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I hate sound

I shot a little parody of an italian TV ad and I'm now editing the thing.

I just hate sound. I just can't begin to understand how it should be done. I would kill to have the opportunity to sit next to someone who knows what he's doing while editing his short.

What I learned was that I should d my best to record the cleanest dialogue possible on set. Does that mean you don't need to record sound when there is no dialogue ?

In the ad I shot, there is not a single line of dialogue. But that obviously doesn't mean there is no sound. There are a lot of little things, couch squeezing, table rattling, clothes rubbing, finger touching and what not. I'm I supposed to throw in the separately captured sound for each sound effect each time ? Or I'm a supposed to throw in the whole recording of that shot ?


Also, slating... Shit that thing is mandatory and absolutely not an option. I'm sick of having to listen to each track to find the one that corresponds to a certain take.

Obviously, I'm still learning but some days, I just wanna quit. I'm telling you, if I'm off the game, it would be because of sound (or indoor lighting, rage topic coming soon).
 
What I learned was that I should do my best to record the cleanest dialogue possible on set. Does that mean you don't need to record sound when there is no dialogue?

Personally I like having scratch sound, even if there's no dialog. If I'm spotting sound effects the scratch track supplies a basic sync point if there are no visual cues.

There are a lot of little things, couch squeezing, table rattling, clothes rubbing, finger touching and what not. I'm I supposed to throw in the separately captured sound for each sound effect each time ? Or I'm a supposed to throw in the whole recording of that shot ?

"Couch squeezing"??? Well, whatever... :D

When it comes to Foley you attempt a full take of footsteps, another of cloth, etc. The longer the take the more natural it sounds. However, don't let your Foley inadequacies frustrate you or turn you off. Do a bunch of takes and comp them together, fix the occasional out of sync step; I do all of those things! If you must resync each footstep individually.

Sound effects are generally created and/or spotted one at a time; it is not unusual to take several sounds and layer them to create the sound(s) and/or sequence(s) that you desire.

Oh, yeah; you don't need a table to create a table rattle, all the sound must do is satisfy the emotional content of a table rattle. A large pillow may serve as your "couch."

Try to group the same type of sound effects on the same tracks, they will most probably be treated very similarly. So now you have a track of breathing (technically dialog), a track of footsteps, a track of cloth, a track of table, a track of couch, etc. If you run out of tracks/processing power you consolidate by type. If the couch and table don't overlap consolidate into a furniture track.

Also, slating... Shit that thing is mandatory and absolutely not an option. I'm sick of having to listen to each track to find the one that corresponds to a certain take.

Lesson learned!!!!!!!! "The difference between an amateur and a professional is that an amateur mostly learns from his mistakes; the professional learns from the mistakes of others"; now you know why they slate. In fact, if you think about it, when using film you have no choice; you match the verbal slate on the audio to the visual slate at the beginning of the take.

I always label my audio tracks before recording. In Pro Tools the audio clip will be named for the track. When I'm doing Foley I will loop the sequence, and Pro Tools will automatically name each take with a subsequent number. So the Footsteps track that applies to the character "Jim" will be Fstp-Jim and PT will automatically append the take number each time the loop goes around; Fstp-Jim-1, Fstp-Jim-2, Fstp-Jim-3, etc.

Have fun - it takes a while to get things right, but keep on doing it. Creating new sounds is the fun part of audio.
 
I haven't had NEARLY as much experience as Alcove, but I do all the sound recreation and syncing (foley) on all my shorts. It can be a tedious job at best, and a nightmare when it's just not working out.

If I get to the point where I'm having issues. I simply save what I have, move to another part of the project, then revisit the sound issues the next day. A clear head makes a HUGE difference...
 
First of all, thank you both and double thanks for Alcove for your input. As always, I thank God you chose to come here help us ignorants.

Ok so I tried to work it a few minutes every day.

I'm showing how it sounds so far. Don't throw stones at me. I've shown it around and everybody think it's "perfect". Obviously we don't have the same set of values.

I feel it's lacking something. Some moments feel quite empty sound wise. Like the intro, apart from the background TV sound, there's nothing (except room tone).

Anyway, what do you think ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmaElrQQi8E
 
Thanks, I guess. I did not write the story and I believe the folks whom I was shooting it for took it from an italian tv ad for a 0% alcohol beer. So really in the end, I take no credit for it.

Anyway, I feel kindda happy you liked it, even sound wise.

What do you mean by "mixing the sounds hotter" Alcove ? I'm not familiar with sound vocabulary.
 
Sorry, I'm really old-school. "Hotter" in audio parlance means to make it louder.

The term originally comes from when records were on vinyl. A 45 RPM 7" single could hold a little over four minutes of material. The turntable needle would read the up/down-left/right motion of the grooves to reproduce the sound/music. The deeper and wider the groove the louder the record would be. But wide grooves took up more space, so most singles were in the 3:00 range. This meant that the inscribing needle of the master could be heated up a little more (made hotter) for wider, deeper grooves. So a really hot record was louder.

Guess where "Groovy" comes from?
 
Haha! I don't know jack about audio, so I can't help you there. But that short/commercial was hilarious!

My one critique -- cut it MUCH shorter. You could EASILY fit this into 30-seconds or less.
 
Thank you Alcove, that was instructive.

Cracker, I will deliver it as is but I will for sake of practice try to cut it shorter. 30s seems vey short though. I guess I would need to skip on some stuff and play with continuity. I'd love if you gave it a try yourself, to giv me an idea of what can be done.

BTW, on the first shot, I tried to add TV reflection in post. I find it works quite well.
 
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Cracker, I will deliver it as is but I will for sake of practice try to cut it shorter. 30s seems vey short though. I guess I would need to skip on some stuff and play with continuity. I'd love if you gave it a try yourself, to giv me an idea of what can be done.

Yeah, dude. I can do that. The current project I'm working on has a big deadline this coming Tuesday. Immediately after that, I'd be happy to re-cut yours. I'll be honest, though -- I don't know if I wanna re-cut it just for the sake of practice.

I will say this, though -- I LOVE this commercial. It's really funny. I would gladly re-cut it just for the sake of being involved with it, but I would want my cut to be the official final cut. And dude, I'm 100% sure that I can fit the same story into 30-seconds.

If you want practice in editing, then do that -- practice. Force yourself to keep it under 30-seconds. I'll bet you'll surprise yourself. Otherwise, PM me if you're interested in a re-cut. :)
 
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