Isolating dialog in audio post

[gpforet]

How is dialog managed in post audio?

Although I'd like to think that my location sound has captured perfect dialog, the truth is there is still some varying ambient sounds in the dialog tracks. Either HVAC that I couldn't control, actors making noises with props, or various other stuff which doesn't directly pertain to dialog.

My question is this:

Once I have the edited scenes containing dialog (and other sound), do I razor out/replace with silence/automate fade everything between the spoken lines or just selectively remove transient disctractions? Granted, I will likely have to ramp up and down the transitions to make these mutes less noticeable but I would think that by doing this, I end up with a cleaner dialog track to lay my room tone under and perhaps have less phasing issues.

How are you guys working with the dialog tracks?

 

[Richard Crowley]

Number 1 is to get cleaner dialog recordings during production. I am having less and less tolerance for producers who think that the picture is everything and have no concern for production audio. I'd rather work with people with a more realistic concept of quality production.

Certainly all the things you mention, like gating, etc. can be used to reduce/remove ambient noise. Remember also that there is some amount of filtering that can reduce some types of noise. The Noise Reduction feature in Adobe Audition, for example, takes a sample of the noise and mathematically subtracts it from the dialog. But note that this is not a perfect solution as there are side-effects and one must decide how much noise reduction you can get away with before making the dialog too "metalic" sounding.

Also, there is "room tone" or other "wallah" that should probably be mixed back in as background sounds because that is what we would expect to hear as "normal".

 

[gpforet]

Thanks, Richard. I am very familiar with the artifacts of using a noise reduction filter that samples a noise print and completely agree regarding the importance of production audio. However, since I'm really a newbie to location sound and trying to gain as much experience as I can, I often take jobs with newbie filmmakers who (in a recent shoot) were still trying to figure out how to turn off auto exposure on their camera, were burning location time at an incredible rate, and when I'd point out that the actors were making alls kinds of noise with drinking glasses and other utensils (which I had advised them about before the shoot), I was told "it's o.k. it'll work."

So, even though we all strive for clean production sound, I suspect that developing skills to clean-up less than perfect dialog may help me in the long run.

This will be my first attempt at post audio and although I have loads of experience in music recording and production, my gut tells me that for film, it's all about the dialog intelligibility and if I can't get that right, then all the other stuff won't make things better.

Number 1 is to get cleaner dialog recordings during production. I am having less and less tolerance for producers who think that the picture is everything and have no concern for production audio. I'd rather work with people with a more realistic concept of quality production.

Certainly all the things you mention, like gating, etc. can be used to reduce/remove ambient noise. Remember also that there is some amount of filtering that can reduce some types of noise. The Noise Reduction feature in Adobe Audition, for example, takes a sample of the noise and mathematically subtracts it from the dialog. But note that this is not a perfect solution as there are side-effects and one must decide how much noise reduction you can get away with before making the dialog too "metalic" sounding.

Also, there is "room tone" or other "wallah" that should probably be mixed back in as background sounds because that is what we would expect to hear as "normal".

 

[Richard Crowley]

So, even though we all strive for clean production sound, I suspect that developing skills to clean-up less than perfect dialog may help me in the long run.

That approach is rather a dead end. People with budgets 10000x higher than yours haven't found a way to do that effectively. Perhaps you would be better off setting up a rig to do ADR.

 

[ophonic]

starting to gate and chop up audio can be tricky, because you set up a situation where the room ambience " reverb comes and goes, and the noise you are chopping out come in and out with the audio. This can become distracting in itself. If you do chop it up you may want to find a reverb setting the matches the original room. This will ease the transitions of the edits.

Some audio guys are liking izotope RX as bang for the buck easy to use noise reduction
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/download.asp

 

[gpforet]

I would retain the "tails" of each phrase, so I don't think I'd remove the "roominess" of the dialog. Granted, if I was going for a "cathedral" type sound I may add 'verb.

My primary question was, do sound editors typically cut out, in one way or another, the stuff that exists between phrases or line of dialog?

starting to gate and chop up audio can be tricky, because you set up a situation where the room ambience " reverb comes and goes, and the noise you are chopping out come in and out with the audio. This can become distracting in itself. If you do chop it up you may want to find a reverb setting the matches the original room. This will ease the transitions of the edits.

Some audio guys are liking izotope RX as bang for the buck easy to use noise reduction
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/download.asp

 

[Noiz2]

There isn't really one answer. On mini-indies you are often going to want to save as much as you can of the non dialog sounds (if they work) because you have no time money for Foley and often the post folks don't have a lot of experience and a large library. On big budget films it's the opposite as a rule. Dialog on a $$$ Hollywood film will work very hard at having nothing but dialog and Room Tone on the dialog tracks. If they find something that they think might be useful for the FX editors they will put it on separate "PFX" (Production FX) tracks. Most of the time PFX are not used because it's better covered by other departments, but you never know.

Room Tone is a dialog editor thing. THe Dialog editors use it (or often just steal "silence" from close by on the track) to fill all the holes that come from editing out all the extra junk. The Idea is to have a dialog track that is just dialog but doesn't have and background fluctuations. If you cut and leave real silence the edit will stick out like a sore thumb.

FX editors are cutting in Backgrounds and Ambiences along with all the hard FX (doors opening and closing, gun shots etc.). Foley walkers are recording things like footsteps, and "touching" things and cloth and a wide variety of other sounds. THe FX dept is also out recording stuff. If the right car isn't in the post houses library then someone will find a match and we will go out and record it.

Walla is a very specific SFX. It is done by "Loop Groups". Usually a bunch of actors who have gotten together and perform between real acting jobs. They do the "crowd sounds" and such. In a party scene nobody but the principal actors are making any noise so in post all of the chatter has to be added. Library sounds can work but it's often better to have a Loop Group come in and do it, especially if you need "character" voices, say the folks are all French. Loop Groups are used to doing other languages or at least faking it.

But your on DVX User so I'm guessing you don't have a crew of 30 to do sound post. I started in film on big budget shows so my tendency is to go old school, but that isn't practical a lot of times. It's even less practical if you don't have a large library and experience doing FX recording. If you do pretty heavy dialog scrubbing you can get away with more aggressive noise reduction etc. because your backgrounds and FX are going to mask a lot of it. On the Mini-Indi practical side of things I will try to save any sound that sounds "right" to me and replace everything else. I will Foley (though on Mini-Indi budgets it's often Faux-Foley) what ever needs it. Getting sounds for those actor actions really helps your track. People want to hear some footsteps, they want to hear something when the boss slaps him on the back, or the glass goes down on the bar. If the dialog is clear above the BG I won't worry about the BG unless it's "wrong". I might then worry but there is often nothing you can do. One trick is to bury it in a new BG. If the dialog is loud enough you may well be able to add BG tracks that will change the perception of the ambiance with out really replacing it. If you have an urban exterior you could add crickets and frogs and some birds and move it to the suburbs. If the urban is indistinct enough you might even be able to move it to the country.

Hope that helps
Cheers
SK

 

[Noiz2]

..

So, even though we all strive for clean production sound, I suspect that developing skills to clean-up less than perfect dialog may help me in the long run.

Richard is being grumpy. Even with good production you need clean up skills. So yes you should learn how to clean up dialog. What I think he meant was well to use the crude version "you can't polish a turd". Cleaning up after is NOT an alternative to getting decent production sound. But cleaning is almost always needed on all production sound.

 

[Noiz2]

Number 1 is to get cleaner dialog recordings during production. I am having less and less tolerance for producers who think that the picture is everything and have no concern for production audio. I'd rather work with people with a more realistic concept of quality production.

:thumbup:

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

My primary question was, do sound editors typically cut out, in one way or another, the stuff that exists between phrases or line of dialog?

I would have to guess 'almost everything'... But then on looking at some of the BTS clips where one can see the set, hear the 'on set background' it seems that actors tend to not make 'clunk' sounds, or 'play with things' while they are delivering their lines, unless there is a scene motivated reason to 'play/wring/whatever' that could cause extraneous sounds to be picked up... even body movement in clothing seems to be 'restrained'...

For my level of production... that is infrequent and no-budget... the actors I can 'get', tend to do several things... 'play with things' while delivering lines, and 'bob heads', in addition to nose noise, breathing gasps, etc...

 

[gpforet]

Many thanks for all the good feedback. I've got lots to go and practice with, and yes, this is all for very modest budget films. However, it gives me some source material to practice with.

 

[DrDave]

I use the key "S" to split the sound, rapidly split the sound into chunks in auto crossfade mode, then adjust the gain a bit, I use that in comb with noise filters and EQ, some of which are unfortunately rather expensive. I do, however, routinely adjust the gain, just don't overdo it. I prefer manual adjustments to mechanical ones. Room simulator adds the final touch, plus effects on the spot mics, if you used them.