I often get asked "how do you remove the music/narration?" from the shows featured in my fan-edits (eg. Prehistoric Planet), so I thought I'd make this BTS post on it.
The answer is: I don't, really. I try my best to clean up the sound and get as much audio from the show itself as is possible. For this, it is very useful to work with a copy of the material that has a 5.1 mix, because then you can isolate different channels and see if there are clean sounds in those.
More often than not, the narration itself is contained within the center channel of the 5.1 mix, and has very little music bleaching into it. In some shows (such as Surviving Earth and WWD25) there is no music whatsoever in the center channel. So the narration and the sound effects in that channel are completely isolated from the music (which is more pronounced in the right and left front channels), and so the center channel can be used for sampling isolated sound effects with little or no music bleaching (as well as isolating/muting the narration). In case of subtle music bleaching (often happens in PhP), one can try and tame it a bit with EQ filters and noise reduction filters. Or it might not be particularly noticeable once you apply your own music, so those sounds get drowned essentially.
But even with this bit of extraction, there is A LOT of re-work that I do - and that is the real "secret" (and the most time consuming portion of my fan-editing).
That means placing each individual foley sound effects applying new background ambiences and so on. Here in pictures you can see what the timeline looks like for Ice Age North America. The majority of layers seen in the timeline are sound effects. The visual editing looks quite messy to start with as well, but once I've figured that part out I can clean it down onto an individual track - and then I do the sound last (which eventually also gets cleaned into 3 individual tracks for a master mix, one with ambiences, one with foley and one with the music).
Having done these types of videos for 3 years now, I have built up quite a library of sound effects that I have sampled from these shows (including Planet Earth etc), as well borrowing sounds from video games (there is a lot of Read Dead Redemption 2 sounds here lol) different movies and so on, and I also own some purchasable SFX libraries that I use.
Like the visuals, the sound aspect of my videos is also remixed media (i.e. fan-editing), and so sampling sounds from TV shows and games is NOT something I'd recommend doing for original content or anything you'd want to monetize (this channel has always been, and will always be, de-monetized).
For original content, you have to either record your own sound effects, find royalty free sounds or buy sound effect packs (and of course play around with all the fun audio filters your software provides!).
I don't want to make it seem as if sound design is just tedious work, it is just as fun and creative a process as doing visual art even if people don't immediately think about it as much as that in which they see, and here too there is balance between accuracy and the rule of cool that has to be reached somewhere. :)
"The Chapada do Araripe, in northeastern Brazil, is one of the country's most important regions for biodiversity, water resources, geological heritage, and paleontology. Its Early Cretaceous deposits, particularly the Crato and Romualdo formations, preserve an internationally significant fossil record that has transformed our understanding of ancient ecosystems and the evolution of vertebrates, including one of the world's most remarkable records of pterosaurs."
Read more about why it is threatened via the link above.
The accompanying book for Blue Planet III releases on 12 Nov 2026. The series itself will likely release around that time as well, plus/minus a week or two. 🐬🪼🐙
On Dinocon yesterday (a paleo-art convention in the UK), in a room full of committed paleo-artists and dinosaur fans, Tim Haines (creator of the original Walking With Dinosaurs) held a talk on Surviving Earth and on using generative AI for future productions (of which he has shown interest in using during prior interviews on youtube); while showing the audience AI-generated clips, or in my opinion: slop. Haines was appropriately boo'd, did not take any questions as planned and immediately rushed out to do a meet.
Note that I was not there. Just hearing different takes from people who were.
It's also important to note that Surviving Earth, which finished production in 2024, did not use any generative AI in the production. It features 3D animations from several different VFX studios, photographic matte painting compositions and some practical effects - but no gen-AI as far as has been confirmed. Having said that, I hope Tim Haines does not do another paleo show (or any kind of show for that matter) so long as he is planning to use gen-AI. According to some, he is a tech-bro first, a dinosaur/art fan second. And now, he appears to have washed out.
As with all of my planets and paleo maps, the textures were painted in Photoshop and rendered with Blender. This particular planet (late Permian) I made two years ago, with the intention of making a Permian video of my own. Perhaps some of you recall that whole thing. Well, I never got around to finishing it, but luckily PBS Eons found use for the reconstruction!
There will also be a Carboniferous planet in the series, as well as a devastated version of the Permian in the image below.
I have now seen all 5 episodes of the BBC Science Unit series 'Evolution', and I can safely say it retains the same high quality as the masterful predecessor series 'Earth' from 2023, if not even a nudge better. Like 'Earth', it's presented by the charismatic Chris Packham, an engaging (and sometimes quite funny) science communicator with a real love of words and of the subject matter - that is animals and science.
Sprinkled throughout the series are some very tasteful and pretty CG reconstructions of paleo critters and environments. I won't spoil too much of these just yet, as I think they would be more fun to discover on your own, but here's as an image of the Ediacaran garden as an example (all of you who've been wanting to see more Ediacaran and Cambrian reconstructions on TV really ought to watch this).
However, in case you haven't seen 'Earth' or similar BBC science series like 'Solar System' with Brian Cox or 'First Life' with David Attenborough, let me make it very clear that these CGI scenes are short vignettes, the purpose of which is to illustrate the ancestral origin of certain anatomical features and so on. This is NOT a natural history series like Walking With Dinosaurs or whatever, it is a science series. So in case you only want to watch fictional stories about dinosaurs with speculative behaviors then this is not for you.
Each episode is about its own deep evolutionary theme, the origin of complexity (ep1), reproduction (ep2), feeding (ep3), intelligence (ep4) and movement (ep5). These themes are then anchored with their own modern species as a the frame in which the origin and evolution of these traits are told, beginning way back into the precambrian and ending in present. The Elephant, for example, serves as the anchor for the evolution of complexity in episode 1, while the horse serves as an extreme example of how the evolution of movement can shape an animal in curious ways.
Unlike other paleo related shows of this year, like 'Surviving Earth' or 'The Dinosaurs' (fun as they can be at times), 'Evolution' treats its audience with a lot more respect and intelligence, and I couldn't recommend it more. I can almost guarantee that it will increase your curiosity of the natural world and the mysterious of deep time, A+
The entire series can be streamed on BBC iplayer right now. If you're outside the UK, like me, it's VPN time. Like 'Earth', a different version of the series (unfortunately without Chris, the presenter) will be released on international channels sometime later, e.g. PBS in the US. There will also be a blu-ray/DVD in little over a month.
Paleo Edits
I often get asked "how do you remove the music/narration?" from the shows featured in my fan-edits (eg. Prehistoric Planet), so I thought I'd make this BTS post on it.
The answer is: I don't, really. I try my best to clean up the sound and get as much audio from the show itself as is possible. For this, it is very useful to work with a copy of the material that has a 5.1 mix, because then you can isolate different channels and see if there are clean sounds in those.
More often than not, the narration itself is contained within the center channel of the 5.1 mix, and has very little music bleaching into it. In some shows (such as Surviving Earth and WWD25) there is no music whatsoever in the center channel. So the narration and the sound effects in that channel are completely isolated from the music (which is more pronounced in the right and left front channels), and so the center channel can be used for sampling isolated sound effects with little or no music bleaching (as well as isolating/muting the narration). In case of subtle music bleaching (often happens in PhP), one can try and tame it a bit with EQ filters and noise reduction filters. Or it might not be particularly noticeable once you apply your own music, so those sounds get drowned essentially.
But even with this bit of extraction, there is A LOT of re-work that I do - and that is the real "secret" (and the most time consuming portion of my fan-editing).
That means placing each individual foley sound effects applying new background ambiences and so on. Here in pictures you can see what the timeline looks like for Ice Age North America. The majority of layers seen in the timeline are sound effects. The visual editing looks quite messy to start with as well, but once I've figured that part out I can clean it down onto an individual track - and then I do the sound last (which eventually also gets cleaned into 3 individual tracks for a master mix, one with ambiences, one with foley and one with the music).
Having done these types of videos for 3 years now, I have built up quite a library of sound effects that I have sampled from these shows (including Planet Earth etc), as well borrowing sounds from video games (there is a lot of Read Dead Redemption 2 sounds here lol) different movies and so on, and I also own some purchasable SFX libraries that I use.
Like the visuals, the sound aspect of my videos is also remixed media (i.e. fan-editing), and so sampling sounds from TV shows and games is NOT something I'd recommend doing for original content or anything you'd want to monetize (this channel has always been, and will always be, de-monetized).
For original content, you have to either record your own sound effects, find royalty free sounds or buy sound effect packs (and of course play around with all the fun audio filters your software provides!).
I don't want to make it seem as if sound design is just tedious work, it is just as fun and creative a process as doing visual art even if people don't immediately think about it as much as that in which they see, and here too there is balance between accuracy and the rule of cool that has to be reached somewhere. :)
12 minutes ago | [YT] | 7
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Paleo Edits
Hey! Been a minute since the last one but, premiering Ice Age North America tomorrow! (21:00 CEST). Be there or be square
Running time: 26 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9C9V...
1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 435
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Paleo Edits
Please sign this petition to protect the Chapada do Araripe paleontological and environmental heritage:
www.change.org/p/protect-the-chapada-do-araripe-sa…
"The Chapada do Araripe, in northeastern Brazil, is one of the country's most important regions for biodiversity, water resources, geological heritage, and paleontology. Its Early Cretaceous deposits, particularly the Crato and Romualdo formations, preserve an internationally significant fossil record that has transformed our understanding of ancient ecosystems and the evolution of vertebrates, including one of the world's most remarkable records of pterosaurs."
Read more about why it is threatened via the link above.
Thank you!
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 364
View 10 replies
Paleo Edits
The accompanying book for Blue Planet III releases on 12 Nov 2026. The series itself will likely release around that time as well, plus/minus a week or two. 🐬🪼🐙
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 447
View 14 replies
Paleo Edits
First episode of Eons: 'Life and Death on Pangea' premieres today! Be there, link below : )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY8mi...
1 month ago | [YT] | 342
View 7 replies
Paleo Edits
[Post has been edited for better wording]
On Dinocon yesterday (a paleo-art convention in the UK), in a room full of committed paleo-artists and dinosaur fans, Tim Haines (creator of the original Walking With Dinosaurs) held a talk on Surviving Earth and on using generative AI for future productions (of which he has shown interest in using during prior interviews on youtube); while showing the audience AI-generated clips, or in my opinion: slop. Haines was appropriately boo'd, did not take any questions as planned and immediately rushed out to do a meet.
Note that I was not there. Just hearing different takes from people who were.
It's also important to note that Surviving Earth, which finished production in 2024, did not use any generative AI in the production. It features 3D animations from several different VFX studios, photographic matte painting compositions and some practical effects - but no gen-AI as far as has been confirmed. Having said that, I hope Tim Haines does not do another paleo show (or any kind of show for that matter) so long as he is planning to use gen-AI. According to some, he is a tech-bro first, a dinosaur/art fan second. And now, he appears to have washed out.
Dinocon's respone:
x.com/DinoConUK/status/2081447513064685822
Rallying call against gen-AI in art:
bsky.app/profile/raftingzalmoxes.bsky.social/post/…
x.com/raftingzalmoxes/status/2081797122215772390
Generative AI has no place in art whatsoever.
1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 404
View 85 replies
Paleo Edits
Made a video with @billnguyen4148 , check it out below!^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOdW...
1 month ago | [YT] | 314
View 1 reply
Paleo Edits
A peak at the planetary shots I made for Eons new series :3
Eons uploaded a little summary of what to expect from the series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWriR...
As with all of my planets and paleo maps, the textures were painted in Photoshop and rendered with Blender. This particular planet (late Permian) I made two years ago, with the intention of making a Permian video of my own. Perhaps some of you recall that whole thing. Well, I never got around to finishing it, but luckily PBS Eons found use for the reconstruction!
There will also be a Carboniferous planet in the series, as well as a devastated version of the Permian in the image below.
1 month ago | [YT] | 303
View 11 replies
Paleo Edits
'Evolution' review
I have now seen all 5 episodes of the BBC Science Unit series 'Evolution', and I can safely say it retains the same high quality as the masterful predecessor series 'Earth' from 2023, if not even a nudge better. Like 'Earth', it's presented by the charismatic Chris Packham, an engaging (and sometimes quite funny) science communicator with a real love of words and of the subject matter - that is animals and science.
Sprinkled throughout the series are some very tasteful and pretty CG reconstructions of paleo critters and environments. I won't spoil too much of these just yet, as I think they would be more fun to discover on your own, but here's as an image of the Ediacaran garden as an example (all of you who've been wanting to see more Ediacaran and Cambrian reconstructions on TV really ought to watch this).
However, in case you haven't seen 'Earth' or similar BBC science series like 'Solar System' with Brian Cox or 'First Life' with David Attenborough, let me make it very clear that these CGI scenes are short vignettes, the purpose of which is to illustrate the ancestral origin of certain anatomical features and so on. This is NOT a natural history series like Walking With Dinosaurs or whatever, it is a science series. So in case you only want to watch fictional stories about dinosaurs with speculative behaviors then this is not for you.
Each episode is about its own deep evolutionary theme, the origin of complexity (ep1), reproduction (ep2), feeding (ep3), intelligence (ep4) and movement (ep5). These themes are then anchored with their own modern species as a the frame in which the origin and evolution of these traits are told, beginning way back into the precambrian and ending in present. The Elephant, for example, serves as the anchor for the evolution of complexity in episode 1, while the horse serves as an extreme example of how the evolution of movement can shape an animal in curious ways.
Unlike other paleo related shows of this year, like 'Surviving Earth' or 'The Dinosaurs' (fun as they can be at times), 'Evolution' treats its audience with a lot more respect and intelligence, and I couldn't recommend it more. I can almost guarantee that it will increase your curiosity of the natural world and the mysterious of deep time, A+
The entire series can be streamed on BBC iplayer right now. If you're outside the UK, like me, it's VPN time. Like 'Earth', a different version of the series (unfortunately without Chris, the presenter) will be released on international channels sometime later, e.g. PBS in the US. There will also be a blu-ray/DVD in little over a month.
1 month ago | [YT] | 416
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