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Why You Need to Cut Audio BEFORE Picture | Trailer Editing Tutorial

The case for cutting audio ahead of picture in trailers and promos, and the reasons it produces a tighter result: the music dictates the structure, so editing picture first means fighting the track later.

Film Editing Pro · 18 min · Intermediate · EDT · Editing · 2026

What you take away

When music is driving the piece, picture is the dependent variable — cutting it first means every music change becomes a re-edit.

Watch it

Filed under

Oscar winners for editing

Books on editing

Kit for this lesson

Sennheiser HD 280 PRO — Closed-back monitoring that isolates on a noisy set
Sennheiser HD 25 — On-ear, brutally isolating, built for noisy locations
Shure SRH840A — Flat closed-back for checking a mix on location
Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO — Closed-back with real low end — editing and ADR
Crucial T705 2TB — PCIe 5.0 scratch disk — the fastest consumer NVMe
Dell UltraSharp U2723QE — The sensible 4K second monitor

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