Slow Clap Selects: Our Favorite Editing Techniques – Part 2

At Slow Clap, we live to tell authentic stories. Stories that inspire us, make us laugh, or even cry a bit. It’s no secret that film is one of the most powerful storytelling mediums we have. But as filmmakers, we cannot rely on the visuals alone to tell an impactful and successful story.

In this second part of our two part blog, where we dive into our favorite video editing techniques, we discuss techniques related to the invisible actor in each and every single one of our projects - audio. As a San Francisco video production company, we’ve seen time and again how sound transforms a project—whether it’s a corporate video production in the Bay Area, a broadcast commercial video, or a case study video. If you haven’t read part one, you can do so here.

Sound design

Have you ever tried to watch part of a movie with the sound off? Or closed your eyes for a minute just to focus on the sounds you hear? If you have, then it’s difficult to deny how the visual and the auditory elements combine to enhance one another. This, at the most basic level, is what sound design is. It’s the way in which we, as filmmakers, create an auditory atmosphere for our film, and is one of the most crucial elements we use to create a complete sense of immersion for our audiences.

The art of sound design brings together a range of aural elements to establish the mood and tone of our work. Among the most basic of these are music, sound effects (SFX), and dialogue.

In all films, and to varying degrees, music and sound effects are used to enhance story elements or signal a shift in mood, tone, and/or pacing. First, let’s take a look at how we used music and SFX in this animated explainer video we produced for Landbase, an AI startup in the San Francisco Bay Area that focuses on go-to-market.

Music and SFX

Our video opens with a funky bass line instrumental. The bass-driven nature of the track is playful but not distracting, and not only injects immediate energy into our video but also acts as a guide for our story-beats. As we transition from Act 1 to Act 2, roughly from 00:08-00:15, we hear a crescendo in our music track during which new rhythmic elements are introduced - a second string instrument, which is harmonizing with the opening bass line, and a steady “finger snapping” that subtly underpins the clapping motif in the instrumental.

At the same time, the SFX is complementing the visuals while slotting in seamlessly with the textures of the instrumental. The “beads falling” and “gears turning” type effects from 00:04-00:10 draw our attention to the animated visual elements without overpowering or distracting us from the message being communicated, which is ultimately our main goal. We don’t just want to entertain you, we want to give you something to take away.

Another good example of this occurs from 00:21-00:23 in our video, where we hear three distinct sounds that guide our attention into the animated elements of the scene: (1) a “sliding” sound, as the text slides into frame, (2) a “bell ding” effect that syncs with the text landing on-screen, and (3) a quick sequence of “clicks” that correspond with the remaining text animating in. The musical beat that occurs as these 3 sounds play out is the final element that helps guide our attention and emphasizes the message on screen, as we hear yet another, slightly different, crescendo until the 00:27 mark, which is the point where the energy that the music has been building up is released, and also signals a transition to the “payoff” or “resolution” of our video (Act 3).

As we approach the end of our video, the music builds up once more and ends with a big final note that syncs with the Landbase logo reveal. This is a very common aspect in all our projects, whether in commercial video production in San Francisco, corporate video production in Silicon Valley, or marketing video production for tech brands in San Francisco, as we want to leave the audience with a memorable final impression and reinforce the brand one last time.

As a side note, if you’re interested in a behind-the-scenes look at this project, check out this case study we wrote up about it.


Dialogue

As documentary filmmakers at heart, we love passionate and genuine interview responses. However, there are many times in which that sometimes in a doc-style video, a key sentence or piece here-and-there can be scripted to get the message perfect and concise.

Let’s take a look at one of our award-winning videos, The Story of Freemark Abbey, a video about the iconic Napa Valley winery, to explore this idea further.

Our opening soundbite immediately communicates to our audience Freemark Abbey’s status as a legacy winery of the Napa Valley region. One thing it does not communicate (credit to Kristy’s amazing delivery) is that it’s an entirely scripted and prompted line. We could have opened our video with the soundbite that follows from Jonathan, which would have given our video a much more grounded, documentary-style feel right from the start. However, given Freemark Abbey’s brand identity and the end use case of these videos as customer-facing marketing, we felt a concise testimony of Freemark Abbey’s legacy was more impactful as a hook to elevate our video to something much more cinematic. This, paired with the elegant string quartet music arrangement, helps to reinforce the idea of “classic-ness” and timelessness that are core tenets of the Freemark Abbey identity.

It’s important to use scripted lines carefully and deliberately, as a bad performance or overuse of them can make the overall message of the video feel inauthentic or forced. In our example, the voices of Jonathan and Ted, both of whom gave fully unscripted responses, serve as a balance to Kristy’s opening and closing (also scripted) soundbites and help ground the messages being communicated.

Ultimately, the use case of a video will determine how sophisticated or stripped-back the sound design needs to be. Not all corporate or commercial video will call for a large, cinematic sound design, but as filmmakers it’s our goal to make audiences feel fully immersed and sold into the worlds we create through film.

While it’s impossible to fit all of our editing tricks and tips into a couple of blog posts, we hope this two-part blog series has been an insightful dive into the “movie magic” we create on a daily basis at Slow Clap.

SOURCES:

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-sound-design-for-film/

Other Blogs to Read

• Slow Clap’s Selects: Our Top 5 Filming Locations in the San Francisco Bay Area for Corporate and Commercial Videos
• Slow Clap’s Selects: Top 5 AI Tools That Enhance Our Video Workflow
• Slow Clap’s Selects: Our Top 5 Motion Graphics Picks
• Slow Clap’s Selects: Our favorite editing techniques
• Dear Slow Clap: Why do I need more than one camera for my project?
• Dear Slow Clap: What Should I Expect on a Corporate Video Shoot Day as a Client

Who is Slow Clap Productions?

Slow Clap is a San Francisco Bay Area-based creative video production company united by a desire to create short-form web content with staying power.

We are filmmakers that came of age in the internet era. And we apply the same rigor to web video that the filmmakers we most admire apply to their films. We want viewers to watch our content over and over, the way they would with their favorite movie or TV show.

We team with brands, artists, and agencies that are willing to take creative risks, in the belief that an audience will follow.

Have a video project in mind? Get in touch with us.