Editing dialogues

[David Evans]

Hi,

I have, what I think, should be a dumb newbie question, but I've searched through the forum and didn't find this discussed anywhere (though I believe that it must have been, somewhere).

I'm trying to pull out an independent film, and since I'm on my own budget, I'm trying to do everything (except act...). I'm new to sound editing, but I'm learning. I wanted to know how to edit a simple dialogue scene, where you have two (or more) different shots at the actors in the scene. How do you jump between shots and maintain the sound consistent? I suppose the lack of "cuts" in sound has necessarily to do with the quality of the mics used, that don't add any noise (so we can easily cut through them and don't notice that the sound file is constantly changing).

But is there a standard methodology to edit a dialogue, considering it has at least two audio files (each synched with the respective visuals, and considering that are only two shots for the dialogue). Or is it just a matter of editing and cutting through the dialogue just like we do with the video?

Thanks
David

 

[Steve House]

Hi,

I have, what I think, should be a dumb newbie question, but I've searched through the forum and didn't find this discussed anywhere (though I believe that it must have been, somewhere).

I'm trying to pull out an independent film, and since I'm on my own budget, I'm trying to do everything (except act...). I'm new to sound editing, but I'm learning. I wanted to know how to edit a simple dialogue scene, where you have two (or more) different shots at the actors in the scene. How do you jump between shots and maintain the sound consistent? I suppose the lack of "cuts" in sound has necessarily to do with the quality of the mics used, that don't add any noise (so we can easily cut through them and don't notice that the sound file is constantly changing).

But is there a standard methodology to edit a dialogue, considering it has at least two audio files (each synched with the respective visuals, and considering that are only two shots for the dialogue). Or is it just a matter of editing and cutting through the dialogue just like we do with the video?

Thanks
David

One technique is to be sure to have a room tone track to bridge the edits.

 

[SMuir]

Sound continuity from shot to shot has less to do with the mic quality than it does with the skill of the boom op' and production mixer. A good production mixer will keep an ear on the background noise levels and try to keep them consistant between shots.

If you find that the noise profiles of two adjacent shots are just too different, there's a number of techniques you could use to correct the situation. If the shots are similar enough and there's enough time, a nice long crossfade may be enough to ease from one shot into the next. If there's a significant noise in one shot but not the other (eg. cicadas that hushed up during the reverse shot), then you may want to mix a bit of that noisey room tone into the cleaner dialogue.

Another handy technique is to lay out the dialogue tracks so that like-sounding takes are grouped together. For example, lets start with eight dialogue tracks:

Dial 1 - Main character, clean dialogue
Dial 2 - Main character, not-so-clean dialogue (off-mic, noisey, thin, a different mic or different mic placement)
Dial 3 - Supporting character, clean dialogue
Dial 4 - Supporting character, not-so-clean dialogue
Dial 5 - Supporting character, clean dialogue
Dial 6 - Supporting character, not-so-clean dialogue
Dial 7 - Room tone and production foley/effects (primary)
Dial 8 - Room tone and production foley/effects (secondary)

In this example, the dialogue regions would be moved to the appropriate track (each character gets their own tracks), which are individually EQ'd. Room tone is layed out on track 7, while track 8 comes into play when you need that second layer of room-tone. Multi-track cross-fades will keep things running smoothly when you jump from one track to another.

 

[Noiz2]

After you have done what is suggested above you can also smooth further by adding in backgrounds. the scene takes place somewhere so for a city there will be traffic, buses, sirens etc. So if you have a particularly rough transition and your in a city and you can hear the city sounds, then a car by or a car alarm going off just before the cut and it will distract the ear and the cut will disappear. But you have to do the cleanup first.