audio and image sync

I

imfeelingblue

Member
well im shooting a short film in a couple of months for my portfolio because im planning on applying to film school. what i never understood was how to get the audio of the dialogue to sync up with the picture when there are different takes of different angles. would you have to dub it in post? oh and i only have one dvx too.

not sure if this goes into audio or some other forum.
 
I'm not certain that I entirely understand the question.

Whenever possible, try to use the synch production sound of the shot in question. A good production sound mixer will try to keep the dialogue sounding consistant from take to take and from shot to shot. If the recordings and performance are sufficiently consistent, the picture editor should be able to rely on the production sound when cutting on-screen dialogue.

It eventually falls upon the dialogue editor to smooth over bumpy dialogue edits, and to replace any compromised dialogue using alternate takes, out-takes, and wild-takes. If the dialogue editor is unable to repair or replace the production sound, the lines will have to be covered in ADR. ADR is often required when the original recording is unuseable (eg. due to noise), when the wording of dialogue has been changed during post-production, or when the director is dissatisfied with the actor's delivery.

I'm not sure that I've answered your question, though.
 
Let me add a bit on what SMuir is saying. If you've recorded your audio onto a separate recorder, then the first thing you do is sync the audio to all of your captured takes (this is a time when keeping accurate track of the best takes will save you time).

Then, when you're editing, providing you have consistent dialog from take to take, you simply cut back and forth between your shots as need - the audio comes along for the ride. There is no need to "sync" it at that point. Once you've finished cutting, then you start the dialog editing, mixing, re-mixing, ADR process as needed.

If your sound person has done their job, then the levels will be fairly consistent between shots, and won't require as much post work. If not...

The good thing is you will now come to understand how important it is to have a good sound person working on your projects.

Phil
 
thanks for the replies guys. i learned new things ;]

but the problem is though this is done on basically no budget. all i have is a dvx and a boom. theres no separate recorder. how would i obtain a scene where one person is talking and the camera cuts to a different angle while the person is still talking? im trying to make everything flow smoothly.

p.s. is there any cheap separate audio recorders for starters?
 
When you cut away from the the dialogue, you may be able to simply continue the previous shot's dialogue. Specific on-screen action can complicate matters, but you may be able to mix in the cutaway's synch sound to take advantage of any production foley.

If the speaker's lips are still visible during the cutaway, try to match the synch of the cutaway's production sound.

Over the past few years, a nice selection of high-quality and inexpensive portable recorders have hit the market. A few even have SMPTE timecode, which is a big plus for double-system production sound recording. Here are a few off the top of my head: Sound Devices 702, 702t, 744t, Fostex FR-2, FR-2LE, Zoom H4, Tascam HD-P2.
 
Imfeelingblue,

Based on your questions, what I'm thinking would be best is if you pick up a book on basic editing. Your questions seem to be more about a lack of understanding of how editing works rather than specifically about audio sync. Once you understand the basics of editing, you will see that it really is very simple for the type of stuff you are describing. It gets more complex down the road when you want to use audio from one take and video from a different take. But just cutting back and forth between shots, as I said above, the audio just comes along with the picture. It's how you chop up the individual cuts that dictate how the audio flows with the picture.

(I'm not saying this meaning to be demeaning...if I've misunderstood your question, then maybe a little additional clarification can help).

Phil
 
lol of course not. its just some friendly advice right? yeah maybe i should go to barnes and noble this weekend and pick something up.
 
Okay, so I'm not doing a good job of describing what I mean, so here's a screen shot of an example in Vegas and a link to the rendered clip. Please note this is not the way I did edit this scene, it was just a quick and dirty to make the point - the audio stays with the clip, you then adjust what parts of the audio you want with which image. (In Vegas, you have to remove the audio from the clip group in order to do this).

Clip: http://www.bwgproductions.com/examples/forDVXUser.wmv

1203572105.jpg


Phil
 
It's all a matter of how you sync your sound with video. If you sync by way of a universal SMPTE time code then all is easy, but any other way, it can be confusing.
 
ptalsky said:
BTW, for that other thread, notice the slate in every take. :-)
Click to expand...

OMG! A slate in every take! My head is spinning. I can't take it. Slating with a slate. What will people think of next? It's simply amazing.

But.... what? That clapper doesn't look like an Earl!

But.... what? That looks like Vegas, not Avid!

Sacré bleu! What is this world coming to?
:beer:
 
KenV said:
It's all a matter of how you sync your sound with video. If you sync by way of a universal SMPTE time code then all is easy, but any other way, it can be confusing.
Click to expand...
Since he's (the other thread that the slating comment refers to) shooting film the TC isn't really much of an option since with a few exceptions it's not possible.

And though I'm not at all on universal ground here I always want slates. TC is fine for syncing, if everything went OK, but it doesn't tell you anything about the shot. You can't even tell what film it's from. The slate does a lot more than just provide a sync point for sound. This is especially important on actual film since there are no filenames to help you out.
 
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Jacquot said:
OMG! A slate in every take! My head is spinning. I can't take it. Slating with a slate. What will people think of next? It's simply amazing.

But.... what? That clapper doesn't look like an Earl!

But.... what? That looks like Vegas, not Avid!

Sacré bleu! What is this world coming to?
:beer:
Click to expand...

A very strange place where someone who says they don't use much sync sound is giving bad advice to someone who asked about sync sound. And then getting defensive about it.
 
I guess some people just miss the point - what I see is in my clip bin a wonderful group of slates that tell me exactly what each clip is, so I can find the right clip quickly and easily.

Also note that this project was shot about 1.5 years ago. I now have a nice Denecke timecode slate of my very own. :-)

Phil
 
Howdy,
I was the Sound recorder for a low budget horror flick. For whatever reason, the AD just couldn't get the idea that Proper Slating is a good thing. I'm in the process of syncing/merging the camera audio with the audio I recorded. I recorded straight into Protools and was able to Rename the Regions recorded as we went S2-S2-T2-E. That reads scene2, shot2, take2 in English. Oh yea, we shot in spanish and english at the same time. Protools makes it pretty simple to merge, the Bitc!!@# is getting it back into FCP.
To sync, you basically import the audio from the onboard camera into PT, line up the Spikes from the clapboard, (When that happened), and turn it around back to FCP. In my case there were scenes I had 6 mics going so I can't just send it back as a stereo mix..
 
I might also state that there is a sort of secret weapon called "VocAlign" which is a plug in for Pro Tools users which magically makes everything in sync concerning dialog and sound in post production.
 
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