editing HELP:::Video did Not record Sound!!

Sojiro21 · Sep 2, 2012

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!!!!

AudioPostExpert · Sep 4, 2012

Sojiro21 said:
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.

That depends on where you are screening the short, is it for the internet or for a film festival? Unfortunately, noise isn't just noise, there's almost an infinite variation in noise and the ear is particularly sensitive to minute changes in noise. In other words, on a reasonable home sound system (or a top class sound system, say at a film festival) you probably won't be able to mask the computer noise with ambient noise without also burying the dialogue. Also remember that most TVs have very poor quality speakers, only one step up from laptop and mobile phone speakers. While you might get your mix sound OK a TV, if it's played back on a home stereo or entertainment system (or anything better) the audio problems/weaknesses will become more and more obvious.

G

Sojiro21 · Sep 4, 2012

AudioPostExpert said:
That depends on where you are screening the short, is it for the internet or for a film festival? Unfortunately, noise isn't just noise, there's almost an infinite variation in noise and the ear is particularly sensitive to minute changes in noise. In other words, on a reasonable home sound system (or a top class sound system, say at a film festival) you probably won't be able to mask the computer noise with ambient noise without also burying the dialogue. Also remember that most TVs have very poor quality speakers, only one step up from laptop and mobile phone speakers. While you might get your mix sound OK a TV, if it's played back on a home stereo or entertainment system (or anything better) the audio problems/weaknesses will become more and more obvious.

G

Yea it'll be straight to youtube so I'm willing to take the loss.

My next film will be for festival so I will take this lesson with me.