The edit in radio is a very important creative process. It is where you will create the sound picture your audience is expecting. What sounds you use, when you bring them in and how long you hold them will all help the listener to create a mental picture. Your listeners should be ‘seeing’ the programme in their heads. They will do a lot of this for themselves but you will need to give them the cues through your use of sound.
Once you have assembled all your radio material and written your script, you will need to do four things:
- ingest your material
- edit your interviews
- record your script
- mix the programme.
You will most probably be using a digital, nonlinear system. There are so many around that it’s outside the scope of this book to talk you through the actual kit. This chapter aims to talk you through the editing process; this process will be more or less the same whichever type of kit you use.
Ingest
Ingesting is when you load all the material you have recorded and assembled onto your editing and mixing package. From a production point of view the most important thing is that you label everything properly and organise it so that you can find everything. Just as with the recording, the more organised you are, the more head space you will have to be creative. A little time spent organising your material will mean a lot more time available in the end.
Editing the interviews
It’s usually best to edit your interviews first and assemble all the parts you want into the right order. Clearly when you come to edit your interviews you are looking for the pieces which best tell your story and which will have an impact on your listener. Quite often producers will tidy up an interview. This means that they will get rid of ums, ers and long pauses. They may also get rid of sentences which were repetitious or where an interviewee stumbled a bit and repeated something. This will have the effect of making your piece flow. It’s a bit fiddly and time consuming but worth the effort.
The producer may also do a more substantial edit. They may take the beginning of an answer, cut out the middle and then use the end of the answer. Broadcasters do this all the time. However, you do have a responsibility not to substantially alter meaning by selective editing. For example, imagine you had interviewed someone on the benefits of raising the school-leaving age to 18; you knew that the interviewee was basically in favour of the changes but did also mention that there were a couple of drawbacks. You have a responsibility to fairly represent that person’s view. You should not set them up as an opponent of the change and then only use the bits of the interview where they mentioned the drawbacks. This can be quite a difficult balance to achieve.
Hints on editing
Creating clean sound edits can be tricky. If you don’t choose the right edit point you will get a kind of jerky, unnatural-sounding edit and the listener will feel a little disturbed. There are several techniques to help with this.
- Breaths: We are barely aware of it when we listen to people speak but we are drawing breath all the time. When you start to edit speech you will become very aware of it. However, a breath is a natural part of speech and is part of what gives our speech patterns a kind of rhythm. You should be wary of routinely taking out all breath sounds.
- Pauses: If you are cutting an interview, you should leave enough pauses that the speech still sounds natural. You may want to edit out all the ums and ers but you shouldn’t edit all the words so tightly together that they begin to sound unnatural.
- Cut at the beginnings of words, not the end: For example, your interviewee says: My grandmother was 65 when she . .. or was it 66, I can’t remember, no, it definitely was 65 when she first decided to row the Atlantic.
You will want to edit out the hesitation over the age, so the piece goes: My grandmother was 65 when she first decided to row the Atlantic. There are a number of ways in which you could do this and the choice will entirely depend on how the interviewee has said the words and what the intonation sounds like However, imagine that you want to edit out the bits in red. My grandmother was 65 when she . . . or was it 66, I can’t remember . . . no, it definitely was 65 when she first decided to row the Atlantic. Your cutting points would normally be at the beginning of the first she and the beginning of the second she rather than at the end of the when. You can’t be hard and fast about this as it depends on how the words were said, but it’s probably best to try it this way first.
- Wild track: You will remember the chapter on recording location sound when we talked about recording wild track of atmos. This is slightly different to the sound you record to create your sound picture. This can be the sound of a silent room. This wild track comes in handy when you are editing speech. Sometimes it’s very difficult to get a clean edit and whatever you do the edit sounds obvious and unnatural, or the edit points have to be so tight that it doesn’t sound convincing. Sometimes you can add a tiny piece of wild track to create more of a pause between words and you will get a much better effect. Even a silent room has an atmospheric sound and you can hear this most clearly when you start editing. Wild track can also be used at the beginning or end of an interview. The wild track creates a handle which you can use to fade in or out on. Again the ear seems a lot less forgiving than the eye and doesn’t like abrupt change; even a short fade out of the atmos makes your piece feel a lot more polished.
Recording your script
This should be one of the last things you do when you are absolutely sure you are happy with the script and know exactly what material it is cueing or linking. On paper you can change your script as many times as you want and it doesn’t cost you anything, but once you’ve recorded it’s much less easy to change.
You may be lucky and have some kind of studio space to record in or you may just record the script in a quiet room. If you are not recording in a studio space then ideally you will need to find a room with carpet and soft furnishings. A bedroom can be a good place; there are lots of soft things around to absorb the sound. You really don’t want your script to sound echoic or hollow. As with interviews, people will sometimes construct a kind of tent out of duvets or blankets. This creates a less live acoustic. You may not want to go that far but avoid trying to record in a big room with hard floors like a classroom.
Presenting
Presenting can be tricky: some people love it and some really don’t take to it. However, here are a few tips:
- It’s all in the script: The most important thing about your performance will be the way the script is written. If you haven’t written it in a way that is suitable for the ear, you will find it very difficult to get a good performance from anyone. It will very quickly sound wooden and clumsy. Even the most experienced script writers will change and alter the script right up to the last moment. As you start to say things out loud they will begin to feel quite different. This is fine, and if a presenter isn’t comfortable with something then you do need to change it. However, you will always need to keep in mind the purpose and structure of the link or cue. Where is it coming from, what do I need to tell the listener, what will the listener hear next?
- Use your normal voice: You are not acting here, you should be using your normal voice at your normal speaking level, and you don’t need to project as if you were on stage.
- One person: You should also be talking to one person and not a crowd of people. Remember: in the mind of the listener it’s just the two of you in this conversation; if you start to imagine you are giving a speech it will have the effect of pushing the listener away.
- Keep up the energy: You will need to keep energy and liveliness in your voice; if you don’t you will come across as rather flat and a little dull. You may start to put people off listening to you. Some people try to consciously smile when they talk. Clearly the listener isn’t going to see the smile but some people feel that physically smiling helps keep a bright tone in the voice.
Mixing the programme
Once everything has been assembled, ingested and edited and you have recorded any commentary, you will need to mix the programme together. This is a creative part of the process and there is any number of ways to mix a programme. However, here are some of the things you will need to think about.
- Set the scene: Just as with any other medium you will need to set the scene for the listener. If the top of the piece comes from a studio or a piece of voice-over then there is not a lot of scene to set. However, once you are in a location with your listener you will need to let them know where they are. This is where you should be thinking about your actuality. You should allow a few seconds of actuality before anyone starts speaking; this will allow the listener to absorb the sound and understand what they are hearing. Similarly at the end of a scene, if you are moving from one location to the studio or voiceover or to another location, you should allow the listener a couple of seconds to hear the atmos fade out and a new one fade in. Give them space to understand what is happening.
- Pacing: Not every single second of your piece needs to be filled with words. Remember: the listener needs time to absorb what is being said. Of course there are some styles of programming that are deliberately fast paced and that’s fine. But just remember: there will be times when the listener will need a moment to catch up with you.
- Fading up and down: Our ears tend to feel more comfortable if sound is faded in and out rather than hearing a sharp cut. Thus at the beginning and end of a scene there is usually a fade in and fade out. The fade will usually be on the atmos rather than on anybody actually saying anything. You don’t necessarily need to have a very long fade; even quite a quick one will usually be enough.
- Actuality: As well as using ambient sound at the beginning and end of a scene, if the style of the piece demands it then don’t be afraid to use actuality throughout the piece. It creates a sense of place, and the listeners will use this information to try to picture the scene in their minds; it’s a really powerful tool.
- Music: Music can be great. However, you will need to make sure that the music really fits into the piece and that you are using it consistently. Too many different pieces of music will start to sound confused. In the mix you will also need to get the balance right between the music and anything else. You will need to think about when you might raise the level of the music and when you might drop it back. Conventionally you would fade music in, bring up the levels for a couple of seconds and then fade it down before you start any speech. Your music and speech must not fight; there should be no confusion in the minds of the audience about what they should be listening to. It’s very difficult to use music with lyrics under speech. The listeners will start to wonder whether they are listening to the speaker or to the lyrics of the song, and as a result they won’t hear either properly.
Finishing
Once the programme has been mixed there may be a few final editing tweaks to do but these should be fairly minor. You will then need to finish off. This will depend on what format you have been asked to present your piece in. You will need to play out the piece in the appropriate format. However, you should always keep a backup copy. You should always hang on to all your source material until the piece has finally been submitted and you know there is no possibility of changing it.
Conclusion
Editing is a very creative process in radio. It’s rather like composing a piece of music in some ways: you are looking for the best way to blend the sounds and create a picture in the minds of the listeners. Pacing your piece properly, whether you use a fast or slower pace, will have an enormous impact on the listener. Using music and actuality to mix with your interviews will start to create a sound picture in your listener’s mind.