Prepping for a Sound Edit

M

markyf

Well-known member
Another newbie question... Never exported out for sound editing.

I'm nearly done my 35 minute short. I've got Picture Lock (no colour correction yet) on about 80% of it. I'm doing some animated interludes which I'm waiting on which is holding me back from finishing the rest right now.

I do want to get a head start on the sound edit, though, while I'm waiting as it could be another month or longer. I found a sound editor through Mandy that's willing to help me out now.

I'm a little confused about what he will do, though, and what our workflow should be. Say I'm picture locked minutes 5-13, which is composed of 4 distinct scenes. Should I export him out an OMF of the whole block, or should I break them up into scenes. Secondly, as he is cleaning the audio and mixing levels, etc... and finishing, can he then append other OMFs I may send him onto one larger mix until we have the whole thing cobbled together? Does that make sense as a way to work. What if another facility is doing the final mix. Can he then export an OMF out of his system that will keep all the track separate?

Any help GREATLY appreciated. Suggestions most welcome!

Mark
 
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Personally I wouldn't bother sending anything until it's completely locked. Otherwise it's a waste of your time and potentially money if you send it partially complete, he works and then you make changes again. Because at that point every frame you change makes his work obsolete. So be patient, finish your picture edit 100%, then send the final edit to sound design. For a short film sound design shouldn't take more than a solid week or two anyway so there's little to be gained by jumping the gun.

When you're totally, totally done, you want to arrange the tracks carefully- grouping dialogue as much as possible in its own consistent tracks and pulling out music and sound effects to different tracks. And as one complete piece- not in sections. Consult with the sound designer for how they prefer to have it all arranged. Then you'll export the whole thing to OMF along with a timecoded DV NTSC or whatever movie format he wants video track. Then he takes it from there. When he's done he will send the work as either OMFs or as mono tracks grouped for mixing. You receive the final mix as stereo or 5.1 .WAV or AIF and from there you make your final tapes or DVDs.

Noah
 
I was 'hoping' you wouldn't say this but I feared you would. I'm one of those working in the grey area of not being able to properly pay people because it's all coming out of my own pocket. Therefore, as I have learned, you're sort of at their mercy in terms of how quickly things get down, which really make me want to get the ball rolling on sound now seeing as though picture could still take another couple of months.

The animator is filling in four gaps that are of a fixed duration so I'm totally confident I won't make changes to video placement, I just don't have the blocks to fill into those slots right now.

What about colour correction, though? Should this be totally complete as well before the sound edit? Do you find yourself rearranging things during colour correction?
 
Yeah- but you can use that time to work on promoting your short on the web or start writing your next script. Turn the drawbacks of having no money but plenty of time into your advantages- check out this book for how it's all done:

http://rebelsguide.com/

Color correction is not essential to be completed before sound design and typically is handled concurrently anyway so no worries there. However if there's a possibility of making a picture edit due to something that you notice in the color correction- say a shot runs longer once it's brightened up from underexposure and you decide to trim it- then you have an issue. So if that's a potential in your situation you can wait on that too. Good sound is worth waiting for though and it can't be completed until everything else is anyway so there's no reason not to wait and get it all right.

Noah
 
I generally agree with everything Noah has to say. Really you should be talking to the sound editor/designer about what he/she wants to do and what they request in their deliverables. It is possible to work on sound before final picture lock, in fact that's how the studio system largely works, however most sound people view it as a necessary evil and would rather not have to conform their edit sessions to new picture changes. Personally if it is a low budget I would insist that the picture be locked. Normally I would ask for an OMF split out exactly how Noah describes, a DV picture cut, and any alt sound takes and room tones that were recorded. I'll cut and mix in my software and then deliver them the mix tracks and stems to layback into their Final Cut/Avid session.

However, that doesn't mean that your sound person has to sit idly by while you finish picture editing. Keep them updated with new versions of the cuts. If there are a lot of sound design-y type scenes, be sure to get that to them so they can start developing ideas for when they do begin editing. I once worked on a short set in a spaceship and I was fortunate enough to be brought in during pre-production. I was able to see early designs for the spaceship, visit the set, and talk with the filmmakers about what sort of vibe they wanted for their film. That extra time allowed me to record new material and I designed the sound for the ship before the the edit was completed.

Good luck with the film and the sound editorial process!
 
NoahK said:
Hi Brad- is that short available online by any chance? I love scifi!

-Noah
Click to expand...

Well it was. In fact you probably saw it already. It was O2, which won the Timefest contest last June. I also worked on THE SMALL MULTIPLE for that contest, which was another Sci-Fi film of sorts.
 
Guys,

Thanks for all the help. As much as possible, the film will be totally complete before going to sound. The only exception is if I do repeated alterations to the animation. Then I will make sure the animation fits into a sound-locked soundtrack. I will avoid this at all costs and only do it if say my sound editor is going to be unavailable for a period of time in the future. Patience is indeed the best way forward.

Brad, great points. He can start working on a bit of sound design, sound effects and at least start playing with some of the scenes, i.e. where we need to create party ambience or match engine sounds on the highway, before I give him the final picture cut. I can see how we can use this time to really speed up things once I give him that cut.

Cheers!

Mark
 
And one more thing non-sound. Once I get my picture-locked, I suppose it makes sense to media manage so I have a separate project file with only the media I'm using in the final cut, correct?
 
And one last thing... When we imported the original audio, we stupidly thought it was an error that all the pans were set at -1. I now know it's because they are a stereo pair. We would constantly correct these pans to 0.

If I'm exporting the audio via OMF and NOT including the pan values, is this a moot point? Do I then not have to go back and correct these pans to -1?
 
Media manage is not a bad idea but not really essential. As for the Pans- AFAIK those will not appear in the OMF so not a biggie. Though you may want to correct then anyway just to make sure you are hearing everything. You can easily do this by correct the first one, do Edit-Copy then select all tracks in the timeline and Edit-Paste Attributes, PAN. Now all tracks will share this pan setting.

Noah
 
Since talking with the guy I would like to be the sound editor, I just found out that he has Pro Tools LE without the DV Toolkit, so no OMF support and no timecode. Can I do it by exporting the AIFFs for each scene, or should I just keep looking and find someone with OMF support. He seems very competent and I like the guy... He's just young and probably doesn't have $1,500 for DV Toolkit.
 
markyf said:
Since talking with the guy I would like to be the sound editor, I just found out that he has Pro Tools LE without the DV Toolkit, so no OMF support and no timecode. Can I do it by exporting the AIFFs for each scene, or should I just keep looking and find someone with OMF support. He seems very competent and I like the guy... He's just young and probably doesn't have $1,500 for DV Toolkit.
Click to expand...

Well that's the real Catch-22 of low budget filmmaking. I don't know what your budget is, how important getting good sound or what your plans are for this project. If it's just a learning project and you are having fun with it- roll with the young guy. It's going to be more work for you getting everything together and probably not the best quality but you'll get someone looking to make their mark who will work harder for free.

But if it's something that's really important and you can afford a little more- yeah I'd probably hold out for someone who can at least import OMFs, this makes the exchange process way easier. I mean you can even do this with Soundtrack Pro at this point so it's not that hard to find.

Noah
 
I have the DV Toolkit Option, so if the files aren't too big, you can put them up on an FTP server and I can create the Pro Tools sessions for you.

As far as the pans, it really is a moot point because a dialog editor will not use stereo dialog. The dialog is either dual mono, in which case the editor will just delete one side, it was recorded using a stereo camera mic, the editor will listen through each take and pick the "best" side, or the best case is that you recorded the same channel but one side is 10 dB lower to cover for peaks.
 
Super generous of you. I might take you up on that. Will be in touch.

Thanks for all the support, guys!
 
hey, while everyone is talking audio-post ive always been curious how mixing for film differs to mixing for broadcast? (i.e. broadcast -12db, film having more dynamic range etc.)

also- with music there is a "mastering" step involved, curious if in the film/broadcast world that applies?

shawn
 
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