Feature Film Mix Success

[Burkeville]

Hi

I mixed my first feature film in surround sound in SAWStudio. The director, Larry Kent from Montreal was a little leary at first but quickly warmed up to SAW.

The mix went perfectly smooth and the film sounds killer.

THanks Bob
kb

[Pedro Itriago]

Uh oh, I won't allow this to happen. Details, please details

How much did you do, just the mix? were you given the recorded track or did you track in-studio? What made the directore hesitate & what was what made him start to change his view? and most important, how fun was it?

Oh, and congratulations :cool:

[Bob L]

KB,

Great news... thanks for hanging there and pushing through the director's hesitations... this is what we need to see more of and soon, there will be no hesitations and soon, the old 'industry standard' conversation may be a thing of the past. :)

Bob L

[Perry]

Excellent Ken!!! :)

OK.... Next time I buy the Bar B-Q! ;)

Perry

[Tree Leopard]

Ditto - more info, please.

I have a couple friends who do a lot of audio post and they are very curious about the potential of SAW as an editing tool for FX / ADR / foley etc and how well or easily it could be integrated within a post environment.

There was the question of autoconform (I saw your earlier query about this) but I have a feeling that might be a major project in itself to include it within SAW, given its such a finicky beast to deal with, not to mention the charming variety of list formats.

Anyway, it would very interesting to hear how you used SAW within the project.

Andre

[Yura]

using a chance to meet some help in this thread, I put here my private message that I had posted to Chris Conlee.
He probably have no time to ask me on my last PM since it was posted 2 months ago, I guess he is very busy all these times last months working on his film project in Hollywood.
If sombody is very familiar with what I ask here, please put your thoughts.



************************************************** *******

H! Chris!

all this time I was trying to recall from my memory one more interesting little thing I fordot to ask you about... And, at last, I recalled it! It is about the mixing sound of film...

My question is:
Say we already have the set of our voice tracks. They are:
#1. radio-microphone of 1st actor (very dry sound)
#2. radio-microphone of 2nd actor (very dry sound)
#3. External microphone "big gun" (more ambience sound)

indeed, we can simplify this situation to #1 plus #3 tracks for consideration of the problem...
Our soundengineer ask me to ballance sounds of #1 and #3.
He explaines the need of combination of two of those mics for achievement of most density and "deep-dementional" sound of the voice. Because it is counted here that only one radio-mic. cannot reflect all the demention.
This is really obvious to use addition of external 'gun' mic for better sounding purpose.
But we always do face with 'phase' artifacts between two mics voices signals... Do you understand what I mean?
If we listen solo of #1 track (radio-mic), - we hear good dry sound. If we listen solo of #3 track (external mic) - we hear very good ambient (little reverbered) sound.
But if we listen #1+#3 mix - we hear sometimes 'flangered' sound because of subtraction of several harmonics - we often hear the decreasing of main basic harmonic (main tone)- the voise gonna to be emasculated.

It comes to mind to do the next for cure:

1) if the distance between those mics is constant in the time, we do SHIFT one of two tracks untill 1st harmonic (main tone) will be in complete phase. In result, we really got the sounf without flanger effect.

Or

2) we use only good recorded external mic sound that in most cases sounds really good.


Cris, please tell me... Are you sometimes be familiar with this problem? and if so, what ways do you use to solve this?


My best thanks!

************************************************** *******

[mako]

But if we listen #1+#3 mix - we hear sometimes 'flangered' sound because of subtraction of several harmonics - we often hear the decreasing of main basic harmonic (main tone)- the voise gonna to be emasculated.

It comes to mind to do the next for cure:

1) if the distance between those mics is constant in the time, we do SHIFT one of two tracks untill 1st harmonic (main tone) will be in complete phase. In result, we really got the sounf without flanger effect.

Or

2) we use only good recorded external mic sound that in most cases sounds really good.



Hello Yura - this is a common multi mic scenario - I would first try -

>1) SHIFT one of two tracks untill 1st harmonic (main tone) will be in complete phase. In result, we really got the sound without flanger effect.<

It's fiddly work - you might find an old Roland or Yamaha DDL (with the msec increment knob) easier to work with. Put the ambient mic through the delay and turn the knob until you get what you're looking for.
Then, if you want, take note of the effective delay time and add that to the front of the ambient mic track.
Remove DDL from path.

cheers

mako

[Yura]

It's fiddly work - you might find an old Roland or Yamaha DDL (with the msec increment knob) easier to work with. Put the ambient mic through the delay and turn the knob until you get what you're looking for.
Then, if you want, take note of the effective delay time and add that to the front of the ambient mic track.
Remove DDL from path.

cheers

mako

hehe
does somebody use this way of work in the film set? I dont believe our guys who works there will have a time to adjust delay knobs everytime when...
add too this is a very laborious work... But thanks anyway!!

[Bob L]

Dennis,

Much easier and more accurate than a knob... simply set the Grid ON in time mode... or sample mode on the timeline.... then use select mode to select the track region of the ambient mic... then press the left or right arrow key... each time you press you will nudge the exact grid distance... set it to 1 ms or less... even down to 1 sample per move...

Bob L

[Yura]

THis is more accurate but not much easyer.
In this situ we have a deal with much shorten delays between those different mics tracks. As usual - there is no constant delays and grid mode gives no profit. I did shifting of 4 tracks some time and each "episode" required its unique adjustments. very lot of work. I ask, maybe there are radically other ways to solve it?

[Bob L]

Seems to me, anything that is flanging should be only a few clicks away in one direction or the other to line up... look for any transient signal and zoom in and shift x samples left or right.

If sections are drifting for one reason or another, split the region and re-adjust for that section.

Bob L

[Cary B. Cornett]

Put the ambient mic through the delay and turn the knob until you get what you're looking for.
Then, if you want, take note of the effective delay time and add that to the front of the ambient mic track.
Remove DDL from path.

Sorry, but that is WRONG. The radio mic is closer to the voice, and therefore has less delay to begin with. Delaying the ambient mic will WORSEN the problem. You either delay the radio mic to match the existing ambient delay, or ADVANCE the ambient track (slide to left) to match the radio track (the latter being better for picture sync).

[Ian Alexander]

If one mic is on the body and the other is on a pole, any movement by the actor or the crew person will change the time difference between them. Obvious, right? If you want, say, presence from one mic and maybe bottom or ambience from the other mic, try some opposite EQ to preserve what you want from each mic, but minimize the phase problems. In other words, dip from 3k down on the lav mic and from 3k up on the pole mic, then dial in the best match, almost like a crossover on a speaker. This would be after doing a rough visual time alignment on the MT.

[Mark Stebbeds]

Sorry, but that is WRONG. The radio mic is closer to the voice, and therefore has less delay to begin with. Delaying the ambient mic will WORSEN the problem. You either delay the radio mic to match the existing ambient delay, or ADVANCE the ambient track (slide to left) to match the radio track (the latter being better for picture sync).

I disagree that it's necessarily WRONG. Yura's problem was a "phasing" effect, not "too much ambience". Delaying the ambient mic could be effective in correcting the problem with a slight rebalance of levels. We are talking about a couple of milleseconds, or more likely a few samples.

I agree with Bob. If it's not just a few clicks/samples away to correct the problem, then the problem is much deeper, and more likely created by the electronics than the phase relationship of the mics.

Mark

[Yura]

ok,ok

I was cureing this phase promlem exactly as Bob described, for last two years. This took a LOT of time.

again, I understand last post of Mark Stebbeds, this is the way (or one of them) too. because if to shift phases too far the flanging effect will be replaced with 'chorusing' that is much warmer, we get more 'ambient' then.

But my root question just was: how is the situation about cureing this... in the "famous film mass-production" world? I wonder if in the mass-production sound-film editing there are no 'stamps' how to get the summ of sounds of two different mics without a 'flanging'. Maybe the secret is in using of special tipes of mics?
If those film-guys do the similar work to cure it as I do... They have to shift every track manually in high H-zoom.

Only in cases when the ambient mic is turned somewhere another direction, not to the actor, the sound it takes is diffused too much and has no evident phase behavior to be conflicting with actor's radio-mic.
Maybe they use something like this way as a thumb of nail?

[Mark Stebbeds]

ok,ok


But my root question just was: how is the situation about cureing this... in the "famous film mass-production" world?

ADR (automated dialog replacement)

There's always going go be problems occuring in production audio recording. More often than not, it's extraneous noise on the set, i.e. cars going by, airplanes, wind, crew, etc. ADR is used more far more frequently than most people are aware.

Clip on radio mics and Sennhieser shotguns are popular for location recording in the "famous film" world. Problems are fixed by dialog replacement in a studio.

Mark

[Yura]

ADR (automated dialog replacement)

There's always going go be problems occuring in production audio recording. More often than not, it's extraneous noise on the set, i.e. cars going by, airplanes, wind, crew, etc.

I know this. and I know too that serious film company takes care on cutting off big streets and highways in 5 miles around, and fires workmans who's behavior on film set is noisy.



ADR is used more far more frequently than most people are aware.
Clip on radio mics and Sennhieser shotguns are popular for location recording in the "famous film" world. Problems are fixed by dialog replacement in a studio.

Mark

What is AudioDialogReplacement?

[Mark Stebbeds]

I know this. and I know too that serious film company takes care on cutting off big streets and highways in 5 miles around, and fires workmans who's behavior on film set is noisy.



What is AudioDialogReplacement?

Actually, the big film companies around here take very little care regarding extraneous noise on location. They simply replace the dialog and use ambience tracks to create background or "room" tone to match the production audio.

Automated Dialog Replacement is just a fancy word for replacing dialog recorded on location, with higher quality studio recording. It is "automated" by using a software or hardware device that triggers "beeps" off of SMPTE to cue the voice talent to begin speaking their lines. Prior to an ADR session, a cue sheet is created by the director/sound editors with direction of what audio needs to be replaced.

Mark

[Mark Stebbeds]

What is AudioDialogReplacement?

Do a Google search for "automated dialog replacement" to find some good information.

Here's a link that explains the process.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Movie_Making_Manual-ADR

Mark

[Yura]

Thanks

[mako]

Dennis,

Much easier and more accurate than a knob... simply set the Grid ON in time mode... or sample mode on the timeline.... then use select mode to select the track region of the ambient mic... then press the left or right arrow key... each time you press you will nudge the exact grid distance... set it to 1 ms or less... even down to 1 sample per move...

Bob L

Thanks Bob - I missed your post.

That's just what I wanted

cheers

mako

[Tree Leopard]

Yura - I was reminded of the location recording problems they had with Andrei Tarkovsky's "The Sacrifice" (Offret). Here is Owe Svensson discussing how they used the location sound during mixing:
http://www.filmsound.org/owesvensson/

It also might be very interesting for you to search for discussion about multiple mic location recording techniques that director Robert Altman experimented with. There is also sound designer Walter Murch http://www.filmsound.org/murch/murch.htm (especially in Coppola's "The Conversation").

Another thing occurred to me - the terminology (or slang) in Russian used in audio post & recording in general must be very different. e.g. ADR is an American term. In Europe many film people still use the term "post-synchronized" or simply "dubbing".

Using the industry directories at Mosfilm (for example) perhaps you could find someone who is completely familiar with all the terminologies in both languages. Just a thought. ;)

Andre