A montage looks like the easiest edit there is: clips, a song, done. It is also the edit people abandon halfway, because without a plan it turns into an hour of dragging clips around a timeline until the music runs out. The plan is short, and most of it happens before you open an editor.
What is a video montage?
In film editing, a montage is a sequence of short shots cut together to compress time or build one idea: the training sequence, the trip in ninety seconds, the year in review. Online the word has settled on something narrower, which is short clips cut to one track with little or no talking.
Two things follow from that definition. The music is the structure, so it gets chosen first. And no single clip matters much, so every clip can be short.
A montage is not quite a slideshow. A slideshow is the same idea made from stills, and stills need longer on screen than moving footage does. Photo slideshow reels covers that version.
What do you need before you start?
| What to decide | A sensible default | |
|---|---|---|
| Track | One piece of music with a clear pulse | 100 to 130 BPM |
| Length | How much of the track you will use | 15 to 60 seconds |
| Shape | Where it will be watched | 9:16 for phones, 16:9 for a TV or laptop |
| Footage | More clips than you think | Twice the number you will use |
| Look | One grade for everything | A single filter or LUT at moderate strength |
Shape is the decision people make last and should make first. A montage for Reels, TikTok or Shorts is vertical, 1080 × 1920. One for a wedding screen or a YouTube video is horizontal. Cropping between the two afterwards loses half of every frame, and vertical video size and the safe area explains where a phone interface covers the picture.
How many clips does a montage need?
The track decides, not the pile of footage. Count the beats you will cut on and that is the number of clips.
| Length | Tempo | Cut on | Clips needed | Each on screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 seconds | 120 BPM | Every 2nd beat | 15 | 1.0s |
| 30 seconds | 120 BPM | Every 2nd beat | 30 | 1.0s |
| 30 seconds | 120 BPM | Every 4th beat | 15 | 2.0s |
| 60 seconds | 100 BPM | Every 2nd beat | 50 | 1.2s |
| 60 seconds | 120 BPM | Every 4th beat | 30 | 2.0s |
The arithmetic is only tempo: at 120 beats a minute a beat lasts half a second, so a cut on every second beat gives each clip one second. How to find the BPM of a song covers getting the tempo, and how many cuts a reel should have covers choosing the density.
If you have twelve good clips, you have a fifteen-second montage. Stretching twelve clips to a minute is the most common way to make one dull.
How do you make a video montage, step by step?
- Choose the track and the section. Pick the 15 to 60 seconds you will actually use, usually a build into a chorus or drop. Everything else hangs off this.
- Pull selects. Go through the footage once and keep only the best two or three seconds of each clip: the moment something moves, turns, lands or laughs. Discard the wind-up.
- Put the best shot first. Chronological order is a trap. The opening frame decides whether anyone watches the second one, which is the whole argument of what the first three seconds have to do.
- Group the rest. Wide shots, then details, then people works. So does building towards the most energetic clips as the music builds. Any rule is better than none.
- Cut on the beat. Every change of shot should land on a beat of the track. This is the step that makes a montage feel edited rather than assembled, and how to cut a video to the beat is the method in full.
- Apply one look. Clips shot on different days in different light need a shared grade to read as one piece. Colour grading short video covers doing it without overcooking it.
- Export for the destination. 1080 × 1920 for vertical platforms, at the highest quality your editor offers. Why platforms ruin video quality explains what happens to the file next.
What makes a montage feel slow?
| Do | Avoid |
|---|---|
| Change shot on the beat | Cuts that drift off the music |
| Keep each clip to one or two seconds | Holding a clip because it took effort to film |
| Mix wide, medium and close shots | Ten shots at the same distance in a row |
| Use movement inside the frame | Static shots of static things |
| Hard cuts almost everywhere | A different transition on every cut |
| Stop when the good clips run out | Filling to the end of the song |
The transitions row surprises people. A spin or a zoom on every cut makes the edit the subject, and most transitions are worse than a cut. Save one for the moment the music changes.
The footage row is fixable before the edit. Clips with movement in them cut far better than clips of things sitting still, and filming b-roll that cuts well is mostly about that.
Which app should you use for a montage?
| Route | Good for | The cost |
|---|---|---|
| Your phone's photo app | A quick automatic highlight video | You do not choose the cuts or the order |
| A phone editor such as CapCut or InShot | One montage, made carefully | Every cut placed by hand |
| A desktop editor such as DaVinci Resolve or iMovie | Long or horizontal montages, full control | Setup time and a learning curve |
| A beat-matching tool such as Easy Reels | Short vertical montages, made often | Less say over each individual cut |
For one montage a year (a birthday, a wedding, a trip), a phone or desktop editor is the right answer, and the time it takes is part of the point. Our CapCut review covers the editor most people reach for first.
Can you use any song?
For a video you keep or show at a party, yes. For one you post publicly, no. Platforms match commercial tracks, and the result ranges from a muted video to a blocked one, depending on the platform and the account type. Can you use copyrighted music in reels? covers what is safe, and the short version is to use a licensed track or a platform's own library.
Where Easy Reels fits
Steps 2 to 6 above are the slow ones, and they are mechanical once the track is chosen. Easy Reels does that part. You give it a folder of clips and a song, it finds the beats, places a cut on each one, applies your colour look and text, and renders a vertical 1080 × 1920 file. It makes a batch in one pass, each drawing different clips from the folder, which is the workflow in batch-creating reels from one folder.
It is the wrong tool for several montages. It only makes vertical video, so a horizontal wedding film is out. The song sets the length and tops out at 60 seconds. And it picks which clip lands on which beat, so a montage that must tell a story in a fixed order is better cut by hand. It suits the person who makes short montages every week from footage they already have, not the person making one a year.
Common questions
How long should a video montage be?
As long as your good footage lasts, which is usually 15 to 60 seconds for social video. Count your strongest clips, allow one to two seconds each, and stop there.
What is the difference between a montage and a slideshow?
A montage is made from moving clips and a slideshow from still photos. The editing is the same idea, but stills need about a second each on screen, so a slideshow cuts more slowly.
Can I mix photos and videos in one montage?
Yes. Give each photo a slow push in or drift so the frame is never frozen, and keep photos on screen slightly longer than clips. One shared colour look helps them sit together.
What is the easiest way to make a montage?
The automatic highlight video in your phone's photo app is the easiest, because it needs no editing at all. The easiest way to make one you control is a phone editor with the track laid down first and the clips trimmed to its beats.
How do you make a montage for a birthday or wedding?
Collect clips from guests, choose one track, and keep it under two minutes however much footage arrives. Make it horizontal if it will be shown on a TV or projector, and open on the person it is for.