How to CENSOR People and Logos (Premiere Pro Tutorial)

Published on November 11, 2020

Video Effects

censor, censored, censorship, gaussian blur, mosaic effect, pitch shifter, premiere pro

How to censor people and logos in Premiere pro?

Well it’s actually extremely easy to do this. From the effect library we can use the gaussian blur effect (or another blur effect). Then from the effect controls panel we go into that blur effect and make a circular mask within it. You can place this mask on a persons face or on a logo. Then you can track the mask with the mask path tracking options. And then just increase the bluriness.

Another way to blur is by using the mosaic effect from the effects library and do the exact same steps inside the effect controls panel. I tend to animate the horizontal and vertical blocks by giving them a specific value. Then I place keyframe, go further in time and alter both values.

Why and when do we censor?

Whenever you’re shooting something in a public place you have a chance that someone or something appears on screen but actually shouldn’t. Like for instance a person in the background or the logo of a story. Well in that case it’s nice to blur that person or logo so you won’t get into any trouble.

Another thing that we want to censor is nudity, this all depends or culture of course but in most cases whenever someone undresses it isn’t okay to show his or her private parts. So blurring that region of the body is a simple thing to do.

Censoring Audio

Of course it’s also possible to censor audio. I often see this when people are doing an anonymous interview. To do this you can use the pitch shifter effect from Premiere Pro, drag that onto your audio and change the cents and semi-tones. This creates a really low voice which is not recognizable.

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