• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

HELP:::Video did Not record Sound!!

Sojiro21

Sojiro21

To make a long story short, some of my video files during a really important scene for some reason did not record sound. I use an external shotgun mic connected to my CANON XA10 video camera.

I need to know what my options are. The scene takes place on a basketball court by a not so busy street. I thought about recording my actors on a separate Audio Recorder and just sticking it in the video where appropriate. This seems to be my only option, but I need to pick some more brains.


I am very disappointed in myself for making this technical mistake, but I realize that this is my first film and there will be some learning experiences and some failures. Trust me that this is one that will be burned in my brain throughout my entire career. For all you newbies....CHECK YOUR FILES BEFORE LEAVING THE SET!!!!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
You are going to have to dub in the dialog. This is going to be extremely difficult; unlike ADR, you will have no reference material with which to match sync.

And that will be the issue, believable visual sync. Even the dumbest, most inattentive of audiences will notice poorly synced dialog.

In the long run it will probably take less time to re-shoot the scene.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Options are to reshoot or ADR.

Brief ADR description: actors sit in front of a monitor and re-record their dialogue. They loop the scene/line/word over and over until they can give a good performance that matches lip sync.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
For someone who is not experienced in audio, I personally find ADR to be very difficult. I think a rookie can pull it off, but only if you ADR the entire scene, in my opinion. Trying to mix ADR with production audio just feels like you'd be biting off more than you can chew, in my opinion.

If you can, I think you should reshoot. If not the entire scene, then at least those shots (making sure that conditions are similar -- time of day, etc.).

There is one other possibility that might work, if you're incredibly lucky. Is it possible that the audio you need was recorded in different shots? Different angles of the same action? Can you use the audio from one shot for the visuals of another?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Re-shooting is not an option at this point. My actors and i all traveled to Florida for the scene, and they are all doing their own thing right now with school in session, etc.

I was thinking of meeting with them individually for a little ADR...I recently bought an audio recorder for this purpose. I'm thinking it is my only option. I could post music in some places when they are playing basketball to give the impression of just passing the time....


I dont know what could have happened with the mic....it recorded sound that same day during another shoot while in florida and I made no changes to the camera. It's real sporadic. Doesnt make much sense, but Im thankful that I have some of it in tact.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Alcove Audio said:
Who was monitoring the audio during the shoot? He should have his cajones twisted in a red-hot vise...
Click to expand...



I'd second that!

Now, its a good time to take a look at your project. What are you planning do do with your movie? Is it youtube only release? Then you should attempt to do ADR.. Is this an important movie that you expect to submit to film festivals and win ton of awards? Then I'd suggest to reshoot the scene.

Take an honest look at your project and where you are going with it and act accordingly. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ugh...yea it would probably be straight to youtube. ADR it is then!

BTW i posted the first couple minutes of my film in the screening section, King of the Court. Check it out!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ADR is typically done in software, not into a separate recorder. That way you know for sure when a take is good and you can replay it right there and see it all lined up. On a separate recorder, you'll need a LOT of good notes "take 23 of line 4 is good" when sorting through the mass of takes. Doable maybe but way harder.

Many cheap recorders act as a USB interface too. If you can sit in front of the monitor and capture straight into a DAW you'll be better off.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Let's just correct the terminology.

ADR is replacing existing dialog with (hopefully) an exact sync match. There is not reference dialog in this scene, so like a film in another language the dialog will be dubbed. Yes, it is subtle, but distinct difference.

Since Sojiro will be recording the dialog on a separate system without watching the visuals these will be dialog wilds.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I will second what Alcove has said because some people do not seem to be listening to him. ADR stands for Automatic Dialogue Replacement, obviously if there is no dialogue recorded in the first place there is nothing replace and it is NOT ADR. What is being referred to here is called dubbing. This is not just a difference in terminology it's a different job, requiring a different workflow and different audio post tools.

As Alcove also mentioned, dubbing is far harder than ADR and it will take skill and a great deal of time to get it to the point where the audience won't notice and be put off by lip-sync issues. It would be far easier and you would end up with a better quality finished short if you re-shot the scene.

G
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sojiro21 said:
Any ADR software recommendations?
Click to expand...

EdiCue and EdiPrompt (SoundsInSync), ADRStudio (Gallery software), VoiceQ and VocAlign (Syncro Arts) are a few, although there are many others. Some of these programs are specifically for ADR rather than dubbing and so would be of no help with the OP's problem. Some of them also require ProTools as the host DAW.

While all these tools help or are even invaluable, getting good ADR is almost entirely based on the facilities and skill/experience of the person recording the ADR. In addition to the software mentioned above, you will also need some basic audio editing tools, such as time-stretch/time-compression, which are found in most DAWs. Mixing ADR is another whole subject/skill and requires a few other audio post tools.

G
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just noticed you edited your message and are in fact the OP. Most of the info in the first paragraph of my previous reply would probably be of limited use to you and also probably outside your budget.

You've really got only 2 options: 1. Re-shoot the scene or 2. Just manually record and edit (dub) all the dialogue for your missing scene. You are going to have several difficulties recording appropriate dialogue, containing both the artistic performance and the physical perspective to make it sound convincing. If you manage to get that sorted out, your next problem will be to achieve decent lip-sync and that's a tricky, time consuming job even for an experienced professional dialogue editor. Your final problem will be to make the dialogue sound as if it's actually occurring in the same location as your visuals (a basketball court by a not so busy street). You'll need a decent reverb (and/or delay) processor and it would be a good idea to go back to the location and record (in stereo preferably) the ambient noise of the location for 5-10 minutes.

All in all, it would be far easier to re-shoot the scene!

G
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I appreciate the replies.

I'm planning out my next move right now as far as manually recording. It will probably involve the actors looking at the footage as they record, if not directly recording into the footage somehow.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sojiro21 said:
I'm planning out my next move right now as far as manually recording. It will probably involve the actors looking at the footage as they record, if not directly recording into the footage somehow.
Click to expand...

The usual method is for the actors to record to the picture. The obvious problem is that if you have the computer in the same room as the actor is recording, the chances are you are going to record a lot of computer noise along with the dialogue and computer noise is usually difficult (if not impossible) to remove. You'll probably run into a few other problems recording dialogue in a room, it would be worth a quick search on here and having a read of the potential problems and how to solve them.

G
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just thinking outside the box, if a complete reshoot is absolutely not an option, what about a re-write or shooting a new scene in a different location with fewer actors to replace it? Could you make it a phone call where you only have to shoot with one actor, then the other can be recorded however you want without having to worry about sync? Or go waaaay out of the box and do something like a news reporter explaining what happened or cut the footage you do have to music and make it a montage that only shows what happened.

Dubbing, especially into a standalone recorder, is going to be either incredible time-consuming and hard (and I mean like 10-15 times the amount of time as a reshoot) or it's going to look and sound horrible.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
AudioPostExpert said:
The usual method is for the actors to record to the picture. The obvious problem is that if you have the computer in the same room as the actor is recording, the chances are you are going to record a lot of computer noise along with the dialogue and computer noise is usually difficult (if not impossible) to remove. You'll probably run into a few other problems recording dialogue in a room, it would be worth a quick search on here and having a read of the potential problems and how to solve them.

G
Click to expand...

Yea I kinda figured that I would need to be in a quiet room. The computer noise can hopefully be dealt with by adding some ambient noise to the footage as well. Or perhaps If I can hook i up to a TV. It's going to require some patching, but I think the scene is salvageable with this method.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top