Are audiences fooled by audio, more than video effects?

[harmonica44]

Sound libraries are very popular for filmmaking. If you want a sound effect, you can just easily get it from a library, very well recorded.

But there doesn't seem to be a lot out there for video libaries. Say if you wanted an extra in the background you could not get. You can get the voice of an extra easily, making a scream or something. But it's hard to find an actual video effect of an extra. Same goes for other things. Sounds of cars, easy. Cars themselves, not so easy.

Is this because audiences are more easily fooled by sound, and therefore it's more practical to have sound libraries with easier access to? I was reading about how some movies they actually changed the pitch of an actor's voice. But they hardly ever change the physical pitch of an actor's face for example. A silly example, but an example.

 

[jax_rox]

Not at all. Here's why:

You could take your microphone out right now, go up to a friend and ask him to say some lines. You could record the sound of your car. And you could use them instantly, you could upload them online and sell or trade them.

To physically shoot your friend to comp in to a film because you couldn't get the extra you wanted, you'd have to hire a green screen studio, get a decent camera that shoots with at least 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, light the green screen correctly, have your friend walk through and do the actions, record it, save it, and then go home and actually composite the thing. And then its still unlikely to match unless you've lit your subject to match with the rest of it.

To alter someone's voice literally takes a plug-in, some of which are free with software. You can apply the filter in a couple of seconds.
To physically change someone's face on screen is a highly complex, highly specialised, highly skilled task that takes hours and hours of editing.

Recording good audio is a skilled task too, but it's a lot quicker, cheaper, and easier than anything related to the video side, especially if you're comparing recording sounds of the wind to building 3D models of cars.

Also FYI, there are 3D models of things around available for pay, but you'd still need to know how to texture and shade and light that model in the 3D software.

There are also stock video libraries. But, for video of a car speeding off or an extra doing something, they need to match the look, feel, lighting, production design etc. etc. of your overall film.

 

[mus]

as long as the sound matches, they wont have a clue whether it was recorded on the spot, taken from a library (assuming it sounds good, or similar) or a line that is dubbed correctly.

Sometimes it may not even match perfectly, It just has to be done well.

The movie Miss March had a line where the actor originally said "See? That's retarded"

They weren't allowed to say retarded, so they had to dub it to say "See? That's stupid"
if you're paying attention, you can spot it, but if you're not looking directly at his mouth, you can't tell.

So yes, audiences are more easily fooled by audio effects. They already know a lot of explosions and stuff they see are CGI anyway. Sometimes they even look at a practical effect and say "That looks SOO fake!"

 

[Alcove Audio]

The primary reason is economics, as Jax pointed out. A decent field recording kit is not all that expensive compared to a decent film/video kit.

There is also the fact that most sounds are very transient; a gunshot or a door slam lasts for a fraction of a second. Ambient backgrounds are mostly unseen.

A visual background is there for seconds, even minutes at a time, and it must conform to all of the angles and lighting of the shot sequence. A basic background visuals library is probably very easy to create, but a comprehensive visuals library is going to be quite difficult to create, mostly because of the difficulty in having enough coverage to be truly useful, and the difficulties of making it blend in seamlessly with the production visuals.

Lengthy sounds are difficult to match from libraries. Even a vehicle drive-up, stop and drive-away are very difficult to edit together as seamlessly as most of us would like. It's a bit easier with expand/compress plug-ins, but it also speeds up or slows down engine speeds, which can quickly begin to sound very artificial. On even a very modest budget it is easier and cheaper to record a vehicle doing the specific cues.

 

[mus]

it is easier and cheaper to record a vehicle doing the specific cues.

That's the only way I would do it

 

[harmonica44]

Okay thanks. Are there any video libraries of extras and props you can download or buy, and that you can match up to the rest of the footage in post production. If I can play around with it, and master it, it can beat hiring extras, in locations that will not allow for near as much. Say if I wanted to have someone get shot in a public place, and show people scatter. Could I get stock footage of the people that can blend in nicely? Action Essentials 2 only has things like blood splatter, bullet casings, explosions, etc. But no people, and no bigger moving props.

 

[MileCreations]

Go guerilla and have all the extras set up for the running away scene, get it to happen then get the heck out of there.

I was involved as an extra in a mall where it was kinda like a flash mob, but it was the video they wanted and they just wanted tonnes of people to react the right way at the same time

 

[jax_rox]

Sure, if you learn how to model and animate 3D, and are willing to spend the copious amounts of time doing it and rendering it you could.

 

[knightly]

Blender (or any 3d environment) can do crowds using particles -- especially advancing armies, running mobs, etc.

An actor is shot on a green screen performing the needed action (treadmill if running)... then the screened footage is used as the source for a sprite in a particle system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMqyDBvmLFw

If it's just someone to stand in a background all day, you still have to find someone and light them to match your plate shot... it's much less time consuming to just take them to the location and shoot them there.

 

[harmonica44]

Exactly I would prefer to hire extras. But that can be very difficult since finding actors is difficult enough. I need a back up plan in case the extras do not show up.

 

[mus]

Blender (or any 3d environment) can do crowds using particles -- especially advancing armies, running mobs, etc.

An actor is shot on a green screen performing the needed action (treadmill if running)... then the screened footage is used as the source for a sprite in a particle system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMqyDBvmLFw

If it's just someone to stand in a background all day, you still have to find someone and light them to match your plate shot... it's much less time consuming to just take them to the location and shoot them there.

oh my god! look at their little legs!!!

 

[AudioPostExpert]

Sound libraries are very popular for filmmaking. If you want a sound effect, you can just easily get it from a library, very well recorded...

Is this because audiences are more easily fooled by sound, and therefore it's more practical to have sound libraries with easier access to? I was reading about how some movies they actually changed the pitch of an actor's voice.

Yes and no, it's not quite so simple. Let's take a door closing sound as an example. There are many different doors, which all make subtly (or not so subtly) different sounds when being closed. Furthermore, even if we take a single door, there are many different sounds it can make depending on how it's closed and how it is closed is dependent on the motivations and emotional state of who is closing it. So while a library FX of a door closing is good enough to fool an audience, it probably won't fulfil the sound design requirements and even considerable processing can only get you so far. In the professional world as a general rule, as the budget increases, the use of sound libraries decreases. By the time you get to big budget features pretty much everything in the soundtrack is custom recorded. This allows the sound designer to go beyond just fooling the audience on a superficial level and allows them to manipulate the audience at a much deeper level and to more fully support the scene and the actor's motivations/emotions.

G

 

[Alcove Audio]

Post production sound designers/editors/mixer don't so much "fool" audiences as we build a convincing sonic reality. The only "real" sound in a large budget project is the production dialog, and even that is edited and manipulated in numerous ways. Every other sound, as Greg (APE) mentioned, is carefully chosen to impart character/story/plot information and/or to evoke a specific reaction from the audience.

This is also done by choosing locations, designing wardrobe, hair, makeup, dressing sets, and extras casting. These don't "fool" the audience any more than the sound does, they provide the audience with needed information in a "shorthand" format.

The use of CGI is mostly meant to achieve things not possible in reality (Star Wars to Harry Potter). It is also used to correct imperfect locations, and other production problems, many of which are planned for in advance.



As far as I can tell you are already planning on failure:

I need a back up plan in case the extras do not show up.

If your talent is properly motivated - meaning that you as the director has imparted to the cast and crew your passion for the project to succeed against all odds - they will show up.