Making Ambient Music Videos with Clipchamp
To make videos of my ambient music tracks, I first used Kdenlive, but lately I have been using Microsoft Clipchamp. It is a straightforward editor I have been looking for. Kdenlive was usable, but complex and does not have many built-in effects.
Clipchamp is easy to use and has more effects and a content library. The biggest downside is that it is subscription-based. Since I have an Office subscription, I get access to more content that free version users, but access to all content requires a Clipchamp subscription.
My current workflow is to create a suitable background image with Midjourney and add effects and overlays from the content library. The built-in effects are adequate, but zoom and pan effects are too fast. With Kdenlive, I could make a subtle pan or zoom to change the image slowly over an extended time. Unfortunately, that is not possible with Clipchamp.
Because the image is static, I use moving lights or particle effect clips to add movement. Even if I do not have access to all the Clipchamp content, there are several suitable videos available. The biggest problem with the content is speed. Movement is too fast for the slow tempo of my ambient music. Clipchamp lets you change the playback speed of videos, but reducing it too much makes the playback choppy.
Another issue is looping. The particle videos I have used are not looping and need to be copied to fill the full track. There is also a discontinuity when the clip starts over. Since I use low opacity for the effect layers, I have been able to hide that with cross fades.
Below is my latest video, Crystal Caverns. For the track Dystopia, I am working on something different.
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