Saturday, December 15, 2007

Lost in Translation - The Whisper on the Internet

Well, Hi there and thanks for stopping by...

Since you're here at all, it must be because of my little video project.

The film "Lost in Translation" has a final scene with Bill Murray whispering something to Scarlett Johansson that the audience can't quite hear. It can be heard. Just barely. But not well enough to be understood.

Having done some noise removal and "cleaning up" of poorly recorded audio tapes for attorneys and private investigators in the past, it seemed to me that it should be possible for me to use those same tools and experience to remove enough of the noise to see what has been hidden from us all these years.

I put together a short video that allows you to hear it normally. With processing that uses digital noise print removal to try to remove some of the background noise, I was also able to remove most of the lower frequencies and leave mostly the upper "air" portion of the words. In fact, there is one portion of the "But, I won't let"....that I believe is actually slurred together. More like "Budeye won't let"...the "But" is almost not there at all...but I left it in for clarity.

I think it turned out rather well.

I proceeded to upload it to youtube on April 15, 2007 and waited...

Nothing.


Time passed and the video went mostly unnoticed. Now, eight months later, it has suddenly been "discovered."

So, to those who agree and appreciate my efforts...you're welcome. To those who don't think we should know...sorry. Just remember you shouldn't hate the messenger, simply because you don't like the message.

After all, it's only a movie.




Postscript: The hits on this video eventually reached over 850,000. Then youtube removed it for "infringement of copyright".

You can still see it in it's original form in the video above.