Now in Premiere Pro Beta: Bleep Censored Words

[TeresaDemel]

Have you ever interviewed someone who couldn’t control their potty mouth? Do you have a list of words that can’t be broadcast in your region? Well, we have the answer for you! Now you can mute or bleep any censored words using Text-Based Editing, in Premiere Pro Beta v25.6 build 38 or later.

How to use it:

1. Open a sequence with transcribed clips
2. Open the Text Panel to the Transcript tab
3. Click the Filter button, choose “Censored words”, then the Censored words list dialog will open
4. Add your words to the list, then click Save
5. In the Transcript, click Apply Effect and choose an effect
6. Click either Replace or Replace all

Premiere Pro will then mute the dialog where the censored word occurs and, if you chose Bleep, cut in a tone on a new track. (We have other fun sounds as well, some of which were recorded in the homes of our own team members.) The mute is done with an instance of the Amplify effect, so your existing volume levels or keyframes won’t change.

We want to hear from you:

• Are there other effects you want to add?
• How do you want to represent your bleeped words in your captions? (F***, F**k, ****, or something else?)

[tvjazzman]

My dialog is on track 1 and 2. I would like to replace the cursed words with M/E from tracks 3 and 4 and assignable by track at the cursed word position.

[mattchristensen]

Hi @tvjazzman try choosing "Mute" from the drop down menu and apply that to the censored words. That will keyframe the words down so you don't hear them, and hear the M&E from the rest of the mix.

[R Neil Haugen]

The option for a duck-quack is a hoot ... but I love the option to use custom sound replacements. Coupled with the new search for say a "swoosh" sound in audio searches, you can select say a swoosh or a clap or foot-step as your replacement.

[hellopaul4]

Just testing this out, and my "Apply Effect" is always greyed out. I searched for Censored Words - for this test, I used the word "the" so it found plenty of instances; rather boringly the people in the interview I'm editing didn't scatter any 'entertaining' words throughout! Every instance of "the" is highlighted in the transcript, and according to your instructions, I should be able to "Apply Effect" (which is an odd description). But I can't, no matter what I click on. My dialogue is on 3 tracks (I have 3 people speaking) and I've transcribed the Mix channel. Other than a very brief bit of intro and outro, there is no music in the mix.

Any thoughts why this might be?

I do think the whole text/transcription/create captions panel/process is very random and unintuitive. PPro nearly always wants to transcribe all my rushes; I nearly always want to add subtitles at the very end of an edit, and not worry about the source material. It's always a bit of a faff to do this, and involves some degree of guesswork and trial and error.

[mattchristensen]

@hellopaul4 the issue is that you've transcribed the Mix channel, instead of using the source clip transcripts. A sequence is always in one of two transcript modes:

1. Text-Based editing – this is the default for a new sequence. This means the sequence transcript is generated on the fly by collecting the transcripts from the source clips in the sequence. As you add, remove, and trim clips, the transcript updates.
2. Static – this is done by you clicking on the "..." option and choosing "Generate static transcript". Then Premiere takes the audio of the sequence at that time, renders it down, and transcribes that audio at that point in time. If you add, remove, or trim clips, the transcript does not update and you need to re-transcribe to bring them back in alignment after an edit.

The "Apply Effect" button requires that you are in that first mode. Only then does Premiere know which clips are creating the transcript and therefore exactly where to mute the dialog and cut in the bleep or other sound. This is also true of any of the other bulk editing actions you can do (ex: filter for Pauses and do a Remove all).

To try it out, save a copy of your project for safety, and then in the "..." menu choose "Generate text-based editing transcript" which will put your sequence back into the first mode.

[Janine24338966u1w6]

Love this feature! I was wondering if there were ways I could go about undo-ing the removal of some bleeps. I would apply my custom censors and they work just fine, but sometimes there's a word I want to bring back but it kinda erases the part of the audio entirely so I can't seem to get it back without maybe re-inserting the original video.

[mattchristensen]

@Janine24338966u1w6 when you bleep a word, Premiere also mutes the audio of that source clip, to guarantee no part of the censored word is still audible. This is accomplished by applying an "Amplify" effect to the clip and then keyframing the volume down. So you can get the word back either by removing the keyframes or the entire effect, in the Effects Control Panel.