Research suggests that audio is actually more important than visuals when perceiving the overall quality of your movie. Unfortunately, even when recording in a proper video studio, low levels of background noise will sneak into your recording. It’s usually caused by things we tune out in our daily lives, such as air conditioning or the hum of a computer fan.
Fortunately, most video editing programs have an audio filter to reduce background noise. Let’s take iMovie for instance, the video editing program that comes standard on all Mac computers. Once you’ve dragged your clip down into the timeline, click on it to make sure it’s selected. Toward the top right of your iMovie window, there are several icons above the video preview pane.
- Click the audio icon.
- Check that Equalizer is set to Hum Reduction.
- Check Reduce background noise.
- Drag the percentage slider to the right, and listen to the video clip.
If you overdo it, the voices will become distorted. Find the percentage at which the background noise has been reduced, but the voices still sound normal. If you’re not using iMovie, here are tutorials on how to reduce noise using a couple other common video editing programs such as Adobe Premiere and Final Cut.