It just seems to me like it creates more work in post to have to record dry then do it later. I mean the DP does not shoot everything green screen, then expects you to add the location later. So if you can use the set for video, why not use it for audio as well. Why pay a sound guy to record dry, therefore having to pay the people in post later, to make it all sound like it's in the same room?
Why do sound guys want to record dry, and add room reverb later?
- Thread starter ironpony
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GaryNattrass
Veteran
So you can control things, if you shoot in a reverberant room then a mic pointing in one direction will sound different to the other direction.
It's like lighting you don't just light the room and then point the camera where you like, you control the lighting shot by shot to get the best results.
Also audio is more complicated than vision as it involves multiple channels and it may be that you need to match things more between different shots and adding things in post allows you to do this, you can also add effects and sounds that can create space and build up a scene such as a pub or club etc.
Of course you could try and do it all on location but that is not the correct way of doing it and you will soon find out the problems in the edit.
Clean dialogue is a must and if for example you had an aircraft going over in one shot and not in the other cutaway of character no2 the aircraft sound will come and go as you intercut the two shots together! the same would happen with room ambience and it would change as each shot is intercut together.
There are numerous posts on these forums about how to get rid of reverb in post and it is nigh on impossible, but it is easy to add it and control the ambience and feel of a scene in post, room ambience can also be used as an effect to create a mood and is also very useful to create space on foley tracks that have been recorded in a dry studio.
It's like lighting you don't just light the room and then point the camera where you like, you control the lighting shot by shot to get the best results.
Also audio is more complicated than vision as it involves multiple channels and it may be that you need to match things more between different shots and adding things in post allows you to do this, you can also add effects and sounds that can create space and build up a scene such as a pub or club etc.
Of course you could try and do it all on location but that is not the correct way of doing it and you will soon find out the problems in the edit.
Clean dialogue is a must and if for example you had an aircraft going over in one shot and not in the other cutaway of character no2 the aircraft sound will come and go as you intercut the two shots together! the same would happen with room ambience and it would change as each shot is intercut together.
There are numerous posts on these forums about how to get rid of reverb in post and it is nigh on impossible, but it is easy to add it and control the ambience and feel of a scene in post, room ambience can also be used as an effect to create a mood and is also very useful to create space on foley tracks that have been recorded in a dry studio.
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To add to what Gary has said, I get seriously frustrated editing video that has lots of echo and natural reverb because I simply can't remove it effectively. A mic placed at even slightly different distances to subjects (can't always be avoided) will have different characteristics and make it extremely difficult to match in post.
Once you have echo (reverb) you can't remove it. If you don't have it and you want it, you can add it.
Now, if it's a single interview in a relatively dead room, I'll take the audio recorded quite happily. There is a balance, but I would always prefer dry audio when possible.
Once you have echo (reverb) you can't remove it. If you don't have it and you want it, you can add it.
Now, if it's a single interview in a relatively dead room, I'll take the audio recorded quite happily. There is a balance, but I would always prefer dry audio when possible.
GaryNattrass
Veteran
The worst to get rid of and smooth in post is water noise such as in a swimming pool or waterfall as the phasing differences are huge as a mic is moved around.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
It's even done this way in music studio recording. Putting compatible instruments through the same reverb channel helps them sit together.
paulears
Veteran
Also - in the studio or edit suite is often the first chance you have to hear the subtle background sounds. I'm editing something at the moment where every damn shot is recorded in problem rooms and outside seems to have constant low level airplanes! On location, with headphones (that NEVER ever can be turned up loud enough!) the recordist probably didn't notice these things. Even though we now do have the facility to remove reverb - actually I don't because I'm too mean to buy the plugin - it takes time, and blending these clips is a pain. First rule I was ever taught - record dry, then you can add later in a controlled manner.
Richard Crowley
Veteran
For those of us who speak American "English", when paulears says "mean" he is not saying that he is angry, he is saying that he is too cheap. At least I think that is what he is saying! :happy:
Not to mention that anytime you have to use a filter to remove something (even if it is very simple, easy and effective) you are risking damage to the audio that you want to keep. Not to mention that it adds extra time and difficulty to an already complex task (if done properly).
Furthermore, while I have heard an impressive demo clip, I don't think we have ever heard from actual end-users working on real-world problem audio recordings and removing reverberation/echo without doing significant trauma to the remaining audio.
As you have seen, it is actually just the opposite. Because if the editing and mix is done properly, you need "clean" material to work with to achieve a coherent result.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
No, he's too angry to buy the plugin, grrrrr... :kali: no...plug...in....
GaryNattrass
Veteran
and if you really want to be creative you can add 5.1 reverb and room simulation to create lots of space in surroundy soundy!
I am also to mean (tight, skinflint, thrifty or sensible) to shell out on any plug in that claims to remove reverb!
I am also to mean (tight, skinflint, thrifty or sensible) to shell out on any plug in that claims to remove reverb!
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
To the OP,
Along with agreeing with pretty much everything that has been said I would also point out that you are not comparing apples and apples.
For one thing you spend time and money making the set look the way you want it to, did you spend any on making it sound the way you want it to? Is that even possible?
Visually you shoot a lot and then edit down to the film you end up with. Sound goes the exact opposite for a number of reasons. It is relatively simple to remove things from a shot. Films were always shot with the idea of some happens on the set and some happens later. There were no ceilings on the sets for Gone With the Wind, there was no plantation either. The camera is very focused in what it sees and you can exclude things relatively easily and replace things later. You can shoot a model and make it look real, etc. None of that is really possible with sound except in post. You can't really ever exclude anything when recording so you have no way to create a sound track "live" that will cut together when you edit. Reverb has a trail. You can't cut till the trail has faded out or it will sound wrong. So you will be forced to edit to the sound instead of editing to the picture or story. You may "save" time in that post will be so hamstrung that it's probably a waste to even do post sound. But then your sound track pretty much sucks so what exactly did you save?
The question shows a lack of understanding of how films are made. That isn't a nasty snipe, you are not an experienced filmmaker and it's perfectly understandable that you would ask that question.
Part of it comes from the "magic" of filmmaking that Hollywood has been selling since it started. It was OK when nobody outside of the studios were making films but now it's come back to haunt new filmmakers who have been brought up on this BS.
There is no "magic" in filmmaking. It is a lot of hard work. It can be a lot of fun also but in the end the way big budget films get to sound and look the way they do is because a lot of people spend a huge amount of time working very hard to get them there.
Now some of these films are, well junk. But very few are junk on technical reasons. It takes just as much time to create a really awful film as it does to create a great one.
Now IF you want to shoot DOGMA style films then go for it. In that case you are going to do everything live because you aren't allowed to just about anything in post. But if your goal is more conventional narrative films then you need to be very careful of what you do in production so you can add the polish your audience expects in post.
Along with agreeing with pretty much everything that has been said I would also point out that you are not comparing apples and apples.
For one thing you spend time and money making the set look the way you want it to, did you spend any on making it sound the way you want it to? Is that even possible?
Visually you shoot a lot and then edit down to the film you end up with. Sound goes the exact opposite for a number of reasons. It is relatively simple to remove things from a shot. Films were always shot with the idea of some happens on the set and some happens later. There were no ceilings on the sets for Gone With the Wind, there was no plantation either. The camera is very focused in what it sees and you can exclude things relatively easily and replace things later. You can shoot a model and make it look real, etc. None of that is really possible with sound except in post. You can't really ever exclude anything when recording so you have no way to create a sound track "live" that will cut together when you edit. Reverb has a trail. You can't cut till the trail has faded out or it will sound wrong. So you will be forced to edit to the sound instead of editing to the picture or story. You may "save" time in that post will be so hamstrung that it's probably a waste to even do post sound. But then your sound track pretty much sucks so what exactly did you save?
The question shows a lack of understanding of how films are made. That isn't a nasty snipe, you are not an experienced filmmaker and it's perfectly understandable that you would ask that question.
Part of it comes from the "magic" of filmmaking that Hollywood has been selling since it started. It was OK when nobody outside of the studios were making films but now it's come back to haunt new filmmakers who have been brought up on this BS.
There is no "magic" in filmmaking. It is a lot of hard work. It can be a lot of fun also but in the end the way big budget films get to sound and look the way they do is because a lot of people spend a huge amount of time working very hard to get them there.
Now some of these films are, well junk. But very few are junk on technical reasons. It takes just as much time to create a really awful film as it does to create a great one.
Now IF you want to shoot DOGMA style films then go for it. In that case you are going to do everything live because you aren't allowed to just about anything in post. But if your goal is more conventional narrative films then you need to be very careful of what you do in production so you can add the polish your audience expects in post.
The question is similar to (though not exactly like) asking why a cinematographer doesn't simply use the room lights or the light coming in from the window instead of going to the expense of setting up his own lighting.
Or, it's similar to asking why you should bother dressing a set or costuming your actors, instead of just using what's there, or whatever clothes the actors are wearing.
I think you have your comparisons a little off here. Thinking of the set and set dressing as being able to be replaced by CGI'd FX's as a comparison to recording dry sound is not a good comparison. Think of it more like recording dry sound is equivalent to capturing a flat picture (color and exposure wise) which is pretty standard for motion pictures. Then, the footage is given to a colorist to create the look that is desired. So, in the same line of questioning, why not just burn in the look on set instead of shooting flat or RAW and then having to pay someone in post to do color? If you have worked on films you know the answer. It's to give you latitude during the editorial process to create the final product you want.
Not to split hairs, or get too far off-topic, but this is entirely inaccurate.
The idea of shooting flat, grading later, is fairly new (at least in popular practice) brought on by digital movie-making. If you want to talk about a standard in film production, then you're talking about choosing film stock to get the color rendition and grain that are desired, and using filters in front of the lens to finalize the look. The colorist's job is then to deal with minor tweaks across the whole of the edited film for a coherent look in the final production. Yes there are some post-production tricks used by colorists in film, but those are the exceptions and not the rules.
With the advent of the Digital Intermediate (source film scanned to hi-resolution digital for editing before being printed back to film for distribution), there were also new techniques in grading. It was the explosion of amateur "film making" with the DVX and other 24p cameras, and now especially with DSLRs, that turned this into a more popular practice. Unfortunately, folks have short-term memories when it comes to how things are done when new technology comes about, so shooting for the look is getting to be a lost art.
The original topic here has already been well-analyzed, and it comes down to the physics of sound vs. the physics of light. They move, and are perceived, in very different ways. They are produced in very different ways. They are collected in very different ways.
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Okay thanks. I've noticed before that the room reverb changes with a shotgun mic, but with a hyper it seems pretty consistent no matter where you point it, unless it's just me. However wouldn't putting the blankets up all over the room effect it as well. If you blanket one side of the room, but have the other side exposed for the scene, it will have a different sound, then setting it up the opposite way, to get an opposite shot, on the opposite side, wouldn't it? What about master shots? The shot becomes much wider, thus no room to put any sound blankets, without them being seen in the master as the camera pans and follows the characters? How are you suppose to get that to sound the same as the other shots?
The practice of "deadening" the room off-camera with blankets is to knock down reflections, minimizing the amount of them that will reach the mic. No, it won't get rid of all of them, but if the mic is properly-placed (read: close) then the ratio of dialog to ambient sound is much higher and the dialog track is going to be relatively dry.
If you have a shot where you cannot get the mic in close enough, or you cannot rig enough diffusion/absorption to impact the sound quality, then you have two choices: 1) use a lav for that shot, or 2) lift the audio from an alternate take that was closer in and cut that into the scene (this is called dialog editing).
There's a myth with beginning filmmakers, related to the aforementioned "magic" of movies, that the dialog that's seen on-camera is the dialog that was recorded with the same frames of film. This is not necessarily true, as a dialog editor will use the best alternate takes' audio if needed to cover audio that was not, for whatever reason, able to be recorded properly. What you see on the screen - the finished version - is the result of hundreds of man-hours of work in assembling the best bits and pieces from various takes and creating that "perfect" image.
That said, there's another myth that Hollywood just ADRs everything in the end, which is also not true. There are some shots that just cannot be recorded for usable dialog due to things like wind machines, traffic, or such great distance between camera and subject that neither boom nor wireless can effectively reach. For the latter, it's likely that it's such a wide shot that there's no discernible lip movement anyway and the dialog can easily come from another take without having to worry about sync. For the others, that's when ADR comes in really handy. They may bring the actors in to ADR more lines than they plan to use, just for safety's sake, but the goal is to use as little ADR as possible and only when absolutely necessary.
Okay thanks. I know about that myth that just because you see them say it, does not mean it was that take. I have built a team out people from film school, and trying to help one direct her first feature film. But none of them too anything with sound, so they want me to do it, since I have equipment. I don't have any sound blankets though. I have a field recorder, a shotgun, and a hyper. I could sell my hyper to get some C stands and blankets, and the C stands here only cost $40 each. What's more important, a hyper indoors, with no blankets, or a shotgun indoors, with blankets? I know it's not professional but there is no one in town, that knows sound, and we've looked. I told her to get a pro, but she wants to do it this way, and production has to start, and I don't blame her at this stage. With everyone ready for your first feature, the pressure is on. So what's better, since I want to do the best I can.
Richard Crowley
Veteran
NO! The very place you need sound deadening is the SAME place you need the hyper!
This doesn't work very well as a generic question because there is such a wide variety of definitions for "indoors".
These are decisions you can only make based on the script, how it is shot, how loud the actors are talking, the skill of your boom operator and VERY IMPORTANT: the acoustics of the particular location.
Sound control does not HAVE to be proper "sound blankets" and C-stands. Think more MacGyver. Old mattresses, bales of hay, whatever is available.
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Doc Bernard
Indie Arms Member
Adding reverb=easy. Controlling or taking out reverb in post=impossible.
Okay thanks. I'm good at booming, but as you can tell from my other posts, still trying to get around audio fading and mixing on set. I will have someone else do it for me though, if I'm busy booming, ideally. I will keep the hyper then. Everytime I listen to it though, the reverb does not change in the room, in tests I have done without blankets. Or if it does, the difference is negligible on my headphones. But you are people know your stuff, so there must be a difference of course. I will keep the hyper then. A lot of indie productions I have been on set use a shotgun indoors so I thought maybe you can do that with blankets, and the hyper may be unnesesary.
So for master shots, you say lavs are on option. Is this because they have an omni pattern, and it will all sound the same, room wise?
So for master shots, you say lavs are on option. Is this because they have an omni pattern, and it will all sound the same, room wise?
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