sound editing

S

studiomaxer3d

Active member
Here is my question.

On the extra footage and deleted scenes on DVDs you can here a hum and the ambient noise of a scene. and when its cutting back and forth between actors you can here a change in that noise.

how do you edit that smoothly and possibly eliminate that noise? I know its there on these big productions, because i heard it on these non-final shots.

we just shot some stuff yesterday and the audio came out nice. Real nice especially for our fairly inexpensive audio technica shotgun mic.

Am I clear in my question? Can anyone point me to a site that explains this aspect of sound editing in more depth?
 
You can reduce background noise with audio editing programs such as Adobe Audition, etc. Basically, the programs analyze which frequencies the noise are in, then remove/reduce those frequencies. To edit background noise smoothly, you may want to reduce the noise in your footage, then add a separately recorded background track.

Check out the books by Jay Rose for very comprehensive coverage of audio editing (search Amazon or visit his website at dplay.com.
 
studiomaxer3d said:
Here is my question.

On the extra footage and deleted scenes on DVDs you can here a hum and the ambient noise of a scene. and when its cutting back and forth between actors you can here a change in that noise.

how do you edit that smoothly and possibly eliminate that noise? I know its there on these big productions, because i heard it on these non-final shots.

we just shot some stuff yesterday and the audio came out nice. Real nice especially for our fairly inexpensive audio technica shotgun mic.

Am I clear in my question? Can anyone point me to a site that explains this aspect of sound editing in more depth?
Click to expand...


You hire a proficient sound editor who knows how to deal with stuff like this. This isn't something that someone who doesn't know what they are doing should be doing...at least in my opinion.

-Dave
 
Dave_Fisk said:
You hire a proficient sound editor who knows how to deal with stuff like this. This isn't something that someone who doesn't know what they are doing should be doing...at least in my opinion.

-Dave
Click to expand...

should a person wanting to learn how to make movies hire a proficient movie maker as well or is sound just to complicated a subject to ask about? :)
 
I think it just takes time to work with things and experience things for yourself. I like for instance, you notice that the location sound wasn't clean. When your shooting you would try to pay attention to things like that and figure out what's the best way to get the sound you need.

If it's outside at a cemetery and your just doing some dialog, then I would just use a nice shotgun mic with a wind 'muff/ filter' and try to get a nice level with that. Then in post if you need to bump it up a bit you can, with some gain adj. and/or noise reduction and then add some background sounds of out door ambience ( nighttime maybe some crickets quietly and some wind; but not over the top since you just want the ambient noise to accent the dialoge in a subtle way and not 8000 crickets going nuts )

But maybe you have the cemetery near a road and cars keep driving past, or a plane flies over head. Then you may not want to use ANY location audio and just do ADR and add other stuff to sweeten it up.

I believe it just takes a little time and some experience working with the stuff and you will start to understand what it takes.
 
joshone said:
should a person wanting to learn how to make movies hire a proficient movie maker as well or is sound just to complicated a subject to ask about? :)
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No. But if you want something done right the first time, get someone who as done it before to do it. Contrary to popular belief, sound editing, sound design, and audio clean up isn't as easy as most people think. When you're first starting out, everything is a learning experience, which is a really good thing, but if someone wants big budget sound, you need people that have worked on that kind of stuff. You asked what seems like a simple question, but in actuality, the answer is much more complicated and involved, and is better left to be dealt with by the people who deal with such things.

-Dave
 
The point is that there is no job, "movie maker". It's divided into several different depts for a reason.

Sound takes years to become even competent in. If someone is looking for a career in sound then great but the idea that someone is gonna "do it all" in his movie is over-reaching. Even Rodiguez knows to leave the sound for others.

If you want to learn some more details, pick up Jay Rose's book on audio post production.

Bet of luck
 
The best way to learn is to do. If you have an experienced person to guide you, that's a major bonus. But if it's up to you, get some books and dive in. The great thing about digital is that you can always go back and start over with your source tape.

A friend of mine is an Emmy award winning sound effects editor. The amount of time , equipment and expertise they spend on even the most miniscule detail borders on the insane. It is a detailed craft that can take years to learn well. Still,as indie filmmakers we are often left with few resources. Learn all you can about every aspect of the process. It can't do anything but help you as a filmmaker. Experiment, read and discuss what you are doing with others, just like every other part of this craft. Don't expect miracles, but you might surprise yourself with how well you can do.
 
MattC said:
Ah yes, more great help and advise from Dave Fisk...
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The reason I said what I said is because on EVERY...yes every project that I get, the people tried to clean up the dialogue themselves, and ended up making it worse, and that makes my job tougher. If those people would have just come to me in the first place, it would have saved them hassle and money.

I'm all for people learning how to do this stuff, but if you really don't know what you are doing, as it seems is the case with the original poster, and you want bigger budget type sounding dialogue, again..as it seems is the case with the original poster, then I don't think just doing it yourself is the best course of action. There is a reason people get paid to do that sort of stuff.

-Dave
 
I agree Dave, but maybe (and it's just a suggestion) rethink your approach? If I asked the question and you said to me "Well, it depends. If you're a young kid with limited resources here is a list of things you can try, just don't expect miracles. However, if this is an indie film with a bit of a budget and you're hoping to place it in festivals, you might want to enlist a professional from the git go and here's why...."

I think you're so used to dealing with pros (or at least those trying to be pro) that you forget that a lot of the posters here simply don't fall into this catagory. I've had a number of people email me for audio advice when they should be asking you. They are all under the age of 25, many are in their teens, and they are just learning and have no/limited resources. Help these kids out today, with a little no budget advise and I'm sure many of them will be your clients tomorrow.

Matty
 
Point taken.


One thing I would try is Bias Sound Soap. I just picked the the "light" version, and for the money it works really well. I know it will work in Pro Tools, Peak, and a variety of other DAW's. Check out http://www.bias-inc.com/products/soundsoap/ for more info. This, in combination with some clever editing, can REALLY clean up cruddy dialogue. It has saved me from having to loop a lot of stuff on the feature I'm currently working on.


-Dave
 
Hi All
Just have to jump in here for a second.

I've edited picture and sound, designed audio and mixed feature films and television programs for around 30 years now. Many feature films to my credit. At the moment working as finishing editor, sound designer and mixer on a weekly network TV show.

(i.e. pin your ears back, this dude knows what he's talking about.)

While this is a sort of open club, I feel that what Dave is trying to say has merit.

There is a reason to get an education. People can teach you.

I learned from a guy who cut audio for Kubrick, and he learned from a guy who cut for Hitchcock. Before Hitchcock there was no audio in movies to cut.

My assistants learn from me. That's how it's supposed to work. The accumulation of shared knowledge, wisdom and experience through the lifetime of the craft.

Sure, you can pick things up on your own, make new ideas, invent certain things, but then it comes to something like audio editing... well...

Here's a few audio home truths:

a) you cut a picture (feature film) in, say, 8 weeks. We all know what makes that cut. It's got to start, it's got to end around 75-135 minutes later, it should have picture and sound. And that's about it. If it's black for the middle 90 minutes then we can reasonably say that someone's made a mistake, but otherwise, if it meets these basic criteria, it doesn't even have to have any sound at all. It's still a picture.

b) once the picture is locked, the sound edit starts: there's a dialogue editor or two, a slew of effects editors, at least one music editor, a foley recordist and editor, and an ADR editor. That's a team of 4-12 people, depending on budget and hyphenates. In my experience, these people work for at least 16-24 weeks doing the audio. Get that? between 2 and 4 times the duration of the picture edit, with at least twice the crew, usually more.

c) after that's done, (just the editing, not the music recording, nor the foley recording, not the ADR, those are all extra), then there's between 2-3 weeks of mixing.

d) after the mix, we then have the finnishing of the audio, reel breakups and pullups, mastering passes, optical sound taransfers, etc, etc., at least 7-10 days after the mix is locked.

Okay. How many man hours is that?

And we're going to do this all by ourselves in, what, overnight???

I can tell you right now that just doing the dialog editing, not even professionally (which involves a whole layer of complexity I'll not even mention here) takes me around a week a reel to do right.

It also takes me around a week to train a Pro Tools trained operator (i.e. one who's graduated from one of the recording schools and knows how to operate Pro Tools, record and mix music, etc.) in the RUDIMENTS of dialog editing. How not to get fired in the first week, basically. And I do mean 40 hours of hands on training, just for the basics.

Put it another way, I own a set of the Hollywood Camera Work DVDs, which is an excellent training course for camera blocking, BTW, and the topic of another thread.
That course contains around 16 hours of training and cost me over $400 to purchase, and, (finally my point) around a week of watching it and taking notes.

Now after watching this video course, do you think I can go around calling myself a director or a DP?

Put it another way. You buy a word processor. Learn to work it. Does that make you an author? Heard a good symphony lately? Care to write one? in a day?

People, what we are sharing is information. Not knowledge.

By this I mean there can be a zililion websites about how to ride a bike, but only one way to learn how to do it.

There are a zillion ways to cut dialog, but only a very few (under 5) to cut it right.

And yes, in this case, there definitely is a right and a wrong. You either ride the bike or you fall off it. The bank statements balance or they don't. Dialog editing is one of those pursuits, not like music where you slap a few loops together, listen and if it sounds cool, you're done. Dialog is right - or not.

I can't count the number of would-be Rodriguezes whose films I've had to recut because they thought that they could cut audio like they cut picture. Even Rodriguez knew to get some training before he did his own thing.

If you're making a movie on your own, better make sure you do your darndest to make it the best you possibly can. Because the people who watch it simply don't care if you shot it in a day on a DVX and finished it a week later, or a month later, or even two years later, because one minute they're watching Speilberg and the next minute they're watching you. They do not care how you got the picture up there, they just watch the story. If it's good and captivating, they keep watching. If not, not. (Do you care how long a song on the radio took to record, compose, lay back, mix, master? What equipment it was done on?)

Bad audio kills a captivating story dead. Period. Worse than bad picture. Much worse.

Picture this.
You can blink your eye at any time.
So you can cut your picture at any time. Even if the cut seems weird, you can reason that somebody on somewhere this planet could conceivably blink their eye and make a cut at that moment. i.e. no harm, no foul.

Now tell me - when you cut your ear? Does your ear blink?

Never. From birth to death, one continuous soundtrack. Only dissolves. No fades, no silence, only dissolves.

Cuts in audio mean only one thing - danger. Something's not right. Until that danger has been neutralized, or proven to be harmless, or repetitive, in which case the ear tunes it out and doesn't hear it - until the moment it changes...

Good audio is smooth. Bad audio isn't. Easy to say. (Like good writing is smooth. Bad writing isn't)

So how can you watch a story that's alarming you (subconsciously) every cut?

(one lesson in the week's training).

See how long this post is?

Sound editing is like accounting.
Meticulous.
Boring.
Like watching grass grow.

But I tell you it's the difference between watching a bunch of dailies cut together and watching - well - a movie. (I mean a pay-to-see movie, not a home movie)

Buy a book, read it, then, if you're serious, go get some training, for God's sake, before you start to record or edit any audio on your films!

HTH
Cheers
Chris
 
Chris,

Again I agree with EVERYTHING you just said. I also agree with everything Dave says, the man knows his ****. And perhaps I came off a little strong. For that I apologize.

But as I've said, and I've made this point time and again. You have to know your audience. It would really be helpful if in the sidebar here it told the posters age and budget, but it doesn't. Most of the folks here are hobbyists - and an awful lot of them are young (the last person I gave advise to was, I think 17). He's a great kid and he's full of enthusiasm and he just wants to learn and to try and produce the best thing he can. And he'll get books and he'll learn as best he can and he'll try to get guidance from the folks here. In the end will it be enough to get a truly professional result based on his resources and knowledge? No. But he'll do better than he would otherwise and he'll be learning something.

And the most important thing he will learn during this exercise and others is what he doesn't know. The more I learn about things, the more I realize how little I truly know. That doesn't mean that I don't try to learn, but it does mean that when I need professional results, I hire a professional. But I can, I have those resources.

Again, Chris no offense is meant. But I see so much trash on the internet and I see so many young folks who are sitting around wasting their lives in malls or in front of video games that when I see young cats come on this board with a lot of energy and very little else, I want those of us who can to support them. I want the internet to be what I think it should be - a place for where people of all ages can go to learn and develop and maybe even have a little camaraderie.

And like I said, for a guy like Dave it's an investment. Some kid asks how to build a boom pole. You try to tell him not to bother, that in the end for a relatively small amount of money you can get a real pole. But he tells you that, even $150 is out of his reach right now. Fine, tell him how to make do. You know that whatever he makes isn't going to serve him that well, it will just get him by until he scrapes together enough bread to buy a real one. And when he does, guess who he's going to buy it from?

Just my $0.02

Oh and to everyone else reading this, please understand something. Audio, and audio techs get screwed left and right - all the time. Outside of the real pro level (and sometimes even there) no one wants to invest in audio. No one wants to take time on set to make sure that the audio will turn out well. And then, sometime in post, all they'll do is ***** at the audio guys about why it sound like garbage. So most audio guys have a bit of a chip on their shoulders, understandably.

Matt
 
I have to say that once again, I am monumentally impressed with the people on this forum. Not just for the breadth of their knowledge, but for the depth of their character. To see you guys exchange different points of view, and to do so in a diplomatic, eloquent, yet determined way is refreshing.

IF the UN were like this we could save a lot of money on our defense budget.
 
MattC said:
Chris,

And then, sometime in post, all they'll do is ***** at the audio guys about why it sound like garbage. So most audio guys have a bit of a chip on their shoulders, understandably.

Matt
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Being one of those post guys, I definitely agree with this. When we get a director that really knows what's going in the post sound world, it's such a breath of fresh air, and therefore a much more enjoyable experience.

Man....do I really sound that bitter? I'm still relatively young in this whole thing...I don't want to be bitter. I love doing sound design. Now that I've been getting better at dialogue clean up, I'm even starting to like that more and more.

-Dave
 
Nah, not that bitter.

I was on a music forum once a several years ago (the age of CompuServe) and some young musicians and hobbyist types were discussing their practice regimen and how could they practice for an hour a day. Well, my practice regimen used to be eight hours a day, not including composition and arranging. So I lit into them, I was a real jerk, but in my mind I was just "telling it like it is if you want to make a living in music". And I was right. After all I started playing at four, attended a performing arts high school and had scholarships to Julliard and Berklee, plus I had never held a job outside of music since I was sixteen, so I must be right, right?

Then an older guy, that I respected was on there and he handed my ass to me, but in a nice way. Basically he said, you know not everyone is trying to be a professional musician. You have some young kids still learning and trying to figure things out, for some it's just a hobby but it beats having them on the streets. And maybe it's an older person for whom it's just a hobby. Maybe playing music keeps him sane, allows him to deal with a bad job that he hates or a bad wife that hates him. Maybe he has cancer and music is what gets him through the day. Who am I to ruin that for him. And you know what, that got me thinking. He was right, who am I to ruin that for anyone.

So that's sort of how I look at most of the folks here. Who am I to tell some 17 year old kid that he can't make a movie because the best mic he can afford is an AT897? Or that they can't make a movie because they don't have the right camera or the right lights. Maybe they're not looking to get into Sundance or break into Hollywood.

Maybe the guy is an insurance salesman and he hates his job, but making what you would consider a silly little movie makes him feel better, makes him feel like he's doing SOMETHING creative or interesting with his life. There is no WAY that this guy is going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars that he doesn't even have to have his movie professionally done at a real post house, or any of the other things that would be required to have excellent audio. But maybe he can save a little bit here and there and scrape enough together for a small bit of kit and maybe he gets an audio app that he puts on his computer. Sure, "MOVIE MAKER" isn't a title and movies aren't made by one person, but maybe he's all he has. Maybe his wife thinks he's an ass for doing this, or maybe she helps but he's still short handed. So he tries to do the best he can with the tools he has. You might think the end result is crap, and maybe it is. But maybe he gets a few of his buddies and their wives together along with his wife and kids, and they all sit around the tv, and they make popcorn and watch his movie - and they think it's the best thing since The Godfather. And for that night, he is a filmmaker.

What right does ANY of us have to take that away from him.

Matt
 
MattC you make a great point.

I hope I am encouraging, not discouraging, to anyone interested in filmmaking and audio. The problem is to do sound well (as the original poster asked) requires a lot of knowledge, experience, and work. Again this is why movies are made by teams not individuals.

I love the passion of people who take on the "Rodriguez 10 minute film school" style. If you have a passion to create visual stories then go for it. Just understand that it will not look or sound like a "Hollywood film". If their expectations are inflated then they will feel they failed when they see the final product and probably lose interest in filmmaking.

Problem is the people who are constantly looking for audio shortcuts but still want the movie to sound "festival ready". You don't have to hire a professional sound eng. for your amateur film BUT you do need someone who's priority is sound; someone who takes the time to learn about it and cares about creating good audio. This is not the director, DP, PA, etc.

So, I guess that leaves 3 filmmaker types.

1. Hobbyist who want to work all on their own: the audio will take forever and maybe sound "adequate." But that’s ok since they are just doing for fun and family.

2. Aspiring filmmakes who, at the least, get someone to be in charge of audio: With some time and some money,(since you’re on this board I assume you already spent ~$3500 on the video side) you can get some pretty impressive results.

3. Aspiring filmmakers who think sound is some 2nd tier part to filmmaking and want to cut every corner possible but still get great results: Well, to these people I say, hire a professional because that is the only one who will do audio and put up with the total lack of respect you have for half of your total movie. I have worked with these types (both large budget and low budget projects) and say it's not so much a chip on my shoulder as, "You don't respect what I do, then I don't respect you as a serious filmmaker." I will gladly take the time to try and explain how important it is to focus on audio but I can say I have seen very few converts.

I have not really seen anyone on this board who falls in that third category. The posters here are friendly, generous, and seem to understand, at whatever level of filmmaking they are at, the importance of sound. Most importantly they are open and willing to learn.

As to answering the original posters question: I think the point is that yes, in this case, it’s just too complicated a question to be answered in a forum type environment. Buy a book, take an intro to sound course at your local CC.

As a side note, sometimes when you watch the deleted scenes you are watching audio that would have been ADR if it would have made it pass the first rough cut.

Again, best of luck!
 
studiomaxer3d said:
how do you edit that smoothly and possibly eliminate that noise? I know its there on these big productions, because i heard it on these non-final shots.
Click to expand...
Yes, audio takes a lot of work, and it's very difficult to get quality audio that sounds like movie audio. There are many techniques for this. I'll tell you a few basic things you can do.

First, don't just "cut" your audio. When you're cutting from one angle to another, leave a "handle" of audio on each side of the cut, and crossfade the audio together. You won't believe how much that helps clean things up and even them out.

Second, when recording location audio, get "room tone", which is where you tell everyone to shut up and stop moving, so you can record the ambient tone that's going on all around you. Get a good thirty seconds of that, or more. Then layer it in under the entire audio track. A consistent audio sound can be filtered out by the human ear, so making a constant undercurrent will help mask the shifts between cuts.

Third, consider adding another layer of ambient audio. There are many sound effects libraries that include ambience for numerous circumstances (cafe, airport, train station, whatever). Lay that down, and the little miscellaneous sounds will just magically disappear.

Fourth, music. If your scene is appropriate for music, put the score in, and it'll help even out the presentation of audio.

Fifth, don't cut audio if you don't have to. Sometimes I'll have a circumstance where character A says "blah blah blah" and character B says "what?" and character A says "I said, blah blah blah." Meaning, there's only a little reaction shot of character B. In those cases, I may just let the audio from character A's closeup play the whole time, and when cutting to character B saying "what", I'll just line it up so that the audio from the character A soundtrack is still playing (i.e., not use the audio from the character B closeup at all). That avoids a cut in the audio track, and keeps the background more consistent.

Sixth, hum/buzz. Well, there's a problem. If you have air conditioners, or a bassy rumble, or wind noise, you've got to deal with it. I use Vegas, and Vegas has superb audio tools (for a video editing program). I find that you can eliminate a bunch of that garbage by just rolling off the bass and cutting the highest frequencies. That may cut some of the "sparkle" out of the conversation, but if it gives you much cleaner audio without mic handling noise, wind noise, and A/C rumble, well, that's a tradeoff that you may find worthwhile. Also, notch filters in your equalizer can help eliminate constant repetitive sounds, like air conditioners or fluorescent light buzzing.

Can anyone point me to a site that explains this aspect of sound editing in more depth?
Click to expand...
For now I'd recommend you pick up Jay Rose's book on audio postproduction. Might prove very instructive.
 
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