How music can help when culling footage

As I’ve covered before in previous blog posts, myself and many of my clients prefer to ‘cull’ their footage and make their selections before starting on the edit itself. It’s a great thing to do if you have a lot of footage as it helps give an idea of the feel of a project, a firm grasp of the shots you have and where they should go in the film. Once you’re in the practice of doing this, it really does save time overall. For me, most of the time it’s my first time watching anything from a project. It's also the only point during an edit that I can have a bit of background music on!

I wanted to talk a bit about this, as I’ve found that music can be really helpful to me when building up an idea of pace and feel for each project.

The most important thing for me is to recognise the style and feel of the film I’m working on. If I’m editing for a wedding client for example, mimicking their style (see ‘Working as a ghost editor’) this has a huge part to play in what music I’ll be listening to when I'm working my way through footage in the initial stages.

When editing for different clients, I'm looking for different things with each client. At the core of every edit, you’re obviously selecting the best shots, but on different level I’m also looking for certain camera movements and types of shot that are typical examples of that client’s style. Some filmmakers prefer completely still shots, so any movement at all needs to be disregarded. Others that I work for prefer a little bit of movement to keep the energy of the film. Some like artistic focus-pulling, others do not. When I’m editing for filmmakers with established brands and styles they want to stick to, it’s important for me to largely remove myself and my own preferences from the selection process. I say largely, because I still need to feel it.

As well as adhering to the stylistic preferences of clients, with any final decision on a shot (say for example I’ve got three similar shots to choose from) ultimately my selection will come down to what feels right to my eye, and ultimately what feels right for that edit.

What propells me forward in the whole process of organisation and culling, however, is music. The music I'm playing when I’m going through footage has a subconscious influence on the feel of the shots I’ll initially be drawn towards. This means it's incredibly important for me to listen to tracks that reflect the style of the project I’m working with.

I like a lot of different artists and a lot of different genres, so the options with this are endless!

For cinematic, slower edits I like to go for something a lot more atmospheric (The XX, The Japanese House, London Grammar) and for upbeat, fun films I like to keep that energy going right from the start during the cull (BØRNS, Prince, The 1975) The difference this technique makes to my workflow is huge, and really helpful when I’m switching styles a few times over the course of a week.

Setting up a few different playlists for easy access and shuffling them around periodically is so useful for this, and will really help keep your eyes fresh and engaged during the cull!

While this method may not be your standard workflow, I’d be really fascinated to hear what tricks you’ve found help keep your creativity up as you work.

More broadly for filmmakers, does your taste in music influence the film style you naturally gravitate towards? Let me know in the comments!