Recording and Editing Radio Trailer

We had to edit our radio trailer to make sure that we could include sound snippets from our documentary.

After we had scripted our voice-over, we used one of the broadcast quality camera's in college with a clip microphone to record the voice-over. We made sure that the microphone was clear by changing the battery and using headphones to hear the recorded sound. Once we were happy with the quality of sound we recorded, we imported audio onto Adobe Premiere Pro to then edit into a 30 second radio trailer.

By using the selection tool, we were able to adjust the duration of the audio by dragging the length of either side of the clip in the direction of whether we wanted the sound to come in sooner or make the ending longer. This was useful to do because we were able to experiment with the length of clips and as a final result make sure that the trailer lasted for exactly 30 seconds - the length of a professional radio trailer.

To remove the audio that we didn't need in our radio trailer, we used the razor tool to cut out the parts that were unnecessary. We only used the razor tool when we knew the parts we were removing were not going to be needed because then we could move around the other pieces of audio, knowing that they have a purpose in the radio trailer. In addition, if the audio duration was too long, we also used the razor tool to make smaller segments to move around, to ensure it wasn't one dull long take.

Finally, we had to make sure that the volume was balanced because we wanted our radio trailer to appear as professional as possible. To adjust the volume, we used the selection tool to move the volume control lines up or down on the audio tracks until they were all completely balanced. This was the final thing we had to do in the process of recording and editing our radio trailer, because then we had completed the 30 seconds we aimed to fill.