Read a script to camera and you will say some of the lines twice. You stumble, stop, breathe and start the sentence again. The recording ends up with every flub still in it, and the edit begins with finding each one and working out which attempt to keep.
This guide covers the native way to remove bad takes in Premiere Pro with Text-Based Editing, and where it runs out. Then it shows how Editor flags the repeated takes for you and builds the cut once you have checked it.
This video may reference an older version of Editor. Features and UI may have changed since recording.
How do you remove bad takes with Premiere Pro's own tools?
Use Text-Based Editing: transcribe the sequence, find the repeats by reading, and delete the text of the attempts you do not want. Premiere Pro cuts the matching audio and video.
- Open the Text panel. Choose Text from the Window menu and go to the Transcript tab.
- Transcribe the sequence. Start the transcription from the Transcript tab and wait for the text to appear.
- Read for restarts. A bad take shows up as a sentence that begins, stops and begins again. Search the transcript for a phrase you remember repeating.
- Select the attempt you do not want. Highlight its text. Premiere Pro marks the matching range on the timeline.
- Extract it. Extract removes that range and closes the gap. Lift removes it and leaves a hole.
- Play the join. Trim a few frames if a word was clipped, then move to the next repeat.
Text-Based Editing can also find pauses and filler words and delete them in bulk. It does not find retakes. Nothing in the transcript tells you a line was said twice, so that part is still reading, start to finish. On a long scripted recording the reading is most of the job.
What do you need before you start?
- Premiere Pro. Editor runs as a panel inside it.
- Filmit Studio. The desktop app installs it into Premiere Pro, on Mac or Windows, and Editor comes with it.
- A Filmit account. Editor is part of Filmit Studio, and there is a free trial.
Once it is installed, open it in Premiere Pro from Window, Extensions, Filmit Studio, then open Editor from the panel.
How does Editor find and remove bad takes?
It transcribes the sequence on your machine, flags the lines you said more than once, and shows you the cut in the script before anything is built. You approve it, then it cuts.
- Open Editor. In Premiere Pro, go to Window, Extensions, Filmit Studio, and click Editor in the panel.
- Add your source. Add the sequence from your project and pick the audio track that holds the voice. In the demo that is A1.
- Transcribe. The first time, Editor asks you to install Whisper, the transcription engine. It is free and it runs on your own machine.
- Open your cuts in Full script. Repeated takes are flagged in the script. In the demo Max says a phrase twice, and Editor marks the first attempt to go and shows the take it keeps in green.
- Click anything you want to keep. One flag in the demo is not a real retake. One click on it and it stays in the cut.
- Choose what else goes. Filler words takes out the ums and uhs. Profanity handles curse words, and can cover them with a tone or a custom sound you load in. AI takes is there too, with your own API key. It is left off in the demo, and the built-in rules do the work.
- Switch to Review mode on a long script. It shows only the places where something is cut, so you are not rereading the whole recording.
- Click Build in Premiere. Editor makes the cuts. In the demo the two flagged pieces are gone and the line plays through clean.
- Jump from the script. Back in Full script, right-click a line and choose Jump here. The playhead goes to that moment in the original, which is a quick way to find any line.
Pro Tip: When you flub a line on camera, go back and restart the whole sentence. Editor finds retakes by spotting the same words starting again, so a clean restart is much easier for it to catch than a pickup from the middle of a phrase.
Where does it stop?
The takes are found by rules, and rules can be wrong. Review the script before you build.
- It can flag a repeat that was deliberate. Max shows one in the demo: the footage is from a podcast, and a line Editor read as a restatement was not one. A click kept it.
- It does not judge the performance. Editor knows a line was said twice. Which read was better is your call, so listen to both before you build.
- AI takes is optional and separate. It uses your own API key with your own AI provider. Everything else in this guide works without it.
Getting started
Editor comes with Filmit Studio, and there is a free trial. Bad takes are one job it does. For the rest of the tool, including the review controls and the other tabs, read the Editor for Premiere Pro overview.
