Cinematic dialogue

dre83 said:
Aren't there also: the "we have to convince people to invest money or to sell our stuff trailers" and the "this is going to happen in the movie trailers" ?

For the example, there are a few "isues".

1: the guy is I think not boomed properly... he sounds like the mic is aimed behind him. The girl is ok, but sometimes going "off" also (off mic).
2: I'm not native english and I don't know every single word in english.. But I don't understand what they're saying... They're kinda "mubling"... Speaking way to fast.
It's like for image... When you do a travel shot at 406468464646464648646864 lightyears/second...it's a bit to fast.. That's same for sound...if you speak to fast...
3: Let them speak louder...Specialy the guy. But it's also good aiming which is important here (with the mic....)
It's better to be to much in front then behind someone (in front of the face....)

And the location is in a street with houses, one against one ?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3746174/wav059_EQ_NR.zip

I tried some stuff... I've done only EQ and EQ with some NR (Izotope). It's just a trial....
Click to expand...

Thank you, will check it out, this scene was shot in the evening in a relatively quiet street, heavy snow, yes it's terraced house on both sides of the street, the two actors are standing on the pavement on one side, this was a medium close-up shot.
 
I must have missed the example audio! Yea it does seem like the guy is off-axis a bit and the female sounds a bit more brilliant. It does seem a bit muffled to my ears as well. I can still make it out but struggling a bit to understand. This does seem manageable, especially when you use ambiences, Foley, and FX to help bring it to life.

The power of iZotope ;)
 
dre83 said:
Aren't there also: the "we have to convince people to invest money or to sell our stuff trailers" and the "this is going to happen in the movie trailers" ?

For the example, there are a few "isues".

1: the guy is I think not boomed properly... he sounds like the mic is aimed behind him. The girl is ok, but sometimes going "off" also (off mic).
2: I'm not native english and I don't know every single word in english.. But I don't understand what they're saying... They're kinda "mubling"... Speaking way to fast.
It's like for image... When you do a travel shot at 406468464646464648646864 lightyears/second...it's a bit to fast.. That's same for sound...if you speak to fast...
3: Let them speak louder...Specialy the guy. But it's also good aiming which is important here (with the mic....)
It's better to be to much in front then behind someone (in front of the face....)

And the location is in a street with houses, one against one ?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3746174/wav059_EQ_NR.zip

I tried some stuff... I've done only EQ and EQ with some NR (Izotope). It's just a trial....
Click to expand...

I think it sounds good! I like the EQ you applied, if the mic was closer I think it will be even better! The boom op didn't do a good job because he's very cold, you can hear the boom pole rattling :P

When I was processing this dialogue I added some compression to control the girl's voice dynamic range, I read in the other thread about room tone blahblah that a volume automation maybe better?
 
marvinhello said:
I think it sounds good! I like the EQ you applied, if the mic was closer I think it will be even better! The boom op didn't do a good job because he's very cold, you can hear the boom pole rattling :P

When I was processing this dialogue I added some compression to control the girl's voice dynamic range, I read in the other thread about room tone blahblah that a volume automation maybe better?
Click to expand...

that's just a personal preference. I just noticed that volume automation (versus compression) has a much more natural sound to it. I use compression very softly, barely tickling the threshold. It ultimately depends on how noisy the source is. If it's really noisy, then I would steer away from compression. There's many threads on "Dialog Chains" on the DUC and GearSlutz that give insight on the way different mixers use compression. Based on the people that post on those forums, they seem to use compression very lightly and use a heck of a lot of volume automation.

You can control the girl's dynamic range with volume automation. Compression just helps it a bit, but sometimes, depending on the compressor, the compression "sound" might be too aggressive and noticeable.
 
The original file is in the first post... Not to everyone here: if you post something like "stuff to download or so", just put it in a "reply post"... people are not going all the way back to the first post... :-p

I did it...but it was a hard time for me to do...struggling.... :-p

I didn't use compression because it will bring up the background.... There are no rules...but... I would not use compression here....
 
Interesting. The guy does seem to mumble some and the woman tends to run through the dialog at times. It probably makes sense when you see it but as sound only it is a bit of work to catch in some places.

The EQ seemed problematic. It helped with some of the clarity but also made some things a bit "harsh" IMHO, it also made the noise floor stand out in some places. I'm guessing you just did a one setting pass and this probably needs to have the actors split up and dealt with separately.

The NR I could definitely hear artifacts in. Again it may need to be done on a line by line basis since if the boom op is moving the mic the background noise is going to change.

As to cinematic. Other than levels some EQ and NR, I don't think you will need more to be "cinematic". But there is no real sense of place in the track. It's outside but the sounds are not giving me any info on where it's supposed to be. Is it the heart of the city, maybe we should be hearing some traffic, a siren??? Is it more industrial? Maybe dogs, train? Or maybe they are close to the docks, so gulls?, boats??

If you take any good "cinematic" movie, you can close your eyes and have a good idea of what the setting looks like because it will also sound like it looks.

That detail of space is a lot of the cinematic-ness of a scene.
 
it was also just to give a quick example. of course it needs some tweaking. and also adding extra sounds will improve it
 
dre83 said:
it was also just to give a quick example. of course it needs some tweaking. and also adding extra sounds will improve it
Click to expand...

Thank you and Noiz, it was a great example, the location is indeed very quiet, i'm not sure exactly what sound to add in to the mix as I fear that it may sound fake or overdone.
 
the location is not the problem....here the biggest isue is "not close enough with the mic" . bad aimed, and the actors who also have to "practise".... Making movies is a lesson for everyone...also for actors/actresses

I tried to push up some in the high, but then the background noise levels up too... so those moments there's some NR needed to cover that... or some ambiance sounds like wind to cover it....

Sounds that can be added and not sound fake: some wind, a bird here and there, a dog barking, a cat..... few cars but so they sound "further", which is done with EQ high pass, using reverb and letting only pass the sound of the reverb.... Explaining it is more difficult then doing it... Although it isn't that easy... using EQ after the reverb can help also...and with reverb I don't mean the 48464644 minutes reverb.... it's just a few miliseconds, but gives the "it sounds further away" effect... in combination with EQ....
 
marvinhello said:
Thank you and Noiz, it was a great example, the location is indeed very quiet, i'm not sure exactly what sound to add in to the mix as I fear that it may sound fake or overdone.
Click to expand...

If you go to the stickies there are articles under post sound. The trick as it were is to build up the sounds. Don't go looking for "the" sound. Break down what should be in the world of the film and in that scene. Forget where you shot it and only pay attention to where the scene takes place (in the film).

The question for you is whether you personally want to do all this or whether you would be better off having someone else work on it for you.

As general career advice I would say to pick what you want to do and have others do everything else. You can change your mind later and after you know the thing you focused on you might be able to add another skill but realistically there isn't anybody I can think of that does more than say two things well. And there are not that many that do two well. And of those people very few do those two things on the same film. Writing/ directing being the one exception. That pairing happens more often, though it could be argued that in many cases one or the other suffers from the pairing.
 
Wow, so I am a few pages back, but yes you have captured the audio. The problem, is that the male voice is WAY under where he needs to be for volume. He is down in the -24 through -18 range, the girl is ok, and her stuff can be used (as you can see from the responses in this thread). For the male voice, think about what his character is, in this particular scene, if he is the lead I would expect to hear him very clear, and the girl as a backup, but even if the girl is the lead in this scene, he is far to low. The boom needs to swing over, and get in closer or point differantly to pick up the deeper male voice, if it doesn't, he sounds thin, and un-important even if the volume and EQ are tweaked. One thing is for sure, you can't work with sound that isn't being captured in the original take. Also, if you had a bit more gain on your recorder, you could have used that as your environment for recording the dialogue in this scene doesn't sound to bad at all (minimal cars, freeway, street sounds, people) so feel free to crank the gain if you have it and it is clean.

Just wanted to give my follow up after you posted footage.
 
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