How direct sound affect a professional set?

[Rodrigo Prata]

I Decided to post this question here instead the audio session because my interest in mainly on how the audio recording on set affects the other departments, specially the director and the Cinematographer.

So, on a professional feature set, how important is sound recording logistics? Is sound recorded 100% of the time? How much of the original sound recorded is used on the final piece? How much is Dubbed? Is it common on a professional set to shoot as many takes as it`s necessary to get the sound wright?

Is there a previous plan of what scenes are going to have the original sound and what scenes are going to be dubbed (a beach scene for instance, that you already know that the direct sound is not going to be used)?

I`m asking this question because here in Brazil, we still struggle to get the sound right and there is still a lot fo debate on how sound recording logistics should happen.

I, For instance, was shooting a short filme with a lot of day exteriors scenes and we began to fall behind in schedule very quickly because the audio was never usable, there where always a truck or a motorcycle...

How does it work an a high budget hollywood feature for instance?

Thanks very much

Thanks

 

[Phil Holland]

This is a question that doesn't have one answer.

How important is sound? Very. How important is it to get good sound on the day? Depends.

More or less you have to decide what the sound workflow is for your production.

Most of the features I work on go through an ADR session to get clean audio for some or all of the dialogue. Not to mention full foley and sound design sessions. Really depends on the project.

However, that's not practical for a lot of types of production. For instance, if you were doing an episodic or say a reality television show there's every reason in the world to get good sound on the day.

There are many situations where sound isn't rolled at all. Most of the time it's good to have at a minimum a reference track if there's any sort of dialogue involved.

If you are dealing with conditions where audio contamination comes into play then an ADR session is a good thing. Also, know what type of microphones to use in those situation becomes extremely valuable as sometimes you can problem solve via different technology/microphone types.

 

[Björn Benckert]

The big productions do not have motorcycles driving by. They got locked of streets, small hidden / Retouched away microphones, etc etc. But sound guys that does not have their shit together in time does not last long. But of course there is problems with camera fans and all such things also on bigger shoots.

Funny story, I though I was on a huge car commercial shoot in LA a few years back. We had helicopters and everything and was shooting downtown LA. One day the producers told us that we could not fly. The reason was that somebody else bought the airspace. Later we found out that it was the guys shooting some stunt scenes for mission impossible 3 ( i think it was) a few blocks away from us and they where recording sound and did not want any helicopters in the air... So flying over LA is quite expansive, making sure that nobody else is flying... well that cost quite a bit more So that made our little honda commercial shoot look like a student project in comparison.

But basically that story kind of says in what extend they care about sound on bigger production. Also possible that from that shooting day they maybe did not use a single sound recording for the final film.

Edit: Phil is dead on as allways.

 

[Rodrigo Prata]

Thanks a lot for your input Phil,

I imagined that in reality TV the best practice is to get the audio on the day (since it`s reality, as long as the audio is clear, I don`t think contamination is much of a problem).

But I didn`t think about the case of episodic television. It makes sense to try and get the best audio you can on set because of tight schedules, but still, I wonder how much shows like Game fo Thrones, Breaking Bad and LOST (a lot of scenes on the beach) use the original sound.

 

[Rodrigo Prata]

Big Thanks for you as well Björn

 

[Björn Benckert]

For shows most of the dialoge is captured. In wide shots those small microphones hidden under clothes and such is not visible, for the tight shots the boom is there and so on. Then filtering and additional sound effects added on top makes it work quite far. When it does not work then they ofcourse dub.

We have done some milo takes where the milo kind of sounds like a traktor on full throttle and had people standing close speaking to the camera on close distance, like 20 cm and such and the sound guys actually managed to make clean sound. Then they used additional microphones and recored also only the milo noise separately and also shot "clean sound plate" simply takes without the dialog and only the noise. Then in the sound design they phased out the noise and the dialog came clean. that took them about a day to do in the sound design for a 30 second spot and costed about 2000USD so for longer porductions thats not really what you want to be dealing with. And it's always better to get good audio to start with when possible.

We normally run with a small scratch mic and for another production we did right before the summer we know we could not use that sound. So we had the kid actor make wild takes. Basically we took all our sellects and cut them up and played them for him in a pair of head phones and let him repeat them in a silent room. Then in sound post they used something called "rubber dub" wich is a program that takes one waveform aiff file and stretch it to sync up with another file. So that way we could make sure the wild takes where perfectly synced up to the scratch track, which all worked perfectly. 1,30 minute take and you could not tell it was dubbed. Can not show it just yet as it's not out yet.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

It's also mainly a cultural point of view.

Bollywood films have another way of doing things than French "film d'auteur". For me, as a DP, I know if there is not a good sound it will screw my picture. This is my way of working on the current project.

Basically, we are beasts that need sound and picture to aprehend our environment. If one is faulty the whole perception of reality is "gone". Now this can also be an aestetic choice. But has to be tought in the project. Not just a flaw. It's also therefore that I want to work with a tool that makes the less noise as possible to leave the other part of the picture (the sound) reveal his potential.

Pat

PS: I would say. It's the job of the sound man to get a clean sound. But it's not the sound man's fault to screw a shooting schedule because of bad location scouting (if he took not part).

 

[Paul Harb]

If you care about performance production sound is crucial.

Yes you can fix stuff in ADR but that should always be a last resort...most facilities will painstakingly try and fix the production audio if possible because ADR is yuck and should be avoided if possible.

 

[Christopher Mills]

I work in both sound and picture in the SE USA..
and our brief from the producers (and yeah, I wear that hat frequently as well) is to always attempt to get useable sound when shooting.

And yes, we do try to control the environment around our shoot as much as the production's resources will allow.

The amount of ADR varies, but we know we are doing well if each actor has 3-4 lines per show or fewer that need to be re-recorded.
In our part of the world, our toughest challenges have been "the Walking Dead" and "Revolution" as these are set in a 'reality' that has no aircraft, trains, or highway noise...

Reality TV has an even bigger challenge: Not only do you need to clearly capture the spoken word at all times, the in the field sound department is trying to provide the actual mix to the production. Budgets for dialog edit keep shrinking for everyone.

Even big features n the USA prefer to start with actual on site dialog in sound design.

I have also been on a lot fo shows where we recorded wild track of sounds in the environment as foley substitute elements.

I would suggest browsing the workflow section of jwsound.com for detailed suggestions on technical suggestions on what to do.

Though, the first thing that comes to my mind for a beach are: Long shotgun Sennheiser mkh 70 and 816, Audio Technica 4071, or tight pattern with DSP Schoeps Super CMIT 5U, a couple others.

Second possibility, is that a waterproof lav mic can be hidden near a cloth necklace.. with a pack hidden under long hair on back of neck.. or inside a purse.. with cable run up strap... this can be pretty tough.. hire a pro to take care of it.

 

[Michael Romano]

One day the producers told us that we could not fly. The reason was that somebody else bought the airspace. Later we found out that it was the guys shooting some stunt scenes for mission impossible 3 ( i think it was) a few blocks away from us and they where recording sound and did not want any helicopters in the air...

I bet it was really to keep out prying eyes. For explosion stunts on a 2nd unit, it is rare to roll sound but the stunt days bring all the amateur photogs and local news choppers out of the woodwork.

It makes sense to try and get the best audio you can on set because of tight schedules, but still, I wonder how much shows like Game fo Thrones, Breaking Bad and LOST (a lot of scenes on the beach) use the original sound.

On LOST, big chunks of audio got ADR treatment. It is impractical and expensive to hold up a frantic episodic production pace for a line of dialogue which can be replaced later.

Everyone does it differently and they have many factors to weigh before moving on without a clean take. I would say that generally TV passes it to post and features get it within reason. Everyone has to do some ADR at some point.

 

[Marc Wielage]

On LOST, big chunks of audio got ADR treatment. It is impractical and expensive to hold up a frantic episodic production pace for a line of dialogue which can be replaced later.

Actually, I worked on Lost for the first four seasons (on and off in post), and I was always amazed how much production dialogue they were able to salvage. They used a lot of cheats to get things to work: for example, the wide shot would show two people standing in ankle-deep waves, but the close-ups were shot about 10 feet further back to avoid all the surf noise. They also used extensive CEDAR DNS treatment to denoise a lot of the sound, then layered in sound effects on top of that to keep it all consistent. Good dialogue editors and good re-recording mixers are often miracle workers.

Much good advice above. My answer to Rodrigo's question is: there's a lot of "it depends" answers. For TV, it's not so much a question of money but time, and they often rush through so fast, there's no time left to do a lot of ADR. Alternate takes, wild lines, and careful mic placement can overcome certain problems, but the location itself is so influential, nothing can overcome really bad circumstances. If you shoot a scene at a train station, by a noisy highway, or at an airport, it's almost impossible to avoid loud noises that will drown out even normal conversation -- let alone important dialogue.

Picking good locations is a huge factor. If you can't divert the trucks and motorcycles, all you can do is record reference audio and replace it all in ADR later. ADR is a necessary part of all serious filmmaking. I've done $150,000 features where we still found room in the budget to do a couple of days' worth of ADR, and it worked fine. If they pick the right location where noise is minimal, then it's possible to find quiet moments without helicopters, jets, cars, trucks, trains, and so on. Ignoring those factors invites disaster. I always say, "this is not a sound problem... it's a location problem."

The American "TV" answer to a lot of sound problems is to throw wireless mics on everybody and try to isolate each character on a separate track. But wireless mics present their own issues, plus they don't sound "real" since they don't record a lot of the ambience around the actor. Also, a $300 lav does not sound as good as (say) a $1500 boom mic. But if the boom picks up tons of noise at the location, or if it's a wide shot where you can't ever get the boom in the right place, then lavs may be one possible solution. I frequently rely on both, and give the post crew as many options as possible -- boom, lavs, wild lines, etc. -- so that they can piece the scene together. It's much, much more expense and trouble to do this, but sometimes it's the only thing that works.

I'm a big believer in rolling sound on pretty much anything, even high-speed stuff, just to have the audio "in case." In a scene with stunts or explosions, it's even more important to have something for the picture editor to work with, even as a temporary track.