Video for music composer

H

hitmanh

Member
Hi all,

I'm going to be working on a short soon with a music composer for the first time. Both of us are inexperienced with composing for film, he doesn't know what to expect from the video side and I have no idea what he should get from us. He, obviously, will need some sort of video of the short, I'm assuming as close to final edit as possible. I guess the question is how much audio would the composer want included? Full voice and foley/effects? Mono dialogue guide track only? No audio at all and video only?

Regards

Matt
 
Well, ask him. He can always turn off the audio. Generally the composer is working before SFX are done so they are only getting scratch track. If you have everything then send that to him so he can work around the bif FX moments. Usually it's the other way around and you have to work around the big music moments. You may still have to mix your way out of conflicts but at least you two will have some idea of where those conflicts are.
 
What is most impprtant is that you complete the picture and structure edit and then lock off tbe picture as it is no good everyone working to one edit then to find that it has all changed.

Most composers I have worked with have just had a locked off picture with guide audio from location which is mainly dialogue. A meeting and discussion of the sound design for each scene is essential so both parties don't end up doing a great deal of work on scenes that may be effects and dialogue or music lead.

Having said that I always tend to give a full sound effect track lay with full Foley for all scenes so the best options are available at the final mix.

As with all sound and film production preparation is the key to all of it but if everyone is working to the same edit it will cut down on re-edits at a later stage.
 
I think all these are excellent points. When I advise editors about video for audio post, I ask for bars & tone followed by the traditional 2-pop all with a timecode burn-in (TCR, not TCG). I then advise them to use this version for the composer as well as those handling SFX, dialogue editing, and/or sound design. This way everyone has the same timecode reference and will make it far easier for reassembly during the re-rercording stage. Even if it's just one composer and one sound editor, the rationale remains the same.
 
Ahhhh, conforming.
If you don't have a full post crew with big budget film experience you don't want anybody having to conform. Most low budget film sound post bids (and I'm talking Hollywood low budget so under 5 mill) are based on post getting a locked picture.

Depending on who your working with I often don't ask for a TC or even pops and count down. I started in big films and pops and leaders are GOD so it's not lack of respect that has me not asking for them now.

The reasons are.

A TC burn is fine, but is sometimes put ON the picture and blocks seeing things that I want to see in post. My time line is in TC anyway so I don't really need to see your burn. When we were on tape it was an important check to make sure we were all on the same TC but with files that is largely irrelevant (TC is not being used for sync in sound post generally any more so it's just a reference number).

Cout downs and pops are another thing that is VERY important in actual film but not so much in file based workflows. AND there are a lot of FCP users out there so you have to do the whole education thing with them to make sure they don't do it the way Apple wants them to do it because it will trash your ability to sync the mixed sound back into the video timeline.

POPs were big for sync checking in film and tape based video, but it only really does much in a reel based workflow and video (file based) projects are almost always not reel based. So in this case you only have a head pop and no tail pop. With only one pop you can't tell if there is drift so it's only really useful to set initial sync. If you are bringing in an OMF and a video file, they both start at the same place so the pop is kind of pointless. The count down was so tape could get up to speed, files don't have that issue so there isn't a reel need for that either.

If an editor knows what they are doing and has done proper count ins and pops in the timeline and the burn is in the black outside of frame them it's kind of warm and fuzzy nostalgia and I like it but generally with younger editors on low budget films it opens more problems than it solves.

The one plus for a TC burn is that everyone can see the TC on whatever they are playing the video on and can talk about the same locations. That can be helpful sometimes. I will generally recommend though that they use something like TOKI TC to generate the burn since it will do it as a QT TC track that is quite fast. FCP requires a full film render to generate a burn.

There really isn't much of a assembly issue and TC won't really help. A head pop could help, but the composer is the only one likely to not their session start at the head of the video and on low budget films that is often because they have handed you discrete cues and not edited them in to the time line. Well that makes me a bit of a liar. If they give you discrete cues with TC then TC burn will help in the assembly.

Not sure what TCR and TCG refer to. I'm assuming TCR is your film running time and TCG is the TC of the individual clips. If I'm wrong you should clear that up. I lived in the TC world for many years when everything was tape based and if I don't know what those initials refer to probably a lot of folks don't either. Of course it could be my memory going...
 
Thanks for the comments, I did ask the composer, however he hasn't worked with moving images before and wasn't sure what he wanted. I went with dialogue and timecode and the composer was happy with that. It's a first for both of us, so I'm sure it'll be a learning experience.

Regards

Matt
 
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