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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

All sound in post

ADR requires a lot from your actors and engineer. Run a short test to show yourself the process to get a handle on it.
 
whatever money you can afford to spend on a sound guy with decent mics, and a mixer will be worth every penny. The biggest difference between professional and amateur productions is sound. The audience can forgive picture, but the second you have bad audio you have lost the audience and your film looks amateur.
 
Shameless plug but I just added the excellent Barry Green Sound for Film and TV course to my webstore.

http://www.callboxlive.com/products/barry-greens-sound-for-film-and-tv

It's chock full of easy but highly DIY effective ways to improve your production sound, even if you can't afford a pro sound recordist. There's no substitute for properly recorded production dialogue and not having good sound is the quickest way to destroy whatever value your project has. Seriously if you are planning to shoot without recording dialogue don't bother shooting at all because the resulting project will be unwatchable...

Noah
 
A huge part of a movie is the sound. The most incredible images shot can be totally ruined with a poor soundtrack while terrible footage can be made interesting with great sound. Check out some music videos for some more extreme examples. The visuals sucked but I liked it because it had a catchy beat kind. Or just listen to some of your favorite movies without the picture. Always try to get the best sound you can while shooting. Anything you get will be less to do in post. There are things you can do to improve the acoustics of any situation. Sound is a world unto itself. If you can't get someone who has more experience then start working on yourself. Try to get the best you can. Besides, if it's no good THEN you can do it in post. Good Luck!
 
Somehow get an inexpensive shotgun mic like a Rode ng2 and a cheap boom -- borrow or somehow purchase for $400 total, maybe less if used -- and corral a friend to help out -- or a brother or sister -- just keep the mic as close out of frame as you can aimed at the mouth-chest -- you'll be ahead of the game whether ADR or not. (There is good advice given here. ADR is not easy, even for professional actors.)
 
rod bradley said:
Somehow get an inexpensive shotgun mic like a Rode ng2 and a cheap boom -- borrow or somehow purchase for $400 total, maybe less if used -- and corral a friend to help out -- or a brother or sister -- just keep the mic as close out of frame as you can aimed at the mouth-chest -- you'll be ahead of the game whether ADR or not. (There is good advice given here. ADR is not easy, even for professional actors.)
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Yo- Word
 
Jean Iona said:
Does anyone know how Robert Rodriguez did the sound for El Mariachi?
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I did the color-correction on the original home video release of El Mariachi, so I know something about it.

From memory (and it's been almost 20 years): they tried to use an ancient borrowed Nagra and had a friend run it on location. He was unable to sync up any dailies while the film was being shot, because he didn't have time and didn't have the money. Once they were done with production, only then did he get the film processed and transferred to 3/4" tape. And then they discovered the 60Hz sync on the Nagra was bad, and all the sound drifted out of sync. They manually forced it to stay in sync as much as possible, but the sound quality was all over the place, mainly due to location problems and bad acoustics. (Other reports insist it was a cheap cassette deck, but that's not the way I remember the story.)

Once the film was sold to Sony Pictures, he flew out to LA and they completely threw out the old track and re-recorded everything from scratch, including casting new actors to do voices for other people in the film. My memory is that the remix was about $250,000 -- this, for a movie that originally cost about $7,000.

It would have been much, much cheaper if they had gotten good dialog to begin with. To me, I think it's a bad idea to plan to ADR an entire movie unless you have a very good reason to do so -- like scenes with massive explosions, wind machines, actors speaking the wrong language, etc. The biggest problem is that the ADR performance is rarely as good (let alone better) than the original live performance; it just doesn't have the same energy, and a careful listener can always tell it's a little "fake." To me, El Mariachi works because they spent a lot of time and money on it, plus the central idea was just so good -- and the twist ending still blows me away today.

Many (if not most) of today's action TV shows routinely do very little ADR, partly for budget, but mostly because of schedules. Lost is a great example of a show shot under very difficult situations, but they usually find a way to make the production dialog work about 90% of the time. All it takes is skill and experience, plus good planning and knowing the limits of the location.
 
Jean, it all depends on what you mean by "movie." If you mean a nature-type documentary, then shooting MOS can work since there are many canned sounds you can copy into your movie. But if you have talent and dialog, forget the idea. And if you have dialog, on camera mics aren't up to the job. If you are considering this concept because you want to go solo, understand that all those people standing around on the set are working to adjust focus, modify lighting, resolving sound issues, and holding you so you don't fall down with all that gear on your shoulder (among other things I'm sure the rest of Redusers will attest to).
 
Many of the suggestions you are getting are very poor.
If you want your film to look professional it needs to sound professional.
When you commit to the look of your project by using a RED camera, you are making a statement that you care. Unfortunately you are doing just the opposite with the sound of your movie. You want it to sound good and save you money (and make you money) get a good Production Sound Mixer.
Producers and Directors spend so much on the look but skimp on the sound.It does make a difference! Spend the money in Production and save in Post.
I make my living fixing peoples poor production sound for the last 30 years.
Do it right from the beginning. Good sound doesn't slow production down.Start your career as a director by learning the value of good decisions from the start.
By the way i was working at Sony Pictures when they mixed "El Mariachi". It took time and a LOT of MONEY to get what you hear today.

Marti D. Humphrey CAS
www.thedubstage.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0401937/
 
Get your sound as best you're able on set. By the questions you are asking, it makes me think you're not ready for a full audio post from scratch job. There is some serious work that needs to be done in that realm and without a loop record function and time stretching, you'll be pulling your hair out in minutes. That being said, I prefer ProTools (as do most other professional post sound guys) but the learning curve on even the best tools are steep for the uninitiated.

Get it all on set, repair what is unusable. If you want full ADR, prepare for all your actors moving away, getting sick of ADR sessions or just plain telling you "No" after a few days.
 
Posting again - LOST is an excellent example. I just left set today where we had rain towers and huge wind machines, all next to the beach. Through all that crap, Ken and his boys were still rolling disk for sound. They do the best they can and make it work. If they only get 50% of production sound, that's 50% less ADR and potential savings in the six figures over a season. You'd be crazy to not have a real sound department.
 
Marc Wielage said:
From memory (and it's been almost 20 years): they tried to use an ancient borrowed Nagra and had a friend run it on location. He was unable to sync up any dailies while the film was being shot, because he didn't have time and didn't have the money. Once they were done with production, only then did he get the film processed and transferred to 3/4" tape. And then they discovered the 60Hz sync on the Nagra was bad, and all the sound drifted out of sync. They manually forced it to stay in sync as much as possible, but the sound quality was all over the place, mainly due to location problems and bad acoustics. (Other reports insist it was a cheap cassette deck, but that's not the way I remember the story.)
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Hi Marc,
just looked that up in Rodriguez' book "Rebel Without A Crew" - on page 69 he wrote that he used a Marantz tape recorder and Radio Shack mike.
 
Jean

You can record great sound with no sound crew in many of situations if you are patient and creative. Try a radio mic on each actor ( I think the Audio technica 1802's are good for the money ) and have a shotgun like a Rode Ntg2 or 3 on camera with a shock mount. If your shooting on a red one that leaves 1 track free for another mic that you can have fixed on a stand or creating useful ambience in some way.
Like a lot of earlier posts I strongly agree that post sync dialogue is massively time consuming, and requires a great deal of skill from actors and sound mixers. Of course you can make a great movie with almost no dialogue.
Just be creative , run tests and make your film.
Sound is half your movie make it count.

Cheers
 
I've worked on no-budget productions where we didn't put time into on-set sound recording and it turned into a HUGE pain. Finding sound effects on the internet that are decent quality and actually match the sound you need is really hard. Doing foley that actually matches is also tricky. ADR is a bitch and most actors are not very good at it. It can be very hard to get a performance out of an actor in ADR that equals the intensity of their performance on set.

Even a cheap shotgun and boom with a random friend holding it will make your life WAY easier (not to diminish the value of a professional, or course).
 
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I still contend that if you are shooting with a camera of the quality and echelon of the red, why wouldn't you have a sound guy? This not a cheap, 300 dollar walmart handy-cam. Don't sell yourself short.
 
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