Making the most of bad sound?

[bentramer81]

1. We shot a short film, but a lot of the dialogue we got is at -40db and other parts are at -10db. Any advice of where I should try to keep the decibel level between? If I turn the -40db audio up very much the static is pretty clear. The film is going to show at a festival so I want to do the best job possible evening out the audio through out.

2. I've tried doing the thing in soundtrack pro to clean up the sound, but truthfully I don't know what I'm doing and I have read post that it often messes up.

 

[NoahK]

If you have any budget left- hire a sound editing place with ProTools and the CEDAR plugin. Otherwise ADR. Nothing says bad movie like bad audio.

Noah

 

[bentramer81]

If you have any budget left- hire a sound editing place with ProTools and the CEDAR plugin. Otherwise ADR. Nothing says bad movie like bad audio.

Noah

Noah, I am going to use some music to mask the fuzz sound, but if this shows at a festival do you know what decibel level I need to stay between? For example, -30 to -12 is this to low? maybe -24 to -12 would be better? Also what is ADR short for? Thanks.

 

[NoahK]

ADR=automated dialogue recording means re-record the dialogue over again in a studio. Music can only go so far. I can tell you from experience- most festival screeners are especially harsh on bad audio. That could limit the festivals you might get accepted to pretty strongly. You should grab the Sound for Film and TV disc for next time...

Noah

 

[bentramer81]

Is there an easy or reliable way to fix this in soundtrack pro? I tried to send a audio clip to STP, but it sent the whole audio sequence. Is there a simple way to get an audio file from FCP to STP and back to FCP where it won't mess things up? I read another post that tells how to remove the background fuzz which would help me turn up the decible level up. When sending a file to STP do you include the video part too?