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Chapter 9 Tips for Better Audio 179
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If someone mumbles a single word, salvage the rest of the take.
If someone messes up part or all of a word, either by mumbling or swallowing part of it,
you can sometimes take part or all of another instance of that word, or of another word
that has the sound you need, and use it to replace part or all of the misspoken word.
For example, suppose an actor was supposed to say, “Get those cats out of that tree,”
and instead said, “Get dose cats out of that tree,” accidentally swallowing the “th” sound
in the word those. If you need to use that take, you could copy the “th” sound from the
word that and paste it over the botched beginning of the word “dose.” The change is so
small that nobody will notice the difference. The result in your sequence would look
something like this:
When you do this kind of edit, watch out for the beginnings and endings of words.
Sometimes people run words together if they speak quickly. If you’re replacing a word
in clip 1 with the same word from clip 2, make sure the sound that comes before the
new word in clip 2 is the same as the sound that comes before the word it’s replacing
in clip 1.
Cut away to another image to smooth cuts in dialogue.
If you need to remove a word or phrase from someone’s speech, you can use a cutaway
shot or B-roll footage at the same point. This allows you to change the audio without
viewers noticing an obvious jump cut.
One reason shots of the interviewer are included in documentary-style programs is to
give the editor the freedom to edit the speaker’s dialogue without introducing a jump
cut in the picture. That way, if the person on camera says the same thing twice, you can
cut it out without the audience’s knowing and make the subject sound better.
You can also do this in narrative programs. If you decide to rearrange an actor’s lines by
adding or removing dialogue, you can cut to a reaction shot of the person who’s
listening to smooth your changes to the speaker’s audio.