Seems weird to me that a filmmaker might deliver a quicktime file with all 8 audio tracks. Maybe he meant 2 separate quicktime files?
No, I meant a single quicktime file. To be honest, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned quicktime as an audio delivery format as it's relatively rare and only used in certain specific workflows. However, the same principle applies to polywavs and polywav is a quite common delivery format. It might seem like it's marginally easier to deliver 2 polywavs (a 5.1 polywav and a stereo one) but it's not. How do you tell the two polywavs apart without having different file names? And, if you do have two polywavs with different file names, you now have double the number of assets to manage and they have different names! Delivering the full mix assets as a single polywav keeps it nice and simple and maintains the tried and trusted professional workflow with which everyone is familiar because it goes back to the days of tape based workflows (where again 5.1 was on the first 6 tracks of the tape and the stereo mix was on 7 & 8).
I'm also interested in getting a rough bullet point explanation of the process for creating 5.1 sound, something similar to this, excuse my ignorance:
1 - export audio stems from video editor (should these be mono or stereo?)
2 - set audio editor sequence settings for 5.1?
3 - load audio files on to appropriate designated tracks (are these mono or stereo?)
4 - ??? (is there room for additional creative mixing in this step or should it already be done?)
5 - export as some kind of 5.1 filetype?
6 - import to DCP project? (assuming that's the end goal)
This is the usual professional workflow:
1. The Picture Editor exports an AAF or OMF. The AAF contains all the individual audio channels which were present in the Picture Editor's NLE, mono and stereo. The Picture Editor would not have created or exported any stems but would most likely have created a rough guide mix (which usually would be muxed with the video delivered to audio post rather than be part of the AAF).
2. The AAF is opened in the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and the tracks organised/routed into stems, within a 5.1 audio session/s.
3. The format of each source channel depends on the source material. The production dialogue channels are mono because they were recorded in mono. Foley is usually mono, Sound Effects are mono, stereo or 5.1 and Atmospheres are usually 5.1 or stereo. This is not really any different to what you do now with your stereo mixes, you route your mono production dialogue tracks to a stereo mix buss, which allows you to pan and process your dialogue within the stereo sound-field.
The most simple professional 5.1 routing scheme would be:
A) A 5.0 DX stem, to which all the Production Dialogue, ADR and Room Tones channels are routed.
B) A 5.1 SFX stem, to which all the Production Sound Effects (PFX), Foley, Sound Effects and Atmospheres/Ambiances are routed, and
C) A 5.0 MX stem, to which all the music channels/splits are routed.
All these stems are then routed through to the full mix buss (5.1 obviously) and any other required mix busses (say a 5.1 M&E mix buss, a stereo mix buss, etc.).
4. When all the audio has been created/edited/sync'ed, each stem is mixed individually, this process is called the "Pre-Mix". Once the Pre-Mix is complete (all the stems have been mixed), the "Final Mix" takes place, which is where the stem pre-mixes are mixed together to produce the full mix (and any other required mixes). I realise that most DIY'ers, no/lo budget filmmakers usually don't mix to stems, don't have a Pre-Mix phase and instead mix straight through to a stereo buss and jump from the editing phase straight through to the Final Mix phase. This is obviously easier, quicker, requires less computing resources and can produce passable results for most self distribution platforms (and currently for some commercial VOD platforms) but it provides far less processing and mixing flexibility/options and makes it impossible to meet the audio delivery specs of most commercial distributors and broadcasters.
5. At the end of the final mix, all the stems, full mix and other required mixes are recorded (this process is called "Print-Mastering") to individual wav files, polywav/s or various other file formats, obviously dependent on the required deliverables.
6. In the case of 35mm film, the full mix (Print-Master) would be supplied to the film processing lab (in Dolby Digital and LtRt formats) and the other mixes/stem mixes supplied to the Producer. In the case of DCP, individual wav files (most commonly) of the full mix would be supplied to the DCP authoring facility (who would simply drag and drop the audio files into the DCP authoring software) and the other mixes again supplied to the Producer. In the case of TV, the various mixes would most likely be supplied back to the Video Editor (in whatever format requested by the Video Editor) who will create the final package of deliverables as specified by the broadcaster.
It's not a particularly straight forward process and is certainly a great deal less straight forward when working with 5.1 than with only stereo but I hope the info I've given helps rather than confuses you further?
G
