Make voices sound more distant

[cap10kirk]

Here's the deal. I shot a scene where two people are walking toward the camera. There are a few lines of dialogue. I shot the scene with a canon T2i with the lens at 200mm. I recorded the dialogue later with my zoom H4n & Rode NTG-3 mic. Any suggestions on how I can kinda push the audio "back"?

 

[Joe Calabrese]

reverb and volume tend to get the point across. Actual movie sound isnt realistic: it somewhat matches the scene, but allows the dialogue to be heard....so dont over do it to try and make it realistic.

 

[gpforet]

For an outdoor scene, a little bit of verb, highs rolled off the verb. Roll the lows and highs off the dialog, and automate as them move closer. That should get you in the ballpark. No early reflections on the reverb.

 

[Rick Burnett]

Big thing is the lows, as gpforet said, getting them off the dialog is the number one way I find to start giving depth. Be careful with the verb though, too much and it makes it sound like you recorded it off the camera microphone The rule I find is if you notice the reverb, you've put too much

I also tend to find a movie with good audio that has what I am trying to accomplish and listen to it through the same system I am mixing on if I am having trouble getting it to sit right. That way, at least I have a target. Some people's voices I just have more trouble than others to get to sit where they are supposed to!

 

[cap10kirk]

Thanks guys. You all pointed me in the right direction. I applied a highpass filter to the dialogue. Less of the filter was applied the closer they got to the camera. The last line was untouched. Nice depth. I also applied the "public access channel" reverb preset from Soundbooth. Thanks again, fellas.

 

[Noiz2]

You got a fix but I though I would add another way to do it.

It's called "Worldizing" and was thought up by Walter Murch. You play your recording back over speakers in the space and at the distance you want and rerecord it. In your case you would match the camera move by moving closer to the speakers.

It works very well though mostly used for FX and music, you can do it to dialog also if your careful about the noise.