I am a complete newbie to video editing, so please excuse my ignorance and thanks in advance to anyone willing to ignore it long enough to help with my question. Here is what I need help with - I have a new camcorder and I want to shoot a funny music video (my 5 year old sister singing a rap song). I want the sound on the video to be the original song in it's entirety with her lip synching to it with lots of quick cuts and location changes. I am going to need to sychronize her mouth movements in each scene to the words of the song. My question is, could someone please give me a rundown of the best way to accomplish this? What software would I need? Is there any software available on a free trial that I can do it with that has a learning curve a beginner could handle? Thanks for any help.

Oy Vey, meyn freund!!

What I'd do (your mileage may vary):

(1)
Since her natural voice isn't an issue, use an audio playback device that will let you patch the audio directly into the camera - stable, controllable audio is a must for music. If you don't have Line Out/Line In jacks & have to use the camera mic, do a playback/record test at each location so you can adjust the playback volumn to keep the recorded levels fairly consistent. Acoustics change from room to room because of furniture/glass covered cabinets, picture frames, etc. And don't get me started on indoor vs. outdoor.

(2)
For every 'scene' you want, have her sync her way thru the entire song - that way you know that she will be sync'd in whatever scene to which you cut when you edit; and you will only have to worry about cutting on the musical beat and not on mouth movements.

(3)
For every take (run thru) at a particular location, try to get 2/3 different camera angles. That way when you edit you can maximize visual variety (thus viewer interest) without maximizing 5-year old hostility toward her older sib - "How many mooooore?!?!?!?!?!!" Also, she could actually flub a line in the song and another part of the take will still be useful.

(4)
Most rap/hip-hop videos I've seen have a heavy 'In your face' attitude; thus, she should look directly at the lens, rather than Your face. Especially noticeable in close-up.

(5)
Use quick zooms sparingly in the final edit unless you want your viewers to get vertigo. Going wide->tight->wide when you're shooting is fine, (See #3), just don't misuse the transition in the final edit.

(6)
Lighting! Soft/dim indoor to harsh/bright outdoor (and reverse) are sometimes jarring to the senses. Unless all the scenes are 'under one set of lights', which renders this note rather moot.

(6a)
Speaking of light, let's talk White Balance. Most (if not all, by now) camcorders have some flavor of Automatic White Balance (RTFM). Have sis hold a white pasteboard in front of her bellybutton (it's surprisingly hard to find a good White in the natural environment). Then you zoom in on the board until it fills your viewfinder, let/help your camera do that AWB thing, & zoom out. That way colors will be more consistent between scenes/camera angles.

(7)
Shoot more footage than you think you'll need! Nothing sux harder than discovering that 20% of your footage is useless because the fly that you didn't notice during the shoot suddenly sounds like a dragonfly when you play back the footage in your editor.

As far as software goes, I'm using the Premiere Pro Tryout right now. I tried Vegas, Ulead Videostudio, Cyberlink PowerProducer & PowerDirector. Most of those are pretty much 'hobbyist' calibre; though Vegas does look like it could produce semi-pro to pro quality. PPro seems to fit me better than the others.

As I said above, your mileage may vary.

has a wealth of knowledge.

ColdWinterWind,

Thank you very much for your advice. You have been a tremendous help, and I really appreciate it!

Yer welcome. I like to give back, & I've gotten some good info here just from reading back posts.