prev — main — next
SESSION C.3 : EXERCISES

EDITING REALITY

The trainer may have provided you with some recorded material from previous broadcasts for these exercises. Or you will be asked to record your own work material.

Break into teams of two and either take a portable recorder for vox pops, or arrange for some studio time, if available, to conduct, record and edit some interviews.

From whatever source, you should display at a later Session one or more of the following:

Exercise A.

1. (a) Extra noise in background, and (b) edited out.

2. (a) Overlong interview, and (b) a coherent edit.

3. (a) Complicated interview and (b) edited for clarity.

4. (a) Complicated debate between protagonists and (b) edited for clarity.

Exercise B.

In teams of two you should edit some of these, deciding what to leave in and what to take out.

Look for sounds like these that distract from the spoken content:

Prolonged coughing, spluttering and wheezing. Squeaking chairs, slamming doors sudden increase in background noise. Vocal mistakes in reading. Unnecessary repetitions. (You may have to justify this one.) 'Ums' and 'ahs' that can begin to irritate. (Some are necessary to the natural rhythm of speech.)

Exercise C.

Your team may wish to try something different, look at these:

The above debate (4) edited/distorted to create an imbalance in favour of one of the participants. You could also decide between you to restructure, for greater coherence, a recording previously broadcast. Edit in such a way as to make the edit obvious: e.g. someone laughing goes straight in to a serious tone of voice. Editing vox pops in a sequence to create an impression with the listener. And then edit in a different sequence to create the opposite impression.

The end result of these exercises should give you, both greater technical competency and a better awareness of the way the presentation of broadcast material can affect the story being told.

prev — main — next