Post House - Syncing sound after editing

R

ronin99

Active member
Was at a post house, discussing workflow as they will be handling all the post sound on a project. They asked if
they had to link back to the original sound mixer audio files. I told them, I sunk using all the audio tracks and they looked relieved.

No matter how many audio tracks, I'll sync them up before cutting, I thought this was the norm so I was a little surprised by the question.
However, on medium to bigger budget productions, will they just sync a mix track, and then later have post sound sync up all the ISO tracks?

I know syncing after editing is a huge pain, so how do they do it? I'm sure time code helps but I mean you have 2 shots in a scene and you cut between them 10 times, they have to sync each edit point?
 
Not a big deal depending on the NLE. Ideally you do want to relink to the original audio files via something like OMFI or AMA when working say in Protools. This where rigorous file "handle " standards apply.
 
Yes, typically on big budget features, the picture editor will just use the mix track from the production mixer. This is actually normal procedure, and the first week or so of post sound (for a dialogue assistant) is usually "assembling" the original production files (and all their respective channels/mics) to the AAF that the pic editor sends. The AAF contains the mix track with valuable timecode and iXML/BEXT metadata that we need to assemble the rest of the channels.

I use Pro Tools' "Field Recorder Workflow" along with Titan, EdiLoad, and Soundminer to get the job done. The key here is that the timecode AND scene, take, tape (or sound roll name) metadata fields must be preserved from production to post. If the metadata is not preserved, I would be the person to call the dailies house to see what they did wrong.
 
Sorry, forgot to mention, that if the AAF from the picture department proves to be faulty, I will request an audio EDL to "assemble" the original production files. But I haven't used audio EDLs in a while to assemble since AAF are almost bulletproof.
 
Interesting, I guess since I've done more lower budget stuff, I've been syncing the entire file (also I do this because I rarely get a mix track).
When turning over to sound, I usually export an OMF, is AAF preferable if you only use the mix track in the edit?
If they don't jam sync timecode on set, does that make your job harder or it doesn't matter since you use the AAF anyway?
 
Yes AAFs are preferred for a number of reasons. Even back in the FCP7 days, I still would request the picture editor to install Automatic Duck to get an AAF (that contains the original broadcast wav metadata) versus he/she exporting the native OMF from FCP7.

Depending on the number of mics/channels recorded on set, it can make the picture editor's timeline a nightmare to look at. The past few films I've worked on, there were 8-9 channels/mics recorded on set. If I was a picture editor, I would hate to carry all these 8-9 tracks for every reel of the film. Don't get me wrong, if one does carry all those channels, then great! That's a great safety net in case the post sound department cannot sync up the original .wav files. However, what I've seen in the past is the following track layout (or similar):

A1-A4 = Dialog
A5-A14 = FX
A15-A18 = Music

.. this is usually consistent across all reels of a film.

Dialog typically takes up A1-A4 because I typically request CMX3600 Audio EDLs for every turnover. CMX3600 Audio EDLs has a limit of 4 audio tracks.

If the picture editor uses tracks A1-A8 for dialogue, then he/she would have to export 2 audio EDLs per turnover: one EDL for 1-4, the other for 5-8. It's just a bit more efficient and less clutter in my opinion to carry the mix track.
 
Ryan has it right. On low budget film I will rarely do a big budget workflow because they are not paying you for that amount of time. Plus often the tracks have been "sort of" put in sync already. I say sort of because NLE's generally only work at the frame level so the sound can be +/- 1/2 a frame. So one will often have to tighten things up.

A big budget film has the bodies and budget to do all the sync in post.
 
Great insight guys, there has been plenty of times when I wish I could just have a mix instead of having 8 iso tracks in the timeline. Which brings me to my next question, if you have a mix track within a poly file, how do you sync up just the mix track during the dailies creation stage (in NLEs like Premiere and FCP7, not AVID)? Is there a way you can still batch automate the process like with pluraleyes?
 
Though that is a sound question it is about a NLE, so not something sound editors generally know a lot about. Since this is a very mixed forum you might get an answer but you might also find more people that can answer this in the picture editing section.

My answer would be to bring in the poly file and split it up and use the tracks you want. But I have no idea how to do that in a NLE.
 
This brings up a good point/discussion about whether or not production mixers should record poly/interleaved or multi-mono/de-interleaved. Although I like interleaved files for organization purposes (1 file for all channels), I still like receiving de-interleaved files from the production mixer.

This benefits the picture editor, because he/she can just identify and sync the mix file/track without sync'ing the other channels (that would be the post sound dept's job). This also leads to a less cluttered timeline.

This also benefits post sound folks for assembly and auditioning reasons. There are still some assembly applications (Titan) that only work with multi-mono/de-interleaved files. So if I received 500GB worth of poly/interleaved production sound files, I will need to spend a day de-interleaving all 500GB of it just so that I can use Titan to assemble the dialog. It's also easier to find/audition/navigate de-interleaved files using the Pro Tools Workspace.

A few weeks ago, I went through hell with an AAF created by FCPX (via X2Pro) that contained all poly wav files. Since FCPX doesn't really have "tracks", you could imagine what the AAF looked like, 30+ tracks just for dialogue since it doesn't know how to deal with poly wav files - my point is, it would've been a lot simpler if the mix track was used.

I could be wrong, but many picture editors that I've worked with get the benefit of talking to the production sound mixer before I do, so this might be a workflow to consider. This is all my opinion of course!
 
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