Good audio on a budget?

W

WatchOut

New member
Hello guys,
I just finished up a short, and heck I learnt a lot! Truth be told, it may not be Oscar worthy but nonetheless it turned out somewhat decent. However, as many other indie films the part that sucked the most was the audio. My audio gear was unfortunately bad hence the result, and the only sound man I had on the set was the one holding boom, whose audio knowledge was worse than mine. I've never been much into audio, in fact I am a total novice regarding it, and as things are now I cannot afford a sound technician. I am trying to read and learn about audio (post)production as much as possible, any tips will be appreciated!

I am working on a few projects, I am trying to enhance the short that I have now (focusing mainly on the audio) and planning a new short. Can any of you recommend books that aren't filled up with too much technical stuff? The ones I have read were a bit too heavy considering my lack of audio experience and knowledge.

My budget on the next movie is bigger, so I want a sound man on it. If I could get only ONE person working with sound, which position should I give priority to (excluding the boomer)? What should I as a director focus on?

I hope you can help me, it really reduces the production value and the overall movie to have a bad audio.

Thank you!
 
What you should concentrate on as a Director is directing the project. Hire a soundman.
One person cannot do it all. You cannot reinvent the wheel.
So.... what do you want to be? Camera operator? DP? Soundmixer? Editor?
OH YEAH...... I forgot.....you said you were a DIRECTOR......but, are you really a director?
 
BRH I think you might have misunderstood me. First of all I believe that a director should try to get even a bit of knowledge and understanding of EVERY single part of filmmaking, so I can be able to direct properly. Secondly, as I previously mentioned, my budget for the short film that I already have made was zero; hereby I was not only the director, I was an editor, screenwriter, lightning technician and much more. My crew was me, the boomer, a camera operator and a composer, but my main job was directing. I know a lot about my jobS, but not the audio part - that's why I am asking for help here. The next film is going to have a soundman, but because my lack of experience in that field, I am asking for advice on which soundman I should get - i.e. should I get one on set, or should I wait till postproduction?

I am a director, but not ONLY a director. And the bigger budget I get by time, the less other jobs I shall have.
 
WatchOut said:
...The next film is going to have a soundman, but because my lack of experience in that field, I am asking for advice on which soundman I should get - i.e. should I get one on set, or should I wait till postproduction?

....
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"We can fix it in post" is one of the greatest fallacies of filmmaking. If your budget allows for an experienced sound person, by all means have him on set so you can get it recorded right in the first place.
 
Watchout!

You should hire a production sound mixer for $, and listen to him when he tells you things like:

"Your actor put a coffee cup down on the table during a line, could you please have him put the cup down during a pause in the line instead!" (Be a dialog friendly Director)

"We need to turn off all cell phones... completely off!" (Director needs to call this)

"Please what for the jet aircraft to clear.. we are under a flight path....who choose this location?" (Director needs to include sound in pre-prod.)
 
You need someone who understands how audio works and can handle a boom. There are lots of up-and-comers out there who have basic sound kit looking to improve their skills, you just have to find one.
 
WatchOut,

I'm a post person, 90% of the time. I am MUCH more likely to give you a deal or a freebie (as a starving director starting out) if the production tracks are decent. The last thing I want to do, even for real money, is spend a lot of time trying to make BAD tracks sound passible. Get a good production mixer, and make sure they get to pick/train the boom operator. You may think of that as a minor role but there is a reason why most mixers have a boom op the use as often as possible, many of the bigger mixers have used the same boom operator for years.

As to fixing what you have now. I would probably try to find someone who is willing to do it for what you can offer. The reason is You want to be a director. Knowing a bit to a fair amount of the whole process is a good thing but "learning" how to fix bad tracks (as much as they can be "fixed") is a waste of your brain. You are going to get better sound next time, right?!... So you don't need to know. Plus it's a moving target and it takes expensive tools mostly. You can't do much with out working in a DAW. So that is probably $$ AND you have to learn the app which is completely useless if your not going to use it all the time. The tools (plugins etc) are not cheap. So say you do all that, spend a lot of time learning the app, spend $1K or so on a decent DAW, you then need decent speakers, monitoring environment, you also need to calibrate them (more time and another $30-$160 in equipment), and some software (good NR software starts at around $300 and very quickly goes in to the multi $K range). So you spend a bunch of time and a few thousand $ and what do you have? Some gear being used by someone who you wouldn't hire doing your post... For the same $ you can get some experience and the tools tossed in for free. If you want to learn then hang out while they work on your film, go get some coffee etc and watch. You get to learn a bit and your film gets a much better sound track.

If you go "I have no money" then what? You can't "fix" the tracks with out the tools (DAW and Plugins/out board gear) and experience to use them. A book isn't going to help. If you have no money, find someone who will do it for what you can come up with. Maybe they will do it for credit. Maybe you have to wash their car a bunch, help them make a podcast. You have skills, trade. As long as they can pay the rent somehow barter is a better deal for everyone.
 
WatchOut said:
I am asking for advice on which soundman I should get - i.e. should I get one on set, or should I wait till postproduction?
Click to expand...

Get one on the set. You need someone who understands microphones, mic technique, and sound recording technique. Spend the money getting good capture in the field. If you've got good capture, you've got something to work with in post. Without good capture, you're either looking at doing it over or having to live with crappy audio again.
 
Noiz2 said:
If you have no money, find someone who will do it for what you can come up with. Maybe they will do it for credit. Maybe you have to wash their car a bunch, help them make a podcast. You have skills, trade. As long as they can pay the rent somehow barter is a better deal for everyone.
Click to expand...

Hey I'll come do sound on his next short if he helps me build a new
deck on the back of my house :D
 
I like the triangle in Great Sound for Film and Digital Video. Picture, Economic in one corner, Speed in another, and quality in the third. Then it says pick two. Great book.
 
Many thoughts are already given, but I wanted to share mine also.

In a way it's very funny that for low budget and indie films there isn't money for the sound stuff.
But one forgets that there's also no money then for post production.
And more... audio postproduction is not equal to "a magic staff that fix ALL problems in sound".
If it's bad recorded....it's bad recorded...point, final, the end, no discussion.

If I do sound design for a film, and it rains... well..;then it will rain the complete scene. If the director likes it or not... I don't realy care...it rains... That's the best solution.
Another solution could be ADR and foley. But to do good ADR and good foley you need a studio... Which is not always free... So with indie movies...indeed...no money...no ADR, no foley.

"we'll fix it in post" is a phrase I HATE. At that moment I go straight to the director/producer/AD and tell them I like it more to pay everyone free Mcdonald food and to redo a good take...rather then give bad audio to the postproduction guys.
As said before: you lose maybe one minute (from which 99% is because of CAMERA position discussion....or ACTING discussion.... which should have been done already, because suddenly there is time for that)

You just have to keep in mind that sound decided voor 75% weather your film makes or brakes....

Involve your soundguys at PREproduction. Not one day before shooting day.... And visit the locations WITH a soundguy. Because only soundguys/girls hear things. Also watch out for sundays and mondays.. There's a big difference between "sunday sound ambience" and "monday sound ambiance".So visit the location on a day the shoot will be.
And always listen to your soundguy/girl.. If he/she asks to redo a take...don't start arguying and just redo the take... He/she is not going to ask to redo a take...just for fun...

Have good material. Take a look at it, hold it. Is it broken ? Is it fixed with gaffa ? Is it falling apart ? If you have a bad boom, you will have bad sound... If you have a bad wirelless...don't use it...It makes no sense then...
 
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dre83 said:
...

Another solution could be ADR and foley. But to do good ADR and good foley you need a studio... Which is not always free... So with indie movies...indeed...no money...no ADR, no foley.
...
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This part I would disagree with to a certain extent. First off I always do Foley, much of it on films with micro budgets is what some call WIFO (short for WIld FOley) which is sort of a hybrid with FX. It is "Foley" FX but not done to sync, or only loosely, which makes it almost (or totally) FX's rather than Foley. But the you can walk Foley with video on your phone. The point is that you can do a lot of Foley with out a studio providing you can do it somewhere that is either quiet and dead or sounds like the space in the film.

Similarly ADR can be done in the field. In some cases it's better. I'm shooting some ADR on Sun. that we are doing outside. We could have done it in a studio but we chose to do it in an environment that is similar to the "real" location (but quieter). With a little luck it will drop in with out any big massaging and I will have to do almost no faking of the space to make it sound right. The shot is in a cemetery so that would have been tricky to make sound right if shot indoors. I have also done a LOT of ADR in specific locations. Doing ADR in a room similar to the one in the shot saves a ton of time and sounds great, if done right. The biggest catch is noise. You do have to have fairly quiet places to do this stuff.

That said ADR sucks. It's a pain to do however you do it. It's a pain to massage it into sync. It's a pain to get it to "fit" the space. The only reason we are doing it is that the levels were too low to salvage. Their "sound guy" shot it at about 100 ft with a shotgun. When I got the files you couldn't see a waveform. I did manage to get understandable dialog out of it but it sounds horrible. Post can polish but if you don't get it in production you don't have it.
 
Noiz2 said:
This part I would disagree with to a certain extent. First off I always do Foley, much of it on films with micro budgets is what some call WIFO (short for WIld FOley) which is sort of a hybrid with FX. It is "Foley" FX but not done to sync, or only loosely, which makes it almost (or totally) FX's rather than Foley. But the you can walk Foley with video on your phone. The point is that you can do a lot of Foley with out a studio providing you can do it somewhere that is either quiet and dead or sounds like the space in the film.

Similarly ADR can be done in the field. In some cases it's better. I'm shooting some ADR on Sun. that we are doing outside. We could have done it in a studio but we chose to do it in an environment that is similar to the "real" location (but quieter). With a little luck it will drop in with out any big massaging and I will have to do almost no faking of the space to make it sound right. The shot is in a cemetery so that would have been tricky to make sound right if shot indoors. I have also done a LOT of ADR in specific locations. Doing ADR in a room similar to the one in the shot saves a ton of time and sounds great, if done right. The biggest catch is noise. You do have to have fairly quiet places to do this stuff.

That said ADR sucks. It's a pain to do however you do it. It's a pain to massage it into sync. It's a pain to get it to "fit" the space. The only reason we are doing it is that the levels were too low to salvage. Their "sound guy" shot it at about 100 ft with a shotgun. When I got the files you couldn't see a waveform. I did manage to get understandable dialog out of it but it sounds horrible. Post can polish but if you don't get it in production you don't have it.
Click to expand...

Yes I know... I do it myself also Foley at home... and in the field..

But...I wanted to tell more how it goes "in real" (for budget movies).

And also "Foley", for me is more like watching the scene on a big screen with a rhytmo band (don't know if that's english..). But that's maybe also because of me having another motherlanguage... If we do in the field (ADR and foley) we call it "wild lines" and "wild takes".

But you're right, you can do "Foley" also in "live nature". Only don't record foley on a place with lot's of traffic for a scene in the year 1415.....
Best time to do that kind of Foley is at night.
 
loudlael said:
Just a quick question. Don't most all the bazzillion dollar movies ADR?
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Most films end up having to do a line or two. But no big budget films HATE ADR and avoid it like the plague. Some movies you just don't have a lot of choice. Either because of noisy locations or because that "hi-tech all metal" set was actually wood and cardboard and the actors don't sound like they are in the space, or you have costumes/ makeup that makes it near impossible for the actor to talk. Having worked post on a bunch of films in the $30 mil - $300 mil range only one did a lot of ADR and that was because there was construction going on (they were building the studio while shooting) and they were supposed to be on a ship at sea.

Keep in mind that it costs a LOT more for a big budget film to do ADR than a tiny budget film. Big $$ actors work a lot so it's hard to get them and you usually have to go to where they are. You have studio rentals and crews to fly around and time. For a big film with completion bonds time is $$$$$. On top of everyones hourly's etc you have this big whopping completion bond payment that you have to pay every week till you finish post.

Everyone does Foley, most do very little ADR.
 
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