Legal Music For Videos

Here's a great page from Creative Commons which lists links for a number of free online music resources.



Check it out.

Get The Buzz Out

Despite our best efforts, audio recorded in the field doesn't always live up to expectations. In this article, I'll demonstrate the process of cleaning up an audio track plagued with hum and noise.

In this first clip you can hear the audio in its camera original form. Lot's of audio hum and crackle - yuck.





So the first task is to try to eliminate the hum. Premiere Pro includes a notch filter to correct such problems. (A notch filter passes most frequencies unaltered, but attenuates those in a specific range to very low levels.) The key to successfully applying a notch filter is to identify the frequency of the offensive hum. The easiest way to do this is to apply the filter and then slowly sweep through the frequency range, previewing the effect after each adjustment. In this case the hum was predominantly located at 150 Hz.





That improved things a bit, but notice there is the hum is also present at a higher frequency range. The solution is to apply a second notch filter using the same technique. In this case the hum was present at about 310 Hz. Listen to the next example and think you'll notice that the hum is gone.






The next problem you may notice is the persistent crackle in the audio. It seems that the wireless mic system used to record the audio added this crackle as well. Premiere Pro includes an easy-to-use filter for this problem aptly named "DeCrackler". Like the notch filter, you can preview the filter will have on your audio and tweak the settings accordingly. In this case, the Threshold was set to 2% and the Reduction was set to 94%
.





Finally, there's a lot of airy noise present. Sure enough, there's a filter to correct this too - DeNoiser. In this case, I reduced the hiss 5dB. In this next clip you'll hear the cumulative effect each of the filters described above.





Here's a still which shows the filters that were used to fix this audio.



One thing to keep in mind when applying audio filters is listen to ensure the filter degrades your audio as little as possible. The point is to attenuate or remove the offensive noises without harming the sound you want to preserve.

To learn more about working with audio, check out Jay Rose's Audio Postproduction for Digital Video.

Great Interview Advice

Interviewing people for a video can be tricky. There's nothing more frustrating than editing an interview only to discover that a sound bite doesn't work.

In the course of normal conversation, most people don't speak in complete sentences. We often offer one-word answers. However can create a huge problem. During editing the voice of the interviewer is typically removed leaving only cryptic and unworkable one-word answers. Ouch.


To combat this, interview subjects are often coached to speak in complete sentences. This works sometimes, but too often it makes the subject self-conscious and screws up the flow of the interview. In short, your subject may start to dwell on how they're speaking instead of thinking about what they're saying.

At the New Doc Editing blog, Karen Everett offers some great advice:

"The key is to avoiding this situation to frame your question with certain opening phrases that will force your subject to give full sentence responses.

For example, if I asked you what color your car is, and you reply 'blue', that’s not a very helpful soundbite to use in the edit room. But if I asked you to 'Describe the color and make of the car in your driveway?' you’re more likely to say something to the effect of, 'It’s a light gray Honda Prius.'

I credit my colleague, PBS filmmaker Jon Else, with these interview tips. Try framing your questions with one of the following opening phrases:

• 'Describe such and such…'
• 'Explain such and such…'
• 'Tell me about such and such…'

Use one of these opening phrases and watch your interview come alive with full-bodied answers that will stand on their own in your script."

You can read the full post here.

Celebrate May Day

International Workers Day is here again; a day to commemorate the sacrifices of the Chicago Anarchists in 1886.


Today also provides the opportunity to share a tremendous online film resource - The National Film Board of Canada. For over 70 years, the Film Board has provided over 12,000 works as Canada's public film producer and distributor. More than 1,000 of those works are available to online at no charge.

In keeping with this important holiday, here's a selection from the Film Board's online archive, The Coca Cola Case: The Truth That Refreshes.

The film details the role of Coca Cola in ant-union activities in Columbia
including the assassination of eight union activists.

It's great to see pro-labor films on controversial subjects supported with public funds. We'd be well-served to see the anemic U.S. public broadcasting system take a turn in that direction.

Click on the image to learn more about the
campaign to protect labor rights in Columbia.