Interviews--What to do Before Beginning to Edit

Hi All,

The following pertains mostly to those individuals who have recorded an interview with someone and wish to edit this interview into a shorter piece featuring only the best of what was said. For example, you've interviewed a loved one or important member of the community and now want to turn an hour interview into a five minute piece likely to attract a wider audience.

I'm assuming no knowledge of this process and will take you through step-by-step. I'm also assuming you've recorded on some kind of digital recording device and are now ready to transfer those digital files to your computer. Needless to say, the process below is just one method--modify as you'd like...

Step One: Create a folder on your computer into which you will place all the recorded sound. I suggest sub-folders for more complicated projects. For example, if you've conducted interviews with your entire family, create a folder titled "family interviews" and then use a folder to organize each family member, "Dad," "Mom," etc.

Step Two: Use a USB card reader to drag and drop the sound files into the folder on your desktop or external hard drive. Card Readers make this process a whole lot easier (no software) and using them is often better for your machine. Of course, you may elect to skip the card reader and export from machine.
**If purchasing a card reader, I suggest you get one with a cord--the ones without cords will not attach to every computer.

Where you're at now...You should now have your sound neatly organized in a folder (the three tracks I used recording my two hour interview with grandpa are in a folder titled "grandpa" on my desktop, for example).

Step Three (optional): Go into itunes and create a new playlist--give the playlist a logical title ("Grandpa Interview") and drag and drop all your sound files into this playlist. Why do this? itunes let's you easily listen to the file on your computer, clearly indicating time for logging and the like.

Step Four: Listening and Logging: Start at the beginning and listen to EVERYTHING you recorded. People often want to cut corners here, but I strongly suggest listening to the entire interview. As you listen, create a log of the recording. The log is NOT a transcript--you need not write down every word. But, your log should do the following: 1) Clearly indicate the title of the track or track number, 2) Provide a fairly detailed account of what was said when, 3) Use markers to indicate when important things were said. Click here for a sample log--notice how the log does the things I've mentioned--especially important are the lines like "excellent tape" that will help me go back into the log and find the stuff I want to use in my short piece.

**I open both itunes and a Word document as I log the recording--this way I can easily see the time, pause if needed, etc. I believe logging this way is much easier than, for example, logging from the machine on which you've recorded.

Step five: Beginning to Edit. You now have a fairly detailed log and are ready to dump the big sound file into an audio editor to begin making a shorter piece capturing the highlights of your interview. We'll discuss the editing process in the next entry.

**If you'd like to hear the interview detailed in the sample log above, click here and scroll down to the interview featuring George and David Mocol (the fourth interview on the page).