then I turn off the music afterwards and revisit everything. Number two, beware of cutting with temp music. A lot of composers really don't want to listen to temp music because they often feel pressured to do a sound-alike. Also, if you fall in love with the music and then can't get the rights, you just made your life miserable for no good reason. Finally, when should you cut music to a scene? Well, maybe for contrast, accent, to magnify an emotion, or to mask a problem. I hope you like this e

pisode. Do let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this approach of working with a brand. Check out Music Vine, play along with their new website, and enjoy 50% off on your next purchase by clicking the link in the video description. When they're doing this flailing, like these air punches, that's when I want the music to go into second gear. Oh, by the way, if you want to watch me cut that scene with the bubblegum pop, just click on over on Patreon and have some fun. (upbeat music)