Adobe launched their “Make the Cut” contest in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Premiere Pro. They offered contestants a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cut a video for “Believer,” the new hit single by mega-band Imagine Dragons. In an industry first, Imagine Dragons is giving their fans access to uncut footage from a leading music video director to cut and craft as they see fit, supporting and nurturing the creative community with the opportunity to create their own music video and, importantly, be recognized for their work.

This was an exciting opportunity to use my video editing skills to cut professional footage from a studio. The source asset folder included numerous raw footage files and one master audio track of the song. The official rules state that participants can only use provided source files, Adobe Premiere Pro CC and any other programs within Creative Cloud to enhance your video. No third party plugins were allowed. My main challenge was cutting the video to the rhythm of the music and craft a narrative. An optional challenge was to creatively incorporate Adobe Stock Footage into the cut. I was able use the majority of the stock footage by masking in certain scenes. One of them was the smoke footage coming from behind the lead character as he jumped off the stage. Some title effects and vfx was created in After Effects using the dynamic link between programs. The rest of the effects and keyframing was done in Premiere Pro. Lastly, color correction was fine tuned before submitting the final cut to Adobe.

Software:Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Adobe Media Encoder