HELP! My first full length feature mix??

[mindzeye]

hello folks... this is my first time performing a complete audio mix for a full length feature. ADR and foley. I'm currently using protools for my main audio suite. does anyone have any suggestions on a proper workflow... or is there one?? right now i'm exporting quicktimes into protools and designing sound scene by scene and then importing the completed tracks individually back to FCP to get frame tight accuracy then 5.1 assignment for the final mix. my question is... Is my workflow pretty normal?? Or is there an easier way considering the tools i have to work with? Thanks for you time!!

 

[SMuir]

Coupla things:

You should be able to get sub-frame accuracy in ProTools. Of course, you'll need the usual arsenal of synch references (2-beep, tail pop, timecode burn-in). Of course, if you're using PT LE without the DV Toolkit, things get a bit more complicated.

Why do the final 5.1 mix in FCP? Why not keep it all in PT?

I usually don't go back to FCP until I'm ready to create a "marriage print" from the mixed tracks and the final picture.

 

[mindzeye]

Why do the final 5.1 mix in FCP? Why not keep it all in PT?

i'm recieving final cuts of the movie on a scene by scene basis... and then i use FCP to bleed the scenes audio seamlessly... do you suggest that i mix with the final cut of the entire feature and work a whole 90 minute timeline in pro tools??

 

[Noiz2]

I would start with my usual rant against doing 5.1 mixes anywhere except in a properly set up stage but this doesn't seem to sink in to directors anymore. As one person said "we have surround systems at home and we want to use them!". I think it's absolute BS. But on to some useful info...

Films are usually edited and mixed in reels. In all video projects you can also go for the whole thing in one shot. Space and organization wise I like reels but there is a certain simplicity to going the whole length. Scene to scene is not a very good choice. It's going to be hard to maintain consistency and syncing in FCP is not a good choice in general because of the frame limit accuracy. Most low budget films are sound posted to locked final picture. If you don't work that way you will have to conform to the final and that can be a major pain.
The usual flow is for picture to finish, send you the finished film, you do the audio post and mix. Bounce the output to a "printmaster", in your case a 5.1 mix, that starts at the very start of the video. The pict editor takes the printmaster and drops it into the time line and snaps it to the head of the project and out puts tapes or DVD's etc.
I won't go into all the reasons I think it's a bad idea to do a 5.1 mix but if that is what your doing AND your on PT Le then there is an argument to balancing out the 5.1 mix in FCP rather than PT since surround in Le is tricky. But the mixing capabilities are a lot more robust in PT so ...
All the editorial work should be done in PT since it has much better tools available.

So what version of PT and FCP?

 

[mindzeye]

thanks guys. i truly appreciate your help... FCP HD 5 and PT le 7

 

[Noiz2]

If your on 5 you should be able to go to 5.1 for free. If you go up to 6 the OMF export is a lot better. I can't remember if Le 7.3 has multiple video tracks? HD does and that makes working on sections a lot more practical. I think 7.3 Le also has region groups, they are VERY useful if your working on parts of a project since you can take all your tracks and make them one big super region that you can move around.

 

[carlone]

Pro Tools 7.3 LE does allow for multiple video tracks or multiple movies in a single video track.

So you mnetioned that the OMF export in FCP 6 is "better". Just wonderong how is it better than what was in FCP 5?

Thanks

 

[Noiz2]

It includes volume automation. Maybe pans also, but volume is a biggie. Until V6 a FCP OMF only included clips no level info. A lot of mixers would say "good, I don't want there mix" and that's good as far as it goes but a lot of video editors mute out bits with volume automation. So tying to get back to where you could be starting from was always a pain.

 

[mindzeye]

noiz2... thanks for all the great info... I will definitely talk to my partner and rethink the 5.1 mix.

 

[Noiz2]

... do you suggest that i mix with the final cut of the entire feature and work a whole 90 minute timeline in pro tools??

Yes that would be the usual for video, and actually a lot of films now also.
Traditionally films (35mm) were broken into 1000 foot "edit" reels (~~10 min) for convenience. And later joined into 2000 foot "A/B" reels (~~ 20 min - the largest reel that fits on a standard projector) for mixing and distribution. You had to do little sound overlaps so you didn't have a drop out on projector change overs. If your not working on a project that is destined for 35mm release it's sort of silly to work in reels. Nobody ever worked scene by scene. The problem is continuity. It's important how you get scene to scene and you want to do that in the audio edit. It's also great to have it all in one session so that you can easily grab BG's and such from other scenes set in the same locale.

FCP is capable of subframe nudging of audio I have recently found out. But it's still easier to do this in PT.

 

[Brad S.]

I agree with Noiz about editing in one session does make it easier, but I think mixing the whole film in one PT session may get too processor intensive ... especially on an LE system. You'll have to do a lot of printing tracks to free up CPU. Plus with LE you're limited to 32 or 48 tracks. It's definitely still possible, but you'll be fighting the LE limitations.

 

[Noiz2]

Brad,

The length should have no effect on CPU usage. Track count could be an issue. Coming from editing into mixing I tend to not have a lot of track plugins. Le is not the best mixing environment but then that's what premixing is all about. Titanic was done on PT when TDM systems toped out at 16 voices (32 was poss but was such a hassle that it just wasn't practical) so it is doable.

 

[Brad S.]

The length should have no effect on CPU usage.

True, but I think that everything tied together does not help. When I mix, which I admit is not my area of expertise yet, I tend to use a lot of plug-ins and do a lot of automation. When I edit, I tend to have thousands of small edits and fades, especially with Foley. So I guess my concern would be less with CPU usage and more with reading from the drive. But then again, PT is only really reading from the drive at one point in time so I guess the length of the session doesn't matter.

As far as mixing goes, the place I work at now mixes using two HD6 systems linked together: one for FX and one for DX and Music. I've tried mixing a 10 minute short on my LE system and I quickly hit my 48 track limit and had to serverely limit my plug-in usage. In hindsight I should have done more premixing and bouncing down the tracks like you say, but I was probably trying to emulate the workflow I'd been observing at work. So I agree with you completely, Noiz, that it is definitely possible to mix in LE, but there are going to be limitations that I think would be too detrimental to the creative process. Of course I've got a bad case of HD envy so I'm probably more pessimistic about LE than some people.