All sound in post

[Jean Iona]

Hello!
I want to make a movie and record all the sound in post-production.
I think it will be easier,simpler and cheaper this way...
Any tips on how should I do this?
What equipment should I buy for recording voices, foley sounds, ambiental sounds,etc?
PS: I don't want to spend to much money on this!

 

[S_Miille]

Hello!
I want to make a movie and record all the sound in post-production.
I think it will be easier,simpler and cheaper this way...
Any tips on how should I do this?
What equipment should I buy for recording voices, foley sounds, ambiental sounds,etc?
PS: I don't want to spend to much money on this!

It will be much more difficult, expensive and of less quality if you do everything in post. Record as much as you can on set, and then if needed you can do ADR. Even if you do want to ADR the whole show, having on set recordings makes the job go so much easier.

My advice, record on set.

 

[Jean Iona]

Well, I was thinking recording the sound with the on-camera microphone, and then use that track as a "scratch track", so I will now exactly where to insert the foley sounds, how the ambiental sound should be, and the re-recorded voices should syncronise perfectly...
Why would this be of lower quality or more expensive?
I want to have a minimal crew... No sound guy and boom-mic will speed the shooting and the actors would be able to move more freely.

 

[Jon Carr]

It's not gonna speed up the time. Your actually gonna make more problems later on. You have to spend a lot of time having the actors sync their voices in ADR. Its a pain when your on a budget. Even if your shooting on the streets of lets say Manhattan, you will still need a boom op, even if your just using it as reference.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Sound in Post

Sound in Post

PS: I don't want to spend to much money on this!

The sound mixing was written to do that sort of track, there are 512 audio tracks per shot, and support for 512 full length tracks for after picture lock, and support for films of up to 10000 shots (most films are between 700 and 1200 shots).

There are automatic noise gates for each track, and you adjust the pull-up or pull-down for each sound element on its own track.

The sound edits are automaticly blopped so you should not get any clicks.

It is good to prep the audio tracks in Magix or some other WAV editor to silence the large spaces between sounds, that is used by my program to rease those sound frames to recorver disks space, in that way you can save TB of disk space on your sound mixing files.

Up to 16 channels are supported and you control what channel the sound from each track goes to in a spread sheet like track list, you also set the gain for each sound element's track there to adjust the mix ratio.

There are automatic compressors that adjust the sound level to keek it as high as possable (depending on the compression ratio set before the mix is done) so that the optical track will not clip. By setting the dialog tracks to the highest volume, efects second, and music third, the program automaticly adjusts the sound to make the dialog stand out and be more intelligible.

You should always use a clap board and record a "scratch track" to help with doing the sync up later.

One fast wat to do the looping aka ADR is to use two HI-FI VHS tape decks and transfer the output with a SVGA to HTSC/PAL convertor, then you have the image and sound with slate on one track of the tape, you play that tape into the second HIFI VHS and record the original sound on one track and the new sound from the mike through a preamp and mixer to the other track, that gives you a quick playback to check the sound sync with the image. For the sound you will transfer back to the computer you also use a WAV recorder with a Y cable on the output of the mic mixer. The WAV will have the original sound with slate on one channel and the new ADR sound on the other channel, you can then copy the needed WAV back to the computer and put those on another track for the shot. You then set the gain for the scratch track to 0 and the gain for the ADR sound at the needed level and you now have everything in sync and replaced. You can do the same thing using the same source tape for all the sound effects and music cues etc. I also have a mix mode that puts beeps on the cuts for when you need to loop over cuts or have taken out the slates etc.

There is not charge right now for helping "beta test" the full DI/NLE/MIX system.

I am working on a program that should make the PIX playback frames faster for getting started editing faster, I hope to have that posted in a few months, for RED ONE footage it would read TIF from REDCINE, for other cameras it would de-Bayer the sensor data files direct to my PIX playback frames. You keep the PIX frames on a large SSD for use while working on each reel of the film so you do not need to "load" shots each time you start the program to work on the project (you can also put PIX on HD but SSD may be more glitch free on playback with larger image sizes, the PIX are smaller versions of the full size frames for editing that are in a special form that loads into the video board faster for sync speed playback direct from the disk so you can have TB of shots to work with in random frame access all the time).

If you have any questions about the hardware needed to setup everything you can PM or email me.

 

[Tom Visser]

There are very good reasons to do ADR and there are some films that are nearly 100% ADR, but generally, these are very big budget productions. Relying on post for 100% of your sound is a valid way to go, but it is in fact more expensive. It might save you $$$ if you are going to do the post work yourself, but realize that it is a tradeoff for your own time versus $$$. If you are hiring post sound for this endeavor, then it is definitely going to cost you more.

I don't mean to question your abilities, but getting good sounding ADR tracks may not be as easy as it seems, if you don't have prior experience, and then mixing them to sound natural can be challenging too. I may be out of line, but the fact that your are considering this leads me to believe that you don't have much sound experience, otherwise the idea would not be that appealing.

Some valid reasons for doing it in post...

Despite tech scouting, a location which is impossibly noisy must be used instead of a more production friendly location.

The production budget is so low that adding sound crew and equipment would impossibly constrain the production as a whole. Making the decision to minimize location sound, though, should be balanced by a decent chance of selling the project or securing future funding to finish the film. A good example would be Paranormal Activity. Very little was spent in production, but million(s) was spent in post to get a good sounding commercially viable product out the door.

 

[Jean Iona]

Does anyone know how Robert Rodriguez did the sound for El Mariachi?
I found this clip on youtube and it explains starting at 1:30 how he did the sound but I still don't understand how exactly he synchronized it..
He says that first he shot the scenes on film and then he put the camera away, and put the actors to repeat the scene and he recorded the sound on a portable tape recorder.
Is this feasible?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLxqNwc1oYU

 

[Dan Hudgins]

No tape recorder!

No tape recorder!

repeat the scene and he recorded the sound on a portable tape recorder.

Don't use a wild tape recorder, it will not hold sync.

You can use:

DAT

computer sound board

VHS-HI-FI

Camcorder

Mini-Disk

WAV recorder

It must be a crystal sync, or you need to use pilot tone or SMPTE time code like LTC.

You can re-sync using the scratch track wave form, you play the scratch on one speaker like Left, and the ADR on the Right from a stereo WAV file, then you can hear the echo go away you have the sound in sync.

In my system you can use the pull up and pull down to adjust the echo then turn off the scratch track.

I have a pilot tone Bolex, and you can resolve the sound using pilot tone to mag film then transfer the mag film to WAV for the mixing, but that is the long way around the barn, today its better to shoot digital and use only crystal sync WAV recorders (48000Samples/Second 16 or 24bit sof shooting 24.000fps you get 2000 samples per frame).

Shooting with a camcorder zoomed in on the actors mouth along side shooting film or digital can be a help for doing ADR on long and medium shots since it can be hard to see the lips on a small playback on a monitor, just be sure you get the slate clap and slate close on both the camcorder zoomed in and the digital or film camera so you can sync later.

Having the actors re-do the shot with the camera off was to avoid the camera noise, not something that matters much shooting digital since the digital camera does not make noise, come out of the dark ages of MOS movie cameras!

 

[Adil Lahoulou]

Does anyone know how Robert Rodriguez did the sound for El Mariachi?
I found this clip on youtube and it explains starting at 1:30 how he did the sound but I still don't understand how exactly he synchronized it..
He says that first he shot the scenes on film and then he put the camera away, and put the actors to repeat the scene and he recorded the sound on a portable tape recorder.
Is this feasible?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLxqNwc1oYU

Robert Rodriguez famously didn't have sync sound. Apparently, he manually synced the sound on the screener - columbia later spent a mint reposting the film.

I'm with everyone on this. Spend the extra bones on a small sound crew. Sound guys rarely hold production - most of the downtime is due to lighting setups. ADR is very expensive and nearly impossible to do well without a professional studio and mixer. You can pretty much kiss your performace goodbye when your actors are more concerned with hitting marks rather than hitting the tone....

Anyway there's really no good reason not to record on set.

 

[George Tsai]

trying to do everything in post will be a nightmare for small time productions. Trying to match performance and enviroment is very difficult without someone who knows what they're doing and goo talent. unless you're trying to go for that typical dubbed foreign film sound only other reason for doing all sound in post if its an animation, in which much of the sound is captured outside the studio.

if anything else, the widely popular sm58 is something you can use both in studio to record your adr and outdoors as well for on location or recording effects. its a good all around mic for $100(though its mostly used for live performances). It's not going to get you something as good as a set of large diaphram condenser mic fr studio and shotgun mic for on location. but given what you're trying to do it probably wont make much difference.

but for what its worth, record best you can on set, always better to have and not use it than to wish you had but dont have

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

Not to pile on... but having been though post on a indy film that required a lot of ADR... get the best possible sync sound recording on location. I agree (and my 25 years of experience) with everyone else who says having sound and boom crew will not slow you down. I like the way you are trying to think out of the box, but this is not the corner to cut, it will be the corner that cuts you in the end.

I also have to respectfully disagree with what george is saying about the SM58, although I see what your getting at, better than not a mic. However an SM58 is a cardiod microphone, good for sung vocals or instrument mic-ing, when the mic is only inches away from the source. If you try to distance mic your actors, you'd have to turn up the input gain so far to get a good recording, your noise floor would also be amplified in the track, then you would have very noisy sound that would be next to impossible to eliminate.

Use a shotgun condensor microphone. You can probably get by with a boom operator who wears his own mixer, sending a balanced signal to the camera, and ideally recording dual system DAT or file based as a backup. Beware that some camera inputs have odd impedance issues and you should do through testing to insure your mixer meter peak levels are not clipping on the camera record side.

 

[Noah Kadner]

Also some actors cannot match themselves in ADR- either in timing or in performance. And that's with a decent production track to guide them. You can get away with not recording sound for shots where no one is talking- though it can still be useful during post for guide. But not recording production dialogue is like shooting yourself in both feet with an Uzi.

Regarding Robert Rodriguez not recording sound for El Mariachi- well he also got I believe around $600K in post-production assistance from Columbia to fix up his sound and make the movie releasable. So do yourself a favor and don't emulate that plan.

Noah

 

[George Tsai]

Yea sm58 not great at distance as brandon said. But if its only one mic you'll get and little money its works for an all around. At least u can get something decent in close up and getting environment n room tone and same time use in studio. That's y I mentioned can't beat the shot gun combo. Kind of a "if you absolutly positively have to and no other choice" type recommendation. Still highly recommend sound crew on set.

 

[Sean Cronin]

Record it all 'properly' on set, it is the only way... anything else is nonsense...

 

[Mark Allen]

Does anyone know how Robert Rodriguez did the sound for El Mariachi?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLxqNwc1oYU

Many filmmakers got themselves into a lot of trouble trying to follow the Rodriguez method. From what I understand at least $300,000 was spent on audio post for his movie.

Here's my feeling on your proposition: I get it. I respect you're thinking outside the box as to ways to make things cheaper. that said, I want to caution you that you should definitely do a small test to prove your concept before launching into the entire production. Many people thought shooting on green screen and keying in backgrounds was going to be the secret to independent low budget kingdom, but didn't calculate how hard it was to do the backgrounds and keying right. ADR isn't that hard, but it will mean that you'll need to pull in your actors (or find good matches) and not everyone is that good with ADR, so you need to test to see if they really can repeat a performance.

Now, I think you could also do something I did for a feature (which sounded very good). I once recorded all the required ADR in an apartment because it was similar to the location - whatever the location - a small grungy wood floored hotel entrance or a bathroom or a hallway - somewhere there was a place to record like we were doing it for the film. I simply played back the on set lines and they mimicked them. Best ADR I've done. That said - it's easier to sneak in a line. Doing a full feature is going to take you days of labor to record and days to edit and days to mix and it might be a struggle to get some of your performances. so you have to weigh that against your advantage. I think if I were in your boat I would at minimum have a PA or some person on set hold a boom which feeds into the RED. Why not at least try to have a good track when it's that easy.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Days?

Days?

Doing a full feature is going to take you days of labor to record and days to edit and days to mix and it might be a struggle to get some of your performances.

Days?

If you have 1200 shots and each shot has on average 25 sound elements, that about 30000 sound elements BEFORE picture lock. After that you have to cue and score all the footage and EQ and edit the long tracks.

I would think it would take a single person plus the talent 6 months to do a quality feature film sound track, even with software designed for the tasks.

I wrote my code since I was the one faced with having to cut 30000+ bits of magfilm. Today with software like mine, the cost of making a good sound track can be much less than in the days of El Mariachi when Magfilm was still in use and software was more expensive and computers slower.

 

[M Munoz]

Purchasing a sound effects library will be better value for you than buying microphones and recorders and going out in the field.

What kind of movie is this? How much dialogue is in it?

Why do you want to do it this way? You don't have the manpower or skills to record sound on set?

There's always a way around your limitations.

 

[Jonathan Cooper]

A sound effects library won't replace your dialogue for you. You will either pay a little now for hiring a sound tech or a small fortune in post.

 

[Jim Hoffman]

Tough job to make this work on a dialogue intensive film. The longer the more difficult.

 

[Jean Iona]

What kind of movie is this? How much dialogue is in it?
Why do you want to do it this way? You don't have the manpower or skills to record sound on set?

There won't be much dialog, but the thing is I simply don't have the manpower and money to hire a crew. I live in a small town, there aren't any studios here and I will only be able to get a few amateur actors for this movie and shoot the movie in my house and on the streets. The acoustic conditions will be poor....