Have you seen it?
A few days ago, while I was working on my Music Monday article about the Henry Mancini composition “Baby Elephant Walk,” I was reminded of a music video I made in 2010, combining the Looney Tunes short “Punch Trunk” with “Baby Elephant Walk.”
I felt particularly accomplished making this video, since I’d only made a few videos up until that point. I lost my copy of that video years ago, but had thought about trying to re-create it from memory.
No time like the present, right?
Making of The Music Video
Original (2010) version: Created using Windows Movie Maker on a Toshiba Satellite laptop running Windows Vista. Created in roughly an hour (given my relative inexperience).
2019 version: Created using CyberLink Power Director 17.0 on a Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows 10. Created in about 30 minutes, with about 7 years worth of (self-taught) video editing experience.
I’ve always liked “Baby Elephant Walk,” as the tune is sweet, funny, and simple. The catchiness is earworm-worthy and unforgettable, all in a good way. I’ve also always loved the short “Punch Trunk,” as the idea of a tiny elephant wreaking havoc on an entire city (with newspapers citing “mass hallucination”) sounds ridiculous, yet intriguing.
They won’t tell you the elephant is a hallucination!
Finding the “Beat,” and Nailing it!
Finding the beat, as I’ve come to find with all the videos I make, is the most challenging. However, my favorite challenge is closings. Leaving off on that final beat is the hardest. Trying to seal that perfect closing moment is the part I always want to nail when completing my videos. Usually, I try to do that first and work my way backwards. My current editing methods haven’t changed from my earlier editing methods, and I do find myself jumping around in the course of editing just to match the video content with the audio. I prefer not to work straight through a song, and will usually edit clips I want to use and then listening to the song without them first.
In case you’re wondering, I only create videos around songs I like. This makes the production process and idea more fun to tackle than if I constantly listened to a song I couldn’t tolerate. I’ll always do my best to pair songs correctly to my video source, because no one wants to watch a video that doesn’t make sense, do they?
I hope you enjoyed watching it, and learning about my video editing process!
