I’m a video editor who specialises in short form. I’m very good at taking a ton of information about a subject I know nothing about, finding the core messaging, removing the fat and getting very few, if any, amends.
That’s why one of my clients recently asked if I would be interested in editing an audio-only series of eight-hour-long unscripted interviews about leadership with CEOs across multiple industries into sixteen podcasts. Two podcasts for each interview. One 30 to 45 minutes in length, the other 15 to 20 minutes.
I’d never edited a podcast before, and honestly, I didn’t realise editing a podcast would be so demanding and time-consuming. I wanted to share what I’d learnt over the course of the job to save other people time, so I’ve condensed that down into seven key takeaways.
1
PREPARE FOR THE LONG HAUL
Podcast editing takes time. In my case, two podcast edits per interview took between 12 and 16 hours. Translated to my typical 8-hour working day, that’s between 1.5 and 2 days.
2
TRANSCRIBE & PRINT
Before making a single cut, transcribe the entire podcast recording. There are many transcription services, but transcription is built into Premiere Pro if you’re a Creative Cloud user. It’s called Speech to Text, and it’s available in the latest version of Premiere:
https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/premiere-pro/using/speech-to-text.html
Printing out the recording is not mandatory, but it makes it much easier to make notes. And you will need to make notes. I didn’t make notes for the first couple of podcasts I cut. It made the process much more complicated, with a lot of back and forth in the timeline, trying to remember where things were.
3
PAPER EDIT
With transcription in hand, listen to the entire recording from start to finish. The first thing to do in this paper edit is to identify any unnecessary content. People love going off on tangents and talking in metaphors that don’t add value to the discussion. Mark all that stuff for deletion. And because this is a paper edit, you’ll know roughly where to find it if you delete something you might want later.
The paper edit will also highlight sections that may work better elsewhere in the edit.
4
FIRST DRAFT CUT
Begin the editing process by applying your notes from the paper edit. As you cut, remove long pauses, filler words and ums and ahs. Some people use filler words (such as “you know” and “right?”) that aren’t noticeable under normal conversational conditions but leap out when heard in a recording. You want to remove those. If they annoy you in the edit, they will be infuriating for the end listener. I stop listening to podcasts if there are annoying repeating speech patterns.
5
ENHANCE THE AUDIO
For any video editor working with sound, this is obvious. However, if you’re dealing with poor recordings with vastly different levels between interviewer and interviewee, Adobe Audition’s Speech Volume Leveller filter is a lifesaver. The filter does exactly what it says on the tin. It levels everything … even background sounds, so be aware of that.
6
REVIEW AND REFINE
Once you’ve completed the initial edit, take the time to review the podcast and refine it further. Listen for any areas that need additional editing, such as repetitive content or unclear points.
7
DON’T USE PREMIERE
Going into the job, I knew I should use Adobe Audition, but after a frustrating hour wrestling with it, I decided to go with what I was familiar with. Premiere. It was a mistake. I was making a lot of cuts with the edit, and the process was becoming laborious in Premiere. I decided to return to Audition, stop wrestling with it, and just flow until I reached a zen-like state.