Recording dialogue and ambient sound
- Thread starter commalot
- Start date
10s
Veteran
What would be causing the echo? The main mic will get the dialogue, the other two will get room tone/ ambient. There could, in some situations, be a slight phase problem, but one can always go back and get ambient, etc... to mix in.
If this is for narrative film making, the BG is often a select group of tracks that enhance the story; often times the natural ambient sound isn't desired because it just doesn't enhance the story. There's either too much stuff going on, or not enough, or there's not the right stuff happening at the right time. You'll want to build these tracks, sound by sound. Put on headphones and watch some movies, the sound given for most scene are totally doctored up fakes, but they help sell the illusion.
If this is for narrative film making, the BG is often a select group of tracks that enhance the story; often times the natural ambient sound isn't desired because it just doesn't enhance the story. There's either too much stuff going on, or not enough, or there's not the right stuff happening at the right time. You'll want to build these tracks, sound by sound. Put on headphones and watch some movies, the sound given for most scene are totally doctored up fakes, but they help sell the illusion.
commalot
Well-known member
I figured this would be the normal routine. I was thinking of an outside city scene where you want a good recording of the traffic and other noises but you also want a good clean recording of 2 people talking.
If the noise can't be cut out of the dialog when recording you can sometimes still match it with background sound plates. And, if not, the background sound can be the only thing recorded on location, with the dialog being ADR.
It should always be on a separate track, especially in a large feature that might get dubbed in another language.
It should always be on a separate track, especially in a large feature that might get dubbed in another language.
Steve House
Veteran
They don't record dialog and ambience together. They record the dialog as cleanly as possible, keeping ambient sounds out of the tracks. That's why lavs and shotguns are used - not for reach but to eliminate ambience bleeding in. Then they record the ambient sounds separately, not necessarily even recording at the same location or the same time as the scene is shot, to create ambience tracks. Things like footsteps, clothing noises, guns being cocked, etc are created in studio by Foley artists. Then it's all put together by sound editorial in post.
unclebob6958
Well-known member
One thing that should be done (and often is not) is to record the sound of the set by itself in exactly the same position(s) with the same gear (no camera, no lights, no crew, no talent) after the shot is completed. This is called "room tone" (even when outdoors) and is used to facilitate the dialog editing process. This is different than the ambience which, as has been said, is carefully crafted to support the story and the characters.
Rippie
Veteran
actually thats slightly wrong.
If you want to get actual room tone..
you need to keep lights, camera..etc up to match what you shot during the take.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
This is sort of what others have said but since I do this for a living... The last thing I want in post is some misguided person in production trying to record it all. Most of the time you don't want the background on the set even if you could get a clean recording, which you can't. A film is a construct, unless it's a documentary and even then it's not "real life". The world doesn't read your script and act accordingly.
A typical non action story/character driven show has somewhere between say 60 and 150 tracks of audio coming into a final mix. I do a lot of ad's (ones where the music isn't the soundtrack) and we typically have 60+ tracks of audio for FX. Even on no-budget films I usually have 30+ tracks. Some of that's just split out dialog but I would say a minimum of 6-8 stereo FX tracks and 6-8 Mono FX tracks.
It is rare to use anything from production except dialog. Even when I'm on a VERY small show where there is no budget to get rid of all that lofi production BG and FX, it is still heavily supplemented by added FX. On a low/no budget film your probably not going to be able to go to a Foley stage but you can do what's called WIFO (WIld FOley). That you do in a space so for instance various rooms around my house have sounded close enough to rooms in films I've worked on that I will just record things in the room and drop them in. Stuff like door closes, class downs, cloth movement, the squish of someone sitting on a couch etc will add a HUGE amount to the perceived quality of your film. But that is all done in post not production. IF your in a cool location and there are specific things you want then record them when your not shooting and hand them over to post, we always like new field recordings.
commalot
Well-known member
I had no idea that many audio tracks were being managed in post. There is one movie that comes to mind. In the movie HEAT that gun battle in the streets of the city was just awesome the way they recorded the sound reverberating off the buildings. It put you right in the middle of the action.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Well you wouldn't want to roll camera. This is sort of true and sort of not, depending on what your post path is. If your doing it all in FCP, or whatever NLE, then by all means get as close to the noisy set environment as possible. If your going to do a real sound post then, for me anyway, I want the clean version (no lights, no camera, no crew. The reason is that I am going to be cleaning the hell out of the dialog tracks and if poss I'm going to get to that "clean" RT level. So A) it's nice to know where your aiming and B) I don't want to have to process the RT if possible. Practically though I'm tickled if I get 10-15 sec taged on to the end of a scene. Clean RT is near impossible to do in production. Even getting people to shut up for 10 sec is a huge task. Film crews and children are the only people on earth who thing that whispering is the same as not talking ;~)
Cheers
SK
Rippie
Veteran
If you're going to "clean" it as you say, you can throw any "room tone" (ambience) in there. If you want "ROOMTONE" its the same "tone" you recorded during the takes.
btownproductions
Well-known member
I used to work in a foley studio. And when we were mixing the audio for features (High or low budget). We always did it the same. The dialogue was on a seperate track by itself. And the FX were on anywhere from 50-200+ tracks (Mono and stereo). Anything after that was seperate as well; Music would be seperate (clearly), and ambience would be a seperate recording as well. Not to mention seperate tracks for things such as character moves, etc. (Ambient-type sounds of cloth rubbing together and what-not throughout the entire movie for pant legs brushing up against eachother when walking, etc.)
Most of the audio you record you'll actually barely hear in the final mix, but put it all together at the right levels, and that's the difference between amateur sounding audio, and pro audio. I find in a lot of the indy shorts I watch, one of the dead giveaways is bad foley, ie. Most of the levels are far too high, and distract you from the film.
My suggestion is to try and get as many seperate sources of audio for your production as possible. This gives you more options when you start to mix it, and you'll get a much better overall sound if you can change the levels of you dialogue, effects, ambience, etc. all seperately, without any one of them being dependant on the other.
Most of the audio you record you'll actually barely hear in the final mix, but put it all together at the right levels, and that's the difference between amateur sounding audio, and pro audio. I find in a lot of the indy shorts I watch, one of the dead giveaways is bad foley, ie. Most of the levels are far too high, and distract you from the film.
My suggestion is to try and get as many seperate sources of audio for your production as possible. This gives you more options when you start to mix it, and you'll get a much better overall sound if you can change the levels of you dialogue, effects, ambience, etc. all seperately, without any one of them being dependant on the other.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
You want tone from the place you don't want camera hum or light buzz, it's still room tone. You can't actually get what your talking about, in a meaningful way, because all of those sounds change over time. You want the sound of the space you don't want the sounds your working to get rid of. What I want is Roomtone not camera tone or light tone. I can add garbage into the track if it's too clean, it not easy to remove it.
But they are both room tones. On a 35mm feature you are never going to get RT with the camera rolling. Generally what you get is everybody standing still for a few seconds. I don't know any feature editors that would fill with generator saturated RT, we would be yanking it out in the mix anyway.
Cheers
SK