Editing out a loud bang in interview audio
by Nathan Golon
on
May 20, 2008 at 2:42:14 pm
In the middle of an interview I have what sounds like a firecracker or gunshot. I tried to cut around the sound, but the subject is speaking during the noise so it doesn't work. While I know there is a way to reduce this sound based on its frequency, I'm not sure what the steps are to do it. Could anyone help?
Re: Editing out a loud bang in interview audio by Ron Craig on May 20, 2008 at 5:18:50 pm
Do you have a transcript of the interview? Perhaps you can find a point at which the interviewee said the same word that was interrupted by the bang and then just replace the audio of that word. Hopefully you can find more than one instance of that word being spoken at another time because intonation, volume, etc. will determine whether other iterations of the same word will sound good enough as a replacement. But I have done this several times successfully..
Re: Editing out a loud bang in interview audio by Chris Poisson on May 20, 2008 at 5:21:04 pm
Since the bang is likely short, it may be possible to cut the same word(s) from somewhere else in the interview and patch it in. I have done this successfully a couple of times for other audio faults, but it should work with a bang, if you have them saying the same thing that is.
Re: Editing out a loud bang in interview audio by David Roth Weiss on May 20, 2008 at 5:29:46 pm
I always find that supering a large caliber bullet hole to the forehead of the interviewee really helps to sell the sound and what was once an unfortunate mistake can now become a chance to heighten the impact of that dull talking head. Saves on b-roll too...
On a more serious note, Soundtrack Pro, which hardly any of us actually use of course, has a tool for this. I have seen it demoed, but I haven't used it. Essentially, it analizes the track and produces a color waveform, different from the standard waveform, that enables you to lasso just the specific frequencies of the offending sound and then allowing you remove them. It looked to be quite amazing. Check it out in the manual and ask about it over on the STP Forum.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
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A forum host of Creative COW's Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
Re: Editing out a loud bang in interview audio by Les Kaye on May 20, 2008 at 5:43:16 pm
To ditto David (sorry for the alliteration)... Apple demoed this exact scenario last week at the FCP World Tour. I tried it at home later that night as a test, and it looks like it actually does work.
Re: Editing out a loud bang in interview audio by Arnie Schlissel on May 20, 2008 at 8:33:54 pm
[David Roth Weiss]"I always find that supering a large caliber bullet hole to the forehead of the interviewee really helps to sell the sound and what was once an unfortunate mistake can now become a chance to heighten the impact of that dull talking head. Saves on b-roll too..."
But to really sell it, you should then use Motion's particle system to spray brains out the back of the interviewee's head!
Seriously, David, I'm glad I didn't have a beverage in my hand while reading this, or I would have become a particle system!
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
http://www.arniepix.com/
