I get a lot of questions upon if I can "do" hermetic sweetening, usually by stressed filmmakers, calling in the center of the night. They are disconcerted because the sealed in their movie or video is bad....
I get a lot of questions on if I can "do" hermetic sweetening, usually by restless filmmakers, calling in the middle of the night. They are frantic because the strong in their movie or video is bad.
They've used a cheap mic, plugged into the camera, or worse, have used the on-camera mic.
They had a pal aimlessly point the mic at the floor, or the sky, anywhere but at the actor muttering his lines, and moved the mic randomly during shooting.
Some, from the unassailable of it, have prickly the mic directly at the whirring camera, or rumbling electric generator, or humming air conditioner, or flourishing fluorescent lamp. They've bumped the mic against the wall, or the ceiling, or trees or bushes. They're far away from what they're recording, not even in the thesame vicinity. There's appropriately much "room sound," you can barely hear the actor mumbling along.
So, the unquestionable guy (whoever they can acquire for a few minutes - usually a well-meaning person subsequently no experience) turns taking place the level too far, which just makes the hermetic distort horribly, or too low, which buries the good unassailable in the mud.
Sound Editing adds more mistakes, and compounds the problem.
The filmmaker has the equipment, and wants the film to be good.
You'd think he'd entrance a photograph album upon the subject. You would be wrong.
He chops the solid in the same way as he chops the picture, and that's it. He doesn't split it into tracks, or replace bad sound, or finesse the tracks, or on the other hand spend get older exerting care and craft upon his pretentious film's soundtrack.
Essentially, afterward he's curtains shooting and caustic and laying music, he thinks he is done, without spending the minimum of get older and care and allowance it takes, to have a fine strong track. fittingly the filmmaker shows his movie, taking into account its bad sound, to lukewarm audience reaction. Ouch!
People don't know why the movie is bad, actually. Not one in ten can acknowledge "bad sound," they just think the movie stinks. If the filmmaker is very, unquestionably lucky, somebody will say him the sound is bad. Otherwise, he has no clue.
He's disappointed, but he yet wants to maybe fix it. Somebody says "sweetening" the unquestionable will help. hence he comes to me. He wants to know if bad unquestionable can be fixed. I have to say him the bad news - no.
At this stage, unless he has a good agreement of get older and money, and is amenable to start entirely more than and acknowledge the proper care, nothing can be done.
Bad unassailable is the product of negligence. If you spend the get older and care, from the beginning, there is no defense for your film or video sound to be bad.
You've probably seen many want ad movies with good sound, as a result why doesnt your movie hermetic following them? You probably don't in point of fact know how a good movie sounds, and what effort went into making them hermetic good.
Take some time, and actively listen. After a while, you'll broadcast what a fine movie sounds like. I was enormously lucky taking into consideration I was starting out. I read a tape by Ivan Watson from England, who spelled out precisely what it takes to scrap book and shorten and mixture fine movie sound.
You can yet find "Uncle Ivan's" books, either online, http://snurl.com/brbu or at your library. If you haven't log on any filmmaking books, you infatuation to. acquire going!What can you accomplish to make your movie track sealed less subsequent to a video, and more afterward a genuine movie?
Maybe a bigger ask is, "Why does video sound consequently bad?" I think that's a fair question, because frankly, most video sound, (all elements music-dialog-effects), sucks. I've heard exceptions, so I know it's not just the video itself.
Film does unassailable no question alternating than video, I am clear of that.
Real movies are rich-sounding, in the manner of lonesome the sounds and music that fake the bill along. Video, even shot by filmmakers who should know better, often is tinny and muffled, afterward thumps and noise upon the tracks.
How is film sound swap from video? Making a movie sound subsequently a movie starts when the production sound.
Film unassailable is recorded upon analog machines (yes, they nevertheless exist), or on cool further 96Khz/24bit sampling recorders.
Mini-DV camera hermetic is uncompressed 48Khz/16bit sampling.
That's better-than-CD audio quality, but camera makers keep grant by using cheap audio circuits in most under-$5k video cameras. Cheap-and-dirty analog-to-digital circuits add noise and distortion to your high-quality mic's crisp analog sound.
The best video camera sound I've found is on the Panasonic DVX-100A. Its audio section is fine as most DAT or solid-state flash memory recorders. Shooting afterward one is taking into account recording on a separate digital recorder.
Film hermetically sealed is recorded with a midrange bump, and an EQ raise above 6KHz.
6KHz is the tall stop of the human voice. Midrange is not far off from 2.5KHz. The film hermetic "EQ raise" at 6KHz increases dialogue intelligibility and perceived crispness.
In video, unassailable is recorded without pre or state EQ. Video solid in addition to usually uses inferior mics to those used in film sound. Film hermetic mics have a cleaner sound, and flatter response, sounding greater than before than the mics used to autograph album video sound. They are extremely directional (rejecting extraneous noise).
Give your video sound's midrange an EQ bump, and a lift at 6Khz, and it will be more once how film hermetically sealed is recorded. acquire some decent mics, not the cheapies. A Sennheiser ME66, or an Audio-Technika 835b, is mid-level, not revoltingly expensive, and really works well. Those will manage to pay for you a rich and full sound.
You may not want to compilation double-system (sound recorder surgically remove from the camera), but if you can, attain it! If you have a Nagra or supplementary analog wedding album recorder, use it. They just hermetic better.
35mm mag film to edit? Sounds great. It should its a 1/4" magnetic track at 18ips, and if you occupy blank spaces considering slug stock, it's self-gating.
In film sound, the strong designer matches unassailable to the look of the film. A unhappy movie has mood lighting, and the hermetically sealed will be expected to be consistent with it in emotional tone. Its dialogue is EQ'd less crisply, later a lower-frequency boost.
In a happy comedy, belittle frequencies are rolled off, and it's EQ'd and unclean to be "brighter."
Film unquestionable is "sweetened" by manipulating room tone, premixing audio levels, and with intent taking into account dialog, music, and effects for their proper audio EQ.
Film solid expects post-production sweetening, which makes film audio unquestionable hence vary from audio for video. Video unquestionable can be sweetened, but Indies use it lovely much as it is recorded. Yuck! What can be the end practically it? How can you create your movie sealed in the same way as a genuine movie?
First, declaration how video trial are meant for quick-and-easy operation, and not in point of fact for quality.I think most video unassailable sucks because the camera operator is as well as the strong recordist, and the camera op doesn't care nearly sound.
He wants the framing and focus and color and bla bla bla. hermetic is not his priority, and he's not really listening to what's coming through the mic and mixer and headphones. He can't. For your sound to be good, you must care practically it inborn good.
That care will force you to hear to your track, something most video hobbyists, and many filmmakers, usefully don't do.
Until they've drifting a film festival, and pronouncement the winner has fine sound. Or they look the one Indy film that comes along in a blue moon, the one behind fine sound.
If you actively listen to your track, you'll start hearing (it takes become old to train your ears) all the junk you're recording.
You'll put up with the steps critical (filtering, mic placement, EQ, editing) to discard everything that is extraneous. acquire rid of anything that doesn't create a mood, or push your bank account along.
You will put the mic just as close to your subject as you can, and roll off the wind noise, and use a fur fragment upon the mic, and unaccompanied blend in tolerable room or ambient noise, and on your own when it's necessary.
If there's a single "most important part," I would say it is "gain staging." Set your levels on purpose - at all stage!
When we recorded in analog, there was a positive forgiving vibes to the recording process. Overmodulation would "saturate" the tape, limiting levels past actually distorting.
Now everything's digital, and if you're recording digitally (to DAT, CD, Mini-disc, or Flash Memory), there is enormously tiny "headroom," and much less tolerance for clipping, than in analog.
If your meter goes "into the red," the unassailable becomes a chattery digital nightmare. It is ruined forever. suitably make clear you use "-6Db" for your "0Db," to keep it clean.
Always "expect the unexpected" bearing in mind quality your levels. I've noticed actors always "perform" 6Db louder than they "rehearse," and musicians accomplish too.
I always feed one mono signal to both stereo tracks, as soon as L at the "proper" level, and R backed off 6Db or so.
If the sound gets too loud, L will distort, but I'll nevertheless have a fortuitous to salvage that section of R, afterward I'm editing.
How much is enough? Experience will teach you. Listen! The major difference amid how film dialog sounds and video dialog sounds is the EQ and compression that is used to create it intelligible and "fatter." when practice, you will learn how to acquire that sound. There is no shortcut - you must practice!
You will learn what distortion sounds like, and you will learn to set the get properly, and boost the midrange or go to compression in recording or mixing, like it's necessary, to push the important signal going on out of the mud, and into your audience awareness.
How much boost? Again, experience.
That's why you infatuation a unassailable Mixer when strong as his on your own job, one who cares, considering passable faith in his ears, and experience at atmosphere the get and EQ, and as well as a trained and experienced Boom Operator, later necessary skills to reduction and distress the boom.
Make it determined to your sound crew that you announce solid just as important as the picture, and you expect good sham from them.
Insist they yell "Cut!" if it distorts, and say you past they obsession marginal take.
Don't make the mistake of letting "just anybody" volunteer to photo album sound. create determined they've done it before.
Just hanging a mic on a boom stand is greater than before than nothing, but not definitely much better. Care must be taken at all stage.
Get the best unassailable you can, gone you shoot, so your editing will go smoothly.
Few things are worse than an reduce session that becomes an audio salvage operation. It detracts from the creativity, replacing it in the same way as an freshen of desperation. You desire to edit, similar to you edit.
After your picture is locked, start the hermetically sealed edit. Split your tracks, so you can adjust the get on any element. If two characters are talking, you should have each on his own track.
Cut your dialogue, and after that effects. Use your audio editing program to "normalize" your levels, and clean going on the sound.
See what needs to be fixed, and fix it. Some stuff can, like Boom mic crashes, and ambient noise, but if something is bad and can't be fixed, replace it next ADR, looping, and foley.
Foley is certainly subjective, that is, it's not realistic. You don't broadcast footsteps at every in real life, but in the movies, if you dependence to know somebody's purposefully walking along, the footsteps are loud and unchangeable and pristine.
Tik, tik, tik.
Papers or clothes rustling, similar thing. There are persons who create their animated making clothing rustling noises, and walking and all those noises. They're called "Walkers," or "Foley Artists."
I don't mind having to tape all footstep and pedigree of dialogue. I've finished it enough, I know how to make it seem real. How? From ham it up it and play-act it, for that reason if you desire to learn how, acquire started, record something.
In fact, I much pick replacing location dialogue. This frees me to shoot when literally any camera, noisy or not.
Eyemo? Arri or Cameraflex? Mitchell, Eclair, Konvas?
All quite gorgeous results, if you record a track just to use as a lead track.
Or shoot two takes, one with the camera running, one without, but recording unassailable both times, and cheat the camera-less strong more than the camera take, and cut it into sync.
Looney, but it works, and that's what I do, and I acquire good sound.
The harder and longer you con on your sound edit, the better unplanned your mixture has to be good.
In my experience, looping or ADR are not all that expensive, when you have a vocal room in your house, and some good mics.
In a pinch, a closet full of coats works fine, or a tent made of carpet, hanging from the ceiling. Just put the mics away from your computer devotee or read windows.
My friend Jimmy O'Brien, Editor and Dialogue Director at Universal for many years, told me he'd flown to NY and in the distance places to photo album a few lines upon occasion, if it would repair or alter a parentage reading, or even correct the collect plan line! I know much of what I know just about film strong from a long-ago interview in the manner of Walter Murch, in an issue of "Filmmakers Newsletter," where he advised to replace every the lines, rather than just one, thus they'll every match. Die-hard attitude, but his tracks are lovely.
One of those that comes to mind is "Apocalypse Now," which had very nearly no usable sealed afterward they entered post-production. Think just about that - everything was ADR and Foley! Which brings me to the lessening in "making your movie hermetic subsequent to a genuine movie."
Real movies have real good sound tracks to begin with, and are to your liking to replace most, and sometimes every the sound, to make it truly good.
Use your imagination, to determine what process might create your hermetic "sound right." create a sealed express for each scene that serves the story. Use EQ and reverb and sound effects to create that space.
Compression is nevertheless a useful tool, even in these days of digital audio. It makes the "louds" quieter, and the "quiets" louder, raising the overall perceived level. That makes the track easier to mix, because it is "pre-mixed." The amalgamation flies itself.
Use compression sparingly, hence it doesn't make overall changes you don't want. Rather than compressing everything, use your audio editing software to charm in your get changes.
This is actually a encyclopedia type of compression, gone intelligence, (yours). Drawing in your level changes makes the track fatter and more intelligible.
Take every the times and care your movie requires, as soon as without help one outcome in mind, to make your movie tracks solid better. Have the picture scored by a composer who knows what he's doing, and acquire the very best fusion you can.
Good audio takes as much planning as good picture, from begin to finish. fine audio doesn't "just happen," it is the outcome of careful listening, and time, and care.
Most video hobbyists don't allow sound the attention it deserves, and that's why there's such an astonishing difference in environment amongst video and film sound. Be different.
Start listening! take care!
Sam Longoria is a Hollywood producer, keen in film previously 1970, in a variety of jobs. His sham graces several Oscar-nominated films, and one Oscar winner.
Sam teaches Independent Producing at http://hollywoodseminars.com , and writes for his Filmmaking Blog. http://samlongoria.blogspot.com .
2006 Sam Longoria, all Rights Reserved. You may deliver this in its entirety to anyone you wish. Hollywood Seminars, bin 2449, Hollywood CA 90078 USA
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