Dr. Brad Bradford, Doctor, makes house calls

[Forsooth]

Hey, everyone, first time entrant and happy to be here. Congratulations to all who entered Adfest 2007. It is nice to be in a field of so many high quality entrants for this fest. I like how this is run so look forward to others.

Good luck to all!

Michael

[whachusay]

Your entry was hilarious. The Dr. was great, well done.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Loved it! The doctor reminded me of Kevin Spacey...

My only gripe is the sound, it's kind of tin can sounding.

Great work though! Always nice to see another fellow HV20 user. :)

Mike

[CarlSpackler]

Tight. Nice lighting, nicer bikini.

After having seen them all. I think this is one of the most "realized" pieces. I like the vibe of the whole thing.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I can't hear it.
Do I really need phones or external speakers just to hear the dialogue?
Or is something wrong with the file? Too bad. Looks pretty good.

[whachusay]

Not sure what's wrong with your audio Jack, it played just fine for me on my internal speakers.

[Forsooth]

Before uploading we checked it on both Mac an PC, worked fine. We just downloaded it on two different PC's from two different locations, still works fine. I don't know what the problem could be. Sorry you're having difficulty.

[martin-sfx]

A funny ad you have there. Good cinematography and acting from the professor, although I would've exaggerated his lines a little more to emphasize the benefits of the product.

[LynchMob]

"Don't wuss out switch to Kinetica cigarettes today..." <-- that's my favorite line.

My only wish for this one would be better audio quality.

[Jeremy Ordan]

The sound on this made it almost impossible to hear the doctor speaking

[Larry Rutledge]

JDS and Jeremy - Have you tried re-downloading the file. It's possible you got a bad copy of the file. Re-downloading would pull it from a different mirror.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I downloaded again.
The train horn, growl, ding, end credit music - all the sfx basically, are all loud and clear.
The doc sounds like he's at the bottom of a well. Like the room bounce is louder than the vox. Are you really hearing an acceptable level vox track on the version you downloaded?

Sounds to me like someone moved or changed something in the 11th hour before uploaded and it moved something and deleted the primary vox track (lav mic, or boom mic) so we are just hearing the camera mic or something. Given the rest of the polish of the ad, what I am hearing sounds like mistake, and definitely a mix problem vs. a download problem.

[Larry Rutledge]

Oh, no it sounds hollow and tinny to me also. I got the impression from you and Jeremy that you couldn't hear the doctor AT ALL.

[Jeremy Ordan]

I can hear the doctor but the levels are out of wack and it is real quiet and tiny

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I could hear him if I got up and turned off the fan. I will do so before I vote.

[Jason Ramsey]

Looked like a well done spot. I liked the use of the stock footage. The pacing was fine all in all...

The acting seemed ok, but I had the same problem that Jeremy and Jack mentioned.

Sounded like on Camera Mic to me... Hard to hear the Doc.

Was it not on Camera Mic?

A lot of folks had audio problems this go round, so I'm not being too picky about it, but in this instance, it made it hard to get into the spot.

Bookshelf backdrop was a little corny :) But, if you would have taken that further, and just made all of the walls like that or something, and made the doctor be a bit more 'sleezy-infomercial-like' it could have added an interesting element.

Thanks for sharing. Look forward to more.
Jason

[Forsooth]

Guys, thanks for all the feedback regarding our spot. Here’s what I know so far about the audio issues some of you are having:

A) We did not use on camera mic. We used Rode NTG-2’s shock mounted on booms, mics fed into rack mounted stereo pre-amp before going into HV20
B) We intentionally set S/Fx track 3db higher than voice track because we assumed that when the spot opened on Dr. Brad, if anyone’s particular equipment volume was set too low they would automatically turn it up to hear the spot at its intended level
C) Before uploading we tested the compressed version on both platforms and continue to do so; we have yet to find anyone we know with either Mac or Windows to report any technical problem, even after asking them to look for them; the ongoing tests are conducted only on downloaded clips from the mirrors here on dvxuser
D) I personally know two people, one with a Mac, one with a PC, who are both pretty dumb; in fact, I don’t know why either of them have a computer. I asked them to download the clip and give me feedback. Neither had difficulty and said they liked the spot
E) I have asked a friend of mine who works in feature post production to download the clip and analyze for any audio problems; I have not heard back from him but should soon
F) I have discovered in QT Pro that if you open movie properties and adjust bass and treble to 100% each, voice track is a little more robust; not sure if this is available with just Quick Time player
G) This issue will be addressed in the 60 second version of Dr. Brad, almost completed.

It is regrettable that some are having this problem. If we discover a fix that can be applied on the user end, I’ll publish it here.

Thanks again for all your feedback,
Michael

[Forsooth]

BTW, it occurs to me that some of you may take issue with my comment D above in that I might be implying that those of you who are having difficulty hearing the clip don't know how to play it. Nothing could be further from the truth; I simply mean that I am soliciting as broad a sample of techno-savvy and non-techno-savvy people as I can to help isolate the problem so 100% of Dr. Brad's intended audience, this forum, can enjoy him the way we do on this end. So please don't take my comment the wrong way.

If there's a fix to be found, I'll let everyone know.

Michael

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Is the vox track mixed off center?
If so an Jeremy or I weren't hearing the channel that it was mixed to, the spill in the other channel could account for the tiny, or camera mic-ish sound we are hearing.

[Jason Ramsey]

Thanks for the info...

If it helps you at all. I ftp'd your clip directly off of my server (ramjetfilms.com) and watched it in qt pro 7.whatever is the latest version...

I just assumed it wasn an on camera mic until reading these posts by yourself, Jack and Jeremy...

I remember thinking, that's a pretty nice picture from that little hv20. Nice color.... Too bad he used the on camera mic...."

I will say that you definitely blew my ears off with the train b/c I had my speakers up almost all the way in order to comfortably hear it....

Anyways....

Thanks,
Jason

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Yeah the difference is way more than 3db. The vox sounds at least 20 - 30db lower.
Now it seems like we are harping on your sound. But really trying to give you info to get to the bottom of the mystery.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Michael, this is what I'm seeing/hearing.
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/docsound.mov
(2 second grab with VU levels, 2.5mb)

I drug your movie into FCP, matched the clip settings for the sequence, then did a screen grab (movie) of the movie with the levels meter in the screengrab.

I made no adjustments to the levels, and then output the grab at 44.1/16 bit.

As you can see the mean vox level is living around -22 to -26db with a few peaks at -18db, way lower than the bell at the end which clips out at 0db.

I see that the file is basically mono (dual channel, but with the same thing on both channels) maybe the vox track was panned left or right and got lost when the file was mixed to mono? and again we are just getting spill? Dunno.

Sorry this is happening to what looks like an otherwise polished entry - only reason I can think of as to why you are not getting more attention - art direction for example, looks really great.

[Forsooth]

JDS, thanks for all the trouble you've gone to to try to help isolate the problem. I've watched your grab on two different machines and understand what you're seeing/hearing, which is way different in both the clip I uploaded as well as those I continue to download and test. In fact, I just dusted off (literally) my Thinkpad 600E, P2 machine running XP, updated QTPlayer, downloaded the spot -- audio played just fine (that processor is too slow to run the video). Also, thanks for your compliments regarding other aspects of the spot.

There does appear to be a workaround to the audio problems if you have QTPro. Go to movie properties in the Windows menu, select audio, set Channel 1 to mono and Channel 2 to unused. That works just fine on this end, but then so do all the clips I and others I've conscripted downloaded and tried. Imagine my frustration! I think I'd rather have picture woes than audio woes. This is definitely something I don't want to happen again so still working on solving the problem.

Thanks again for ALL the feedback.

Michael

[Dmitry Kichenko]

I have the exact same problem as Jack. Sounds like a mic that was set up at the other end of the room from the actor.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Michael.
Do you use a mixer between your computer and your monitor speakers?
Is it possible that the vox is panned left or right in your NLE but you are hearing it center on your speakers - given that your solution involves manipulating the stereo channels, again, what people are describing as "camera mic" sounding, or "mic at the other end of room" could be a small amount of bleed from the vox track which is somehow being obscurred. Almost certain the problem lies in some weird stereo issue, especially since your fix involves discarding one stereo channel.

i will PM you if I have other thoughts on sound, don't want your thread to turn into the "sound thread". Will try your fix and give you content feedback later. Thanks.