Question about dialogue audio.

H

harmonica44

For the short film I have mostly shot I wasn't able to use sound blankets at the locations. Mostly I didn't have enough for it be real effective, for most of the room. Also, one of the location's owner did not like us setting up C stands and blankets all over so we had to do without. Lights are okay and easier, since they did not take up so much space. I had to shoot quickly as well, so even though you can move lights around and set them up differently while switching angles, it takes more time re set up all the blankets, and I had to do a lot of shooting in so little time for the location availability.

I am going through all the sound recordings, and doing what I can with Adobe Audition, and still trying to figure out the program as well.

The sound, sounds okay so far, but hard to tell since I need to improve it and also play it all through some proper, bigger speakers once it's done. However, without recording from blankets do I need to ADR everything, or can the sound be at least passable or good enough? Even though this is my first short I still would like to improve the sound as much as I can and know what to do in this case, so I know for next time. I mean say if you wanted the sound to be film festival quality good, what would I do in this case? Thanks.
 
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Dima, you need to dust and vacuum.

Oh, wait.
You were asking about the paint.

Put the dust back and unvacuum so I can take better listen to your paint job.
 
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Is it so good that it's a festival contender? Then maybe you should ADR everything. Otherwise, why bother? You are going to run into a whole new set of problems if you attempt to ADR. Unless, of course, you want to spend dozens of hours honing your audio skills - recording and editing ADR, recording and editing Foley, recording and editing BG. Oh, are the actors going to be available for ADR?

And as to your "speaker" problem; BIG does not equal good. The speakers need to have a smooth, balanced frequency response, and the room the speakers are in also needs to have a smooth, balanced frequency response. However, I guess anything will be better than your boom-box or your lap-top speakers.


As I have preached over and over and over and over solid sound-for-picture is not just any one aspect, it's a whole series of interlocking disciplines, and as with most processes it will only be as strong as the weakest link in the chain.
 
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On set solution, minimum for a bouncy room is to have the blanket under the talent, where the shotgun microphone is pointed :) That way, the bits that don't "ground" on your subject will ground out on the blanket killing the worst of the echoes.
 
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I did use a blanket on the floor for the shotgun for the first scene shoot. But I did get a hypercardioid later for all the other scenes, but without a blanket on the floor for those ones. I could see if the actors are available for ADR, if that's what's needed. It depends on the speakers when I play it back. Through my headphones it sounds good. Through bigger speakers not so much. Through another pair of speakers, it sounds better, but still a little fuzzy.

Before I go making any decisions to sending it into any festivals though, I will put it on youtube, once it's all finished, for judgment and feedback.
 
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