Question about mic quality and editing.

[harmonica44]

In my short film I play a character and there are scenes where I am talking to other people, who are also in the shot. These scenes my voice did not get recorded. I wanted to get the other actors recorded, since I can record myself any time I want. In the shots where the cam is close and just on me though, my voice is recorded.

So I am playing back the takes from one of the scenes, where in the particular shot, there is me and others in it. Even though the mic is on other actors, my voice is just as loud and just as clear it sounds like. I cannot tell the difference, and neither could my friend when I asked her to see. I used a hypercardioid. Do you think I should just use my audio even though the mic was not on me, or should I re-record mine all over again just to be safe? If I re-record mine all over again, I would have a much harder time syncing it up, as oppose to just using the audio from the best video takes. What do you think?

 

[knightly]

Methinks you need to start trusting your judgement. If it sound the same (use the waveforms to judge relative volumes), once volumes are adjusted to account for differing distances, in everything BUT the dialog, then there's no problem, move along.

 

[harmonica44]

Yeah I know but my judgement is often inexperienced and wrong. Especially when the product looks and sounds different on different TVs and I need to judge that it will sound good on all. Thanks I'll check out the waveforms to see.

 

[knightly]

Pro sound folks tend to have:

A set of headphones that will reproduce the sound honestly
A set of speakers that will give a good reference to a typical theatre sound system

Hopping rom TV to TV is asking for headaches. They are all adjusted differently and will drive you to distraction trying to account for them all. The people who own them are used to hearing deficiencies in certain frequencies and boosts in others.

Here's a nice start: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-V150-Studio-Headphones-Black/dp/B00005QBU9

Not fantastic, but not bass boosted or treble tweaked. Should give a decent idea of what the sound actually is. My son bought a $150 pair that sounds freaking fantastic and shuts out the outside world when you're listening to tunes... also relatively flat to give a true representation of the sound.

And I use these (older model): http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Spea...5QM0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332249614&sr=8-1

Son't turn up the sub too much, again a true representation of the sound is more important for sound work than artificially cranking up the bass and calling it correct.

 

[rocksure]

Can you get someone with experience and trained "audio ears" to have a listen to what you have got and get their opinion? Listening on proper studio monitors will highlight any problems that are there.

 

[harmonica44]

Okay thanks. I will get those monitors or something just as good. How big of TV should I be playing this footage through that's good for blurriness? I have an averagely big size full HDTV, but do you guys go bigger when it comes to knowing if their is still blur to be found?

 

[knightly]

If you're doing high end professional work, you'll want a calibrated TV... there are color calibration doo hickies that suction onto a corner of the screen, then run through a programmed series of colors and brightnesses to help you adjust your TV to the "correct" settings for accurate color reproduction... then the video is released into the wild where there is no guarantee that the output device will be calibrated or consistent at all.

Standard HDTV Defaults are painfully blue and over bright to compete for eyes on the sales floor, most consumers never spend the time to correct that (or even know to do so). Older TVs are really red to make faces look better at lower resolutions, computers tend to be blue and adjust their brightness based on the lighting of the room they are being used in to account for the ambient light.

Run through the color calibration on your machine in a room with neutral or no lighting so the color of the ambient light doesn't affect your calibration... set your desktop picture to a neutral gray (18-25% of white). Do it to the best of your ability, and know that you're the only one that will ever see it that way... unless you can afford to make a technology like Technicolor and hire someone to calibrate ALL of the distribution channel output devices with huge fines for being out of compliance... (this was the point behind THX sound from Lucas as well).