If you look at most budget MLS videos, you’ll notice that the scenes change with zero connection to the rhythm of the music. The visuals and the soundtrack seem to live their own lives, independent of one another.
The next quote from a training article for video editors describes such videos in an interesting way:
“Imagine you’re engrossed in watching a TV show. Suddenly, the dialogue doesn’t sync up with the actors’ lip movements. Your visual experience becomes extremely frustrating.
At this moment, your senses receive conflicting feedback from the video:
• Your ears: “The person in the scene is saying these lines.”
• Your eyes: “Don’t trust your ears, what they’re saying doesn’t match their lip movements.”
As a result of this conflicting feedback, your overall experience deteriorates, and discomfort ensues.”
“Edit to beat”? What is that?
We don’t just throw music on top. Instead, we use a professional technique called “edit to beat.” This means the scenes change in a sync with the music – every time the fragments transition into one another, it happens exactly on the “thump” of the drum.
“Edit to beat” gives the video a sense of solemnity — and the home itself a sense of importance. That makes the house look organized, polished, and exciting without the viewer even realizing why.
Another quote from the same training article:
“In video editing software, “beat matching” refers to the process of synchronizing specific frames in a video with prominent beats in the accompanying audio.
This technique enhances the overall audio-visual experience of the video. It adds depth, rhythm, comfort, and a sense of cohesion, elevating the overall style and creating a more dynamic viewing experience.
When we talk about the depth, rhythm, and comfort that beat matching brings to a video, we’re essentially referring to the degree of harmony between the audio and visuals.
When your video perfectly matches a background music track that aligns with the rhythm and mood of your video, the impact of that background music on your video is truly beyond imagination.”
How does it work? A lesson of psychology and brain biochemistry
While watching a video edited to beat, the brain kind of locks onto the rhythm. The transitions feel smoother and more natural because they happen not randomly, but at precisely timed intervals.
As the next drum beat approaches, the viewer anticipates the scene change, and when it arrives exactly as expected, it creates a quiet satisfaction and a calm sense of routine and predictability. Science shows that when people see a visual change at the exact same time they hear a sound, their brain releases a tiny bit of dopamine (the “feel-good” hormone). It creates a sense of “rhythm” that keeps the viewer’s brain engaged. Instead of getting bored and clicking away, they stay “locked in” to the pulse of the video, enchanted by the almost hypnotic flow.
Videos without “edit to beat” can meet the requirements for their budget. They are quite expected at the price we have. But we decided to go further and apply a technology that is a must-have in luxury home listings to ALL our videos — even for a tiny studio (example).
Switching to this technology hasn’t increased the price of our videos. By ordering a video from us, you get the style typical of higher-end videography without adding a cent.
BTW, we use “Edit to Beat” not only in videos shot by a camera operator, but also in AI videos, as well as in our Rhythmic Photo Tours.
Here are some examples of videos “edited to beat”: