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Cut Pacing Reference
Starting templates for five pacing styles at 15 to 90 seconds, drawn as clip tracks: each block is a section of the edit, each bar is a shot. Select a track to play it at real speed. The music and the motion inside each shot have the final say.
Scene change: a new place, activity or subject. A new angle on the same moment isn’t one.
Notes for the edit
These apply to every style and override the shot lengths above when they conflict.
- Motion counts as pace. A 3s whip pan feels faster than a 1s locked-off shot. Treat the lengths as a starting point and adjust by eye.
- Cut to the song’s structure. Pick the track first. Change sections on bar lines, ideally at 4- or 8-bar phrase changes, and make the piece a whole number of bars that ends on a downbeat or ring-out, even if that moves the length a second or two. Beats view does this.
- Cuts that feel late. If a cut placed on the beat feels late on playback, move it 1–2 frames earlier.
- Music drops are short; silence never happens. Cut the music on a downbeat for 1–2 bars and bring it back on beat 1. Under the drop keep natural sound, room tone or a sound-effect tail; true silence plays like a broken video. For longer quiet stretches use the song’s own breakdown, a filtered bed, or retime the track (Premiere’s Remix) rather than muting it mid-phrase.
- Audio edits. Put a 1–2-frame crossfade on every audio cut so fast cuts don’t click. In Slow Burn, let sound lead the picture: bring the next shot’s audio in 0.5–2s before the cut (J and L cuts).
- Text needs its own layer. Put on-screen text on a layer that spans several cuts, and hold a hook line at least 1.5–2s, long enough to read twice. Burn in captions for any voiceover. Keep hook and call-to-action text inside the platform’s safe zone, clear of the caption area and the buttons on the right.
- Flashing limits. Fast cuts count as flashes when they flip more than a quarter of the screen between bright and dark, and more than three flashes in any second fails UK broadcast rules (Ofcom guidance, WCAG 2.3.1). Alternating bright and dark shots of 0.2s (5–6 frames) or longer stay under it; a cut to or from saturated red counts at any brightness. Stutters repeat the same clip, so they don’t flash. Use 1–2-frame white flashes only as single hits, never in trains, and run a Harding or PEAT check on anything with strobes. TikTok warns viewers about flashing content (TikTok).
- Loops. Reels and TikTok replay automatically, so the last shot is also the cut back into the first. Keep final holds to about 5s or less, and for a loop, end on a frame that cuts cleanly into frame one.
