Audio Post for screening in a echoey room

R

Ryan-Guy

Well-known member
I have a short that is going to be played in a film festival that is played in an incredibly echoey venue. MY audio is perfect, but the acoustics of the area where it is going to be screened are horrendous... Brick walls, concrete floor, and high ceiling. The last time I had my short screened there you could barely understand a single word... and the worst part is that my short had the best audio out of the other 12 entries. The others were just incomprehensible.

Any suggestions on filters/settings so that my audio can be at least perceptible? Someone suggested a gate, another suggested dropping the lows/mids.
 
Ryan-Guy said:
The last time I had my short screened there you could barely understand a single word... and the worst part is that my short had the best audio out of the other 12 entries. The others were just incomprehensible.
Click to expand...

Based on what you wrote, to all the people watching your short at the festival (yourself included), no single word in your audio is really comprehensible. So, are you really sure other entries don't have better audio?

To your question: I probably don't know the specific answer that you are looking for. But in my opinion, if you do have "perfect" audio (as you wrote), any major change you do to it will only make the audio distorted (and hence imperfect). That could hurt your film to everyone taking the playback quality into account, right?
 
henryqiu said:
Based on what you wrote, to all the people watching your short at the festival (yourself included), no single word in your audio is really comprehensible. So, are you really sure other entries don't have better audio?

To your question: I probably don't know the specific answer that you are looking for. But in my opinion, if you do have "perfect" audio (as you wrote), any major change you do to it will only make the audio distorted (and hence imperfect). That could hurt your film to everyone taking the playback quality into account, right?
Click to expand...

Well "perfect" may have been a conceited word choice, the audio is very acceptable. I know that the other entries (at least the last event) have even worse audio because they post the submissions online after the screenings. My point was that that even with clean audio boomed close with appropriate mic choices and a good recorder, its still pretty bad during screening.

And yes it will distort the audio in a perfect environment, but for this one location specifically, the echo is so bad that dialogue is pretty much wasted, and any filter that can help with the echo, even if it introduces artifacts in clean monitors, would really be a benefit.
 
IMHO, nothing you do to the audio BEFORE it get's to the playback speakers will have any effect on problems introduced AFTER the sound wave leaves the speakers headed out into the room, with the possible exception of reverb introduced because of incorrect delay settings on the surround speakers in an improperly setup surround sound system. But if it's echo caused by reflections from hard walls, etc, ... lotsoluck
 
I've done a bit of big venue sound engineering here and there, and the post above is correct. Without setting up the venue correctly, there's nothing you can do as the distortion cannot be modelled and even if it could, it will be different for every seating position in the venue anyway.

All you can really do is suck it up and hope for the best, or talk to the organisers and try to get them to improve the situation. Ie. diffusive panels are cheap to make, depending on the size required, and are effective in absorbing reflection.
 
Strictly in terms of "what you could do" not "what you should do" you could have had all you actors talk with a pace similar to "The King's Speech". Very deliberate slow pace with many pauses. This would make a horrible film but it would be a film designed for the room it will be premiered in.
 
Having done a lot of time in bad live venues the only thing you could do is treat the room. There is nothing you can do to your film that will compensate for what you describe. If yu added reverb to your film then removing it would help a bit but that is about it.

Seat the people that you want to hear the best as close to the speakers as possible. The farther back you get the worse it's going to be generally. Also sometimes there is a bad zone or two because of reflections so you could go to the theatre and play some dialog through the system and move around to see where it sounds the best.

The MAGIC theatre in SF rebuilt one theatre with hard near parallel walls and mid audience dialog was unintelligible, but up close or in the back few rows it was fine.

Bottom line is if the festival doesn't care enough about sound to treat the room your pretty much SOL.

Complain, talk to them about it, talk to other filmmakers. Threaten to not submit in the future if they don't improve it. The last isn't going to make much impact unless you get enough filmmakers on your side and take it public so it's bad PR if they don't do something. I would go the "I would like to help you make a better festival" route first. You never can tell maybe they just need some bodies to help hang some sound blankets and you can be the angel.
 
Ryan-Guy said:
And yes it will distort the audio in a perfect environment, but for this one location specifically, the echo is so bad that dialogue is pretty much wasted, and any filter that can help with the echo, even if it introduces artifacts in clean monitors, would really be a benefit.
Click to expand...

Well, if you do believe 1) there is no way to have the play room acoustically improved, and if you think 2) you have to sacrifice something big to make the words in your audio intelligible during playing: you could try to remove as much of "unnecessary" audio (such as ambient sounds, music, etc) as possible. Then experiment with EQ to drop frequency ranges not "needed" in making words intelligible. Doing this will help the spoken words pop up during playback, as if you were asking your audience to block one ear in order to hear the words with another ear. If possible, have the loud speakers face the audience, which will help too.

It is quite "normal" for spoken words to lose intelligibility in a reflective room. The right option is to have the room reduce/eliminate sound reflections.

Personally, if I know for sure that my audio is "perfect" I would rather keep it as is. Changing the otherwise perfect audio the above way will prevent ALL of your audiences from hearing the intended audio, which is equivalent to forbidding them to watch half of the movie.

Good luck!
 
I agree with what everyone above has said, and I will add:

You have no control over the rooms your sound will be played in, for the most part. Once you hand off the mix, it's out of your hands. This issue frustrated me to no end when I was first starting out, and I see it does for you, and it is completely understandable. It's obvious you really care about your work and take pride in it, and that's a good thing. The important thing to remember is this: You aren't doing the sound design just for that specific festival. You are doing sound work for the project, and it needs to be as good as you can make it because the work you do on this project is going to get you more work. This stuff is going on your reel. When I did a project when I was first starting out, I never listened to the "it's festival bound! it's a great story!" and all that other stuff. I don't care about those things. What I care about is the material that is given to me, if I can work with it, if it's a project that will highlight my talents, and if the overall production value is good, and most importantly...the project has to pay me...with money. I've had my stuff in tons of festivals, and that's never what got me more work. It was my demo reel, positive mental attitude, and the right connections built over time that allowed me to move up the ladder.
 
What you could do is try to find a studio where they have "cinema environment" and see/hear if it sounds good there.

And this story is the "well-it's-only-for-a-few-people-and-the-sound-doesn't-need-to-be-perfect-and-as-long-as-we-can-hear-someting-it's-ok-enough-for-us-story".

Mostly the "technicians" are sons are cousins from one or other "CEO" of that particular theatre. So they don't know anything about good sound... It's like I would suddenly do churgery on someone...
 
Thanks everyone for your advice and comments. I completely understand the notion to try to change the acoustic environment, but this "festival"... well, more like a film competition... is group that holds every 2 months in a bar/club. You know the whole 48hr FF, but sometimes its a week, month, 5 days, etc.. I do it more out of tradition and a fun activity for me and my film buddies, rather than be demanding of screening quality, at least in this case. If it were an international FF, or even a "respectable" local festival, I would be raising hell. But I still do care about how the audience experiences our films even in this lowly event.


henryqiu said:
Well, if you do believe 1) there is no way to have the play room acoustically improved, and if you think 2) you have to sacrifice something big to make the words in your audio intelligible during playing: you could try to remove as much of "unnecessary" audio (such as ambient sounds, music, etc) as possible. Then experiment with EQ to drop frequency ranges not "needed" in making words intelligible. Doing this will help the spoken words pop up during playback, as if you were asking your audience to block one ear in order to hear the words with another ear. If possible, have the loud speakers face the audience, which will help too.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Noted! Thanks!
 
If your audio is good as it is, you could reduce the level of the playback copy so when it plays through the speakers it doesn't excite the room as much. It'll sound quieter than the other entries but should be more intelligible. Another option would be to ask whoever is operating the sound system to turn it down about 20%. Then all of the entries would sound better. Personally if I attended a festival in such a sucky environment I would walk out.
Bernie
 
berniebeaudry said:
Personally if I attended a festival in such a sucky environment I would walk out.
Click to expand...

I've done this once or twice. I walked Foley on a USC student film, and went to go see it at USC, and their theater sounds awful. I walked out because I just couldn't take how bad the room sounded.
 
berniebeaudry said:
If your audio is good as it is, you could reduce the level of the playback copy so when it plays through the speakers it doesn't excite the room as much. It'll sound quieter than the other entries but should be more intelligible. Another option would be to ask whoever is operating the sound system to turn it down about 20%. Then all of the entries would sound better.
Click to expand...

This.
 
Rippie said:
This.
Click to expand...

Yah, I'll make sure they do that too. Thanks! Just like someone else mentioned though in this thread, the sound board is run by idiots, so I think they'd just boost it. Plus all the other entries are all over the place sound wise, so getting the sound consistant is pretty hard for them i'd imagine. But I will let them know to play our levels lower than they normally would.

After thinking back to my last showing there, I think you guys are spot on on high levels exciting the room too much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top