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Question about doing a sound mix.

H

harmonica44

The last short film I did, the sound mix cost a few thousand dollars and to get to sound good, and I took a hit... which is one of the reasons which I haven't done another one since. I was told on here to do a zero budget short, and just do the sound mix myself, but I haven been playing around with a lot of trial and error and find the sound mixing difficult to do.

I was able to learn a lot video editing and color grading on my own and feel I have gotten better in that department. But I find myself still struggling on how to do a sound mix. I got that book that was recommended to me on here before, "Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures: A Guide to the Invisible Art".

But I felt the book was more of a history lesson in dialogue editing, rather than giving actual instructions that would apply to a modern system. Plus of course, I want to do the whole mix, and not just the dialogue. Does anyone have suggestions on how to learn this stuff better, or any books that would help me do it on my own? Thanks for any input. I really appreciate it.
 
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I don't want to rush it to much, and skip over details.
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I know what you mean. Starting is an annoying, pesky detail. It's so much easier to fuss over details you'll never understand without experience, than to actually make films.

You've never wondered why you're still at square one while others are on their second feature film in half the time it's taken you to start your second short? Are you happy with your current progress of one short every 6 years? If so, we should stop answering your questions and leave you to your excuses.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Yes I know everyone is wanting me to get started, but I don't want to rush it to much, and skip over details.
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Rush into a poem? You even get to choose the poem! It's not like one is assigned to you. I read some of them on the site Walter posted. Some are literally less than 100 words!

This is an exercise. You throw this together and then people give you advice on how to make your next one better. Free advice. It's like film school, only it's totally free.

Jeez, even I could do this and I am a complete novice!
 
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Nyati said:
Is there a link to this short H44 did six years ago? I'd like to see it.
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No link but its better than i expected.

H44 did you figure out how to fix the sound in the beginning after i showed you?
It's just a few basic tricks to get the sound to an acceptable level for youtube.

Mostly ambience and fade-in/fade-out of tracks.
Fix the sound in your first short and you'll be ready to tackle sound in your second.
 
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sfoster said:
No link but its better than i expected.

H44 did you figure out how to fix the sound in the beginning after i showed you?
It's just a few basic tricks to get the sound to an acceptable level for youtube.

Mostly ambience and fade-in/fade-out of tracks.
Fix the sound in your first short and you'll be ready to tackle sound in your second.
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Okay thanks. I can't really fix the sound in the first short film, because I hired someone else do it, and all the the tracks are fused together, in a finished sound mix. But I will see about doing it myself for the second.

Basically I just want to order a boom pole and some 1000 watt LED lights, and stands before shooting, and also looking for some locations, then I should be good to go.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I can't really fix the sound in the first short film, because I hired someone else do it, and all the the tracks are fused together, in a finished sound mix. But I will see about doing it myself for the second.
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That's not true. I took your film and I fixed the first 35 seconds.
Did you forget? I still have the link.
 
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I am using Premiere Pro.

sfoster said:
That's not true. I took your film and I fixed the first 35 seconds.
Did you forget? I still have the link.
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What did you do to fix it that I missed? And no, I didn't forget you had the link. Thanks for giving it a whirl. Basically I am unable to break the tracks apart to fit certain things. What did you fix?
 
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harmonica44 said:
I am using Premiere Pro.



What did you do to fix it that I missed? And no, I didn't forget you had the link. Thanks for giving it a whirl. Basically I am unable to break the tracks apart to fit certain things. What did you fix?
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I only have my photobucket link now, I can't find the thread on indietalk where I explained what I did.

wrath.png

Reverse image search didn't help me at all, i know this image was in the thread

I downloaded the video from youtube and in a few minutes I cropped out a section of ambient noise, copied and pasted it a couple of times, did some fade in and out and I fixed the sound for the first 35 seconds. i have the youtube link for those 35 seconds that i fixed if you want me to post or PM
 
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Don't move backward move forward. You've already "released" that film right? It's 2 years old? That's a learning experience, you already "signed the painting" as I like to say. Unless someone offers you a distro deal and some $ to clean up the sound. ;)
 
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It's more than a couple years old now. That's what I was thinking, just move on to the next one, cause I already sent copies out to all the cast and crew, and that's the version everyone has seen now. Some people said I should send it in to some film festivals, but if I do, should I change the sound then?

By ambient noise, I assume you mean the computers that were making noise, which we were not allowed to turn off while shooting. I could try to reduce that before sending it in, but if I turn down the ambient noise, wouldn't the room tone, become too silent as well, since it's all in the same mix? I wish the people I hired to do the mix would have taken the noise down if it was a problem.
 
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More time on this is less time on a new project. You can submit and cleanup if accepted, but as I remember it was fine for submission.
 
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