extract audio from video footage?

[Randall_Oelerich]

Am i correct in that i should extract my audio from my rendered digital footage prior to moving forward on sound editing, Foley, sountrack? Seems to make sense to me, but this is my first short film (five minutes). I am rendering out the HD edited footage as uncompressed HD .avi, but then it seems I should isolate the audio as a separate file to be able to clean it up in a sound editor. Then lay down separate audio tracks, one for Foley, another for soundtrack? Any help / advice greatly appreciated.
Randall

 

[SMuir]

Most audio post workstations will be able to extract interleaved audio from a video clip, but your dialogue editor will need more than just that.

A single self-contained audio track is rarely the best way to move your film from the picture editing workstation to audio post. Ideally, you want to have "handles" on all your audio clips, so that the sound editor isn't stuck with the edits, cross-fades, and mix decisions that the picture editor has made.

What you probably need is a project interchange format to get you from the picture editing software to the audio editing software. If you're cutting with FCP or Avid, you can export the audio tracks as an OMF session, which you can in turn import into ProTools system.

If you plan to hire a sound editor, you should ask them exactly what they want to work with. For one thing, most sound editors will have difficulties working with uncompressed HD files, and will request a lower-resolution file such as a DV stream.

While your at it, don't forget to cut in a 2-beep and a tail-pop.