Team Project #1 Editing

Please follow these instructions carefully.

The purpose of this project is to help you to become proficient at physically editing and assembling program material. This project is not hard but it is complex and requires you to work carefully and methodically. If you have never edited an interview before you should do the following to insure success:

1) plan your lab time very carefully,

2) monitor your audio levels carefully,

3) work in a task-oriented sequence.

You are going to dub a previously taped interview of Ted Koppel and physically edit out the original open and close of the program as well as the original questions asked by Steak Shapiro, Bo Bock, and Mike Bell. You are going to insert your own open and close and questions in place of the original. When you are completed, this project should sound as if you had conducted the actual interview on your own regularly scheduled talk show.

You will need a 7 inch reel of tape with 1200 or 1800 feet of 1-mil recording tape (tapestock of less than 1 mil is too thin to edit successfully and you may have many difficulties with tape stretching and breaking).

Bring your tape into the lab and dub the Ted Koppel interview from the master cassette. When you make your dub pay close attention to setting levels correctly to the calibration tone at the head end of the interview. I suggest generating tone on the reel to reel, setting your levels, recording 10 seconds of tone, then dubbing the interview from the cassette. If you wish to also make a cassette dub of the interview you may do so in the lab on the dual cassette boom box, which has high speed dub capabilities. You will be able to listen to the interview at home and make notes about where you are going to edit questions before you come into the studio.*

Carefully note questions in the interview and then write new, similar questions reflecting your own style, which would elicit the same responses from Ted Koppel. Write a new program opening and closing that makes you (or your partner or both) the star(s) of a weekly talk show. Choose music for the open and close that would be appropriate for your show's demographics.

When you are ready to begin, fast forward past the original interview on your tape to a blank spot and record tone, slate, and the first question that you have written. Note the location of your newly recorded question if the tape machine has an index counter, or label the spot using leader tape. Go back to the head of the interview and compare your audio level and sound quality with the interviewee. Do you sound significantly louder, closer, or farther away from the mic than the guest? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, adjust your mic placement and levels accordingly. Try another test recording.

When you are satisfied that your levels match those of the interviewee, record a new opening, all the new questions in order, and a new closing for the show. Remember to use the music that you choose for the opening and closing segments (you may want to have someone else "voice" the open and close for your show).

Edit the new tone and slate, the open, the close and your new questions into the original interview so that the show becomes your show. Insert a commercial (choose one of the award winning commercials from the CD in the lab) after the fourth question in the interview. Work carefully and methodically so that you don't get confused as to which question is being removed and which is being added.

Edit 5 seconds of leader tape at the beginning of the tone and slate and at the end of the close of the program.

Label the leader tape and box (don’t write too large) with your name and project and date. Turn in your tape by Thursday 15, 2001. This lab is worth 100 points.

Each person is to type a report (1-2 pages) that explains what you did for the project, what you learned, and any problems you encountered. (11-12 point type, 1 inch margins)

Check pages 129-133 in your text for a step-by-step review of the editing process.

Remember: Mustard buttons "out" and record buttons "in" to record

Mustard buttons "in" for playback (i.e., to hear what you recorded)

Tone (1 kHz): Press "in" to record tone, release (button out) to stop recording tone

Some hints on completing this project:

Listen carefully to the interview and try to put yourself into the setting so that you convince the listener that you're right there with (name of the interview). That means that you show try to mimic the sound quality and presence of the original interview. Does the interviewer sound very close to the mic or farther away? Does the studio "sound" dead or live? Also, phrase your questions in ways that reflect your style but that are still appropriate to the setting of the interview.

Take out emotive sounds of the interviewer that may occur during the answers of the interviewee. You could try inserting your own 'yeses, uh uhs,' etc. instead, if you have time. You could try breaking up the answers of the guest to shorten or lengthen segments to meet your timing requirements.

Give your questions and the guest's answers enough pauses to sound realistic and not edited. Editing questions and responses too close together sounds very canned.

© B.L. Yates 2001