Cutting to a soundtrack

Cutting to a soundtrack

Often, an editor will arrange cuts such that there is a recognisable synchronicity or asynchronicity with the beats and rhythm of an accompanying music track. 

This technique is referred to as cutting to a soundtrack.

When an editor arranges cuts so that they synchronise with the eats and rhythm of any accompanying music they are said to be cutting to the beat. Here the director will use the beats to dictate where the visual cuts happen. 

Cutting the video clips to the beats of an up-tempo piece of music will grant the sequence a fast editorial pace. 

An editor might use this technique to build tension or bring added intensity to action. 

An editor will sometimes decide to go against the beat of a musical accompaniment for effect. 

Sometimes the effect makes the two appear asynchronous. 

The technique enables a director to achieve dramatic irony in the scene, inflecting the unfolding action with new layers of meaning. 

Director Gus Van Sant elects to represent a fight between two rival groups of male youths in Good Will Hunting by slowing down the motion of the video and cutting at variance to Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, the musical accompaniment. 

The gentle, melodic, melancholic tones of the track together with the despair of the vagabond’s existence of its subject contrast with the visuals to suggest the cyclical violence and social degradation of the fighting youths.