The Art of Audio Editing
Radiolab’s Making the Hippo Dance
If you don’t listen to WNYC’s Radiolab, you’re missing out. It’s seriously one of the best podcasts/radio shows I’ve ever listened to. It’s a show that delves into science using artful audio production techniques to sweeten the listeners’ experience. Recently the show’s hosts, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, gave a talk explaining the creative choices they make producing one of their segments. Listen to the episode here.
As a video editor, half of what you do is edit audio. The creative choices that you make on picture and sound are mostly subtle things that an audience doesn’t consciously perceive. While it’s hard to explain this in a concise way, Jad and Robert make a great attempt in the Hippo Dance episode. They do so by answering questions like “how much should you embroider?” and “how stupid do you want to be?” Their points are reinforced by playing back a piece of raw tape and comparing it to the polished result filled with filters, reverb, and additional audio production. It’s a beautiful piece about fireflies, one in which their production style really shines through.
Everything they do on the show serves to aurally extend analogies and metaphors established in their storytelling. It’s quite a wonderful show and this particular episode does a great job at explaining a very subtle art. If you don’t subscribe to the podcast, you should do so now.
20 October 2008 at 9:53 am
I liked this episode too. And yes, the hippo is very heavy. I’m probably one of those people that was lost after the krebs cycle (although I blame that on teaching methods and not my own waning interest) and I have great respect for the radiolab team trying to change that.