Adobe Make the Cut Contest w/Imagine Dragons

Imagine Dragons and Adobe teamed up to bring us the 'Adobe Make the Cut Contest. Giving basement video editors like myself a shot at making our own cut of Imagine Dragons 'Believer' music video...I didn't make the cut.

A little part of me definitely wanted to be one of the top 25 finalists, but reality is, thousands of people submitted videos. And a handful of the finalists selected def. blew mine out of the water. The real neat things aobut this Adobe (or maybe it was Imagine Dragons) provide us with all of the assets needed to make a video. We didn;t have to record or direct talent - we merely had to produce a video based on the assets we had to work with. This has it's positives and negatives for sure - the biggest negative being I had no idea what the 'vision' was per se.

It's a Puzzle & I Can Cry If I Want To...

The main challenge with this contest is piecing together all the parts - all the little video clips and stock assets - into one cohesive storyline. The first thing I did is literally watch every single video asset that was handed over. You might call me crazy, but I needed to know what pieces of the puzzle I had to work with. After I saw all the assets I knew I was working with the following pieces: young Dan, Dan, Dolph Lundgren(whom I'm affectionatly calling 'old Dan') and then a bunch of fighting as well as band clips (instrumentals).

A View of my 'Adobe Make the Cut Project' in Adobe Premiere Pro

My 'Make the Cut' Timeline in Premiere Pro

In closing, I loved having assets to play with. I think it was a great idea both on Imagine Dragon's part as well as Adobe's. The prize is a good chunk of change for us basement editors, and if you don't want to do it you don't have to. No strings attached. If you are curious what my edit looks like - check it out below. I do reconmend you go check out all 25 finalists on Adobe's Page too - there are some good edits and effects going on, although I would argue the story telling gets lost in some of the entries.