Smooth sound flow between angle cuts?

[DanielRutterFilms]

Smooth sound flow between angle cuts?/Colour correction stuff

Question One: Sound flow

Ok, so in previous projects I've had A LOT of trouble getting nice, smooth sound flow between seperate clips. These seperate clips are usually just angle changes, but I'd usually stop recording... change the angle, and then roll. The result would always be something a little ugly, like the voice of the character talking is different in volume on the seperate takes. One way I tried to fix this, was record the actor saying the lines in one take, then changing angles and getting them to do it again. I did this for each angle change, but I always thought there was easier ways for doing this.
For my future projects, hopefully using a better quality mike will help fix the sound issues... but should I still continue to use the current formula (Use the sound from one take for all angles)?
Of course, using this formula... you get the odd angle change where the actor is saying the line, his voice is really emotional... but his face just isn't in it as much. This is easily picked out...

Any ideas?

Question two: (saves creating two threads) Colour Correction.

Usually when I import my clips into Sony Vegas, the colour is drained out of the clips. When I recorded them via my camera, they looked alright... but once in Vegas, they look like shit. To fix this up, I dump a quick colour correction preset (studio RGB to computer RGB) and it boosts the colours a bit. Its great, but I feel a bit lazy afterwards, and I reckon the colour could be much more vivid. How exactly would I do this in Vegas... or After Effects? Would I have to use just one plugin, or several on the one clip?
Would this remove the rather annoying blue "noise" (grain) that some of my footage has?

 

[CDCosta]

Hire a sound desinger.

You can do some simple sound editing tricks to smooth the sounds out.

Do 'L-cuts' or 'Cross cuts' with the sound files.

[clip 1][clip 2]
[sound 1]
......[sound 2]

Fading sound up and down as the clip starts and ends helps resove the ugly 'clicking' sound you get from rough cutting clips.

ajusting volume, matching audio, ect. every little bit helps.

Adding a Room tone across the cuts will also help transitions.

 

[DanielRutterFilms]

Adding a Room tone across the cuts will also help transitions.

Room tone? Can you explain these a little more? Where do I find them?

I use Sony Vegas as my main editor, for my final output file. I understand that once apon a time it was specifically an audio program, and it still holds most (if not all) of its sound editing qualities. Editing and mixing the video is no drama for me... its the sound that gets me. Usually I dump a couple of FX presets over the troubling audio parts and hope that it fixes them up.
Anyway, back to that question, Explain?

 

[Zensteve]

Room tone is 30 to 60 seconds of the sound a room makes, when everything is silent. (Including outdoors, too)

On the first day of a shoot at any given place, tell everyone to stfu and just record 60 seconds of silence. There's a lot of ambient noise going on, that humans just naturally tune out - but the lack of it is definitely noticeable when it ain' there.

You can use this room tone in your mix, to help blend things together.

 

[CDCosta]

Room Tone is audio you take while on set.

for each 'room' or set you film and take audio (inside and out), you should always take room tome.

In simple, it's 60 seconds of quiet time, where all thats recorded is the 'tone' of the set.

You need to be careful though, when taking room tone, all persons(cast and crew) that are present on set while filming, and all lights/equipment/props that were on, must stay in the room.

Light emits subtle sound, and people and equipment absorb sound.

So all must be present while taking room tone or the sound will be different.

 

[indietalk]

Dirtying your sound is easier than cleaning it. Let me explain. Room tone (ambient tone) aside....

Let's say you have a killer take, but a garbage truck dives by. When you cut to it, you hear the garbage truck just appear as a hard edit. What to do? Record a garbage truck, and fade up to the hard edit, starting in the previous take. Now it sounds natural. A garbage truck drives by. It's easier to dirty sound than to clean it.

 

[DanielRutterFilms]

Ahh, so I should take 60 seconds of everyone just shutting up, with background sound... and then cut. Then I can begin shooting, and whenever I need some good old fashioned silence, or wanna cut out unwanted sounds (oops, I dropped a fork in the background while shooting..) I just grab that 60 seconds of room tone, and cut some of it into the movie?
Sounds interesting and easy enough.

The big question now is, my next project will require shooting on the main street of a sometimes quiet town, and I'll more than likely have cars cruising past during shooting. It may be impossible to get 60 seconds of room tone without a car zipping past... and I don't really want these sounds in my movie IF I can help it.

 

[Alcove Audio]

...hopefully using a better quality mike will help fix the sound issues... but should I still continue to use the current formula (Use the sound from one take for all angles)?
Of course, using this formula... you get the odd angle change where the actor is saying the line, his voice is really emotional... but his face just isn't in it as much.

It's mic, from microphone - not "mike". Second, even a "budget" mic can deliver solid sound if handled properly.

CUTTING DIALOG

When cutting from angle to angle are you still seeing the character A's mouth? Or are you seeing character B from over character A's shoulder and character A's mouth is not seen completing the line?

You do not have to cut the dialog with the picture. You can continue the dialog of character A when the picture cuts to the second angle.

P = camera angle #1
p = camera angle #2

D = character A dialog
d = character B dialog

PPPPPPPPP\ppppppppppppppppppppppp\PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP\pppppppppp
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD\dddddddddddddddddddddddddddd\DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

This prevents the change of tone and delivery between cuts. If the mouth of the character can be seen after the cut you can conform the delivery with a software such as Vocalign. Using Vocalign you can also conform lines from unused takes and ADR.

You also must checkerboard the dialog; this means that you will take away all of the room tone from between the lines of dialog and then place the lines from each character onto an individual audio track.

Track D1 = Room Tone = RT
Track D2 = Character A = A
Track D3 = Character B = B
Track D4 = Character C = C
Track D5 = Character D = D


D1 - RTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR
D2 - _____AAAAAAAA___________________________AAAAAAAA_______AAAAAA__AAAAAAAAAAA____________
D3 - _______________BBBB____________BB_____________________________B_______________________
D4 - ____________________CCCCC___________________________________________________CCCCCC____
D5 - __________________________________DDDD___________DDDDD_________________________

You then use fade-ins, fades-outs and cross-fades to smooth the transitions.




ROOM TONE

As a sound editor I prefer that the lights be off when recording room tone. They emit frequencies that I always have to try to remove, but are usually almost unnoticeable when the actors are speaking.

As a sound editor I prefer that the set be empty of cast and crew. The reason is that I will be repeating the room tone several times in most scenes, and having repeated sounds from the supposedly quiet cast and crew makes the room tone obviously artificial to the audience; no matter how hard they try they cannot be completely silent. It's bad enough to have to clean up the dialog tracks but to then have to clean up the room tone as well is a real annoyance.

When recording room tone outdoors - also called ambient tone - it is best to get as much as you can, up to five or ten minutes. You can either comp a completely "silent" tone - sans voices, traffic, etc. - or you can cut it to match picture, i.e. see a car hear a car.

Production sound and dialog editing takes a "good set of ears" to match character and ambient tones to create a natural flow, some technical savvy, a decent amount of experience and a great deal of patience. It is always job one when I begin to edit the sound of a film. Beside being the most boring aspect since it is primarily technical, it gets me in touch with the characters and the story, it allows me to put together my dialog replacement list (from alternate unused takes and ADR if no good lines can be found in the alternate unused takes), and I start to put together my Foley and sound FX lists.

More often than not the proper room tones were not recorded so I have to create them from all of the little bits of "silence" I can find from the production sound and the alternate takes. So instead of taking the time on the set (1/2 hour per day?) to record proper room tones you' re paying me by the hour to create them scene by scene (1/2 to two hours per scene?). So, not only is recording proper room and ambient tones on the set the right thing to do, it is ultimately the economic thing to do.

 

[Anim8]

What Alcove said. ^^^^

Doing audio is easily as much work if not more than the actual editing. It's always better to have someone dedicated to your audio if you can afford it.

 

[DanielRutterFilms]

I'm one for learning how to do the job myself. Even if I end up hiring someone to do my sound work for me, I like to know the basics of their job... just so I can try and make their (and my) job a little easier. Also, because I'm new to the world of directing... I can't really just go and shell out money I don't have to hire a pro to do the job, hence... I have to DIY. Once I film everything and get it onto the PC for editing, I'll work on it until everything is PERFECT, or else I won't release it.

Thanks for the interesting, helpful... and somewhat deterring information shared. Rest assured, where there is a will, theres a way... and I am willing to work hard at my films... coz thats my way of doing things

Thanks again.

Any help on the second question?

 

[Anim8]

I hear you on the audio stuff... Nothing wrong with learning it... Thats what I did before getting into shooting.... It does comes in handy............

Is your monitor/video card calibrated to whatever you normally watch things on?

 

[DanielRutterFilms]

Is your monitor/video card calibrated to whatever you normally watch things on?

Unfortunately not. I don't have the best editing system setup (no 5.1 surround sound system, dual monitor+TV output type of thing)... in fact, the computer I plan to edit on is only a mid/low range computer (doesn't even have a proper graphics card)... and I'm a bit afraid that the old girl won't hold up under the pressure. Patience and coffee will get me through it though

 

[Alcove Audio]

Yup, it can be expensive to hire someone like me. However, sitting through the process at least once can teach you one hell of a lot. There are a lot of techniques that are not easily explained. A quick "fix'n'mix" session doesn't cost much more than a seminar plus the fact that it is a lot more personal (it's your project that's being worked on) and very hands-on.

It is also important to use the right tools. I'm not saying that you have to spend a hundred grand on a PT HD system, but you do need a good DAW. Vegas is passable. Most come with at least the basics such as reverb, multi-band parametric EQ and compressor/limiters. You should also get a decent noise reduction plug-in. You need to learn how, where and why to use each one. You need to learn signal flow and mixing and... Well, let's just say that there's a lot to learn; you're in for a few interesting years.

 

[CDCosta]

I'm not sure if I agree on you completely with room tone Alcove.

IF you shoot a scene in a room that echos, and don't match the amount of bodies that absorb the sound, your going to have a different sounding room tone then the rest.

Same with the frequency of the lights.

If that was the case, there would be no sense in recording room tone, you would only need one room tone if it can vary so much.

 

[Anim8]

Room tone is standard operating procedure. It makes mixing between multiple tracks transparent and/or gives ADR something to float over.

If no one says anything or makes noise, you are only recording the ambient sound of the room. The reverb isnt apparent then, but there is a tonality to the room (even if its the AC unit outside vibrating through the floor)...

 

[Alcove Audio]

I'm not sure if I agree on you completely with room tone Alcove.

If you shoot a scene in a room that echos, and don't match the amount of bodies that absorb the sound, your going to have a different sounding room tone than the rest.

Same with the frequency of the lights.

If that was the case, there would be no sense in recording room tone, you would only need one room tone if it can vary so much.

I'm not trying to be snotty, etc., but on how many films have you worked audio post? Or as production sound mixer? Or both? It's what I do for a living (six features, dozens of shorts), and I've learned at the knee of some amazing people.

If the set is empty of cast and crew there are no echoes of any kind. And as I stated no one can be perfectly silent. You would be amazed at what the mic picks up from people on the set - breathing, a shoe movement, clothing rustle, etc.

Room tones are incredibly unique. I have a library of them (totally clean) for use when no room tones were captured, and they never exactly match what was (or should have been) captured on the set.

Pop on over to the Google production sound mixers group or JWSound and ask what they do, or any number of sound design groups and ask what they prefer.

 

[CDCosta]

I've only mixed on 2 and boom opd on maybe half a dozen (I didn't enjoy sound so much)

But each one did it the same way when capturing RT, and that was leaving lights on and people there.

Hell, im sure your right, but it's interesting to me that i've never heard it being done your way.

 

[Alcove Audio]

I'm not partial to doing production sound myself. Well, that's not really true; I enjoy being production sound mixer, and I'm okay at swinging a boom, but I hate sitting around for hours with nothing to do. And then being ignored when I ask for the time and silence to capture room tones and wilds.

 

[DanielRutterFilms]

One thing that I've noticed with my own little projects where I'd used a fairly highend camera phone to film them (I'm not rich... and don't own a proper camera...yet) is that I could always hear the person holding the camera breathing. That, plus wind gusts, plus sound of the cameraman pressing buttons on the camera (I suppose you're more likely to hear these on a camera mic than on any other form of audio capturing device). Of course, I didn't think to go back out and just re-capture the sound ("room tone"), and mix in the dialogue parts of the original audio track.

Anyway, my project calls for shooting on a street. while shutting the street down and cutting out background sound as much as possible (cars driving past) would be convenient for me... it wouldn't be for the town. So how exactly would I work and trying to keep the sound as clear and 'white noise' free? Try and capture as much silence as possible to use later in editing? I don't have enough money to go and buy noise-reduction plug-ins... and so I want to be able to do it the cheap way and still have everything sound good.

 

[Alcove Audio]

That, plus wind gusts...

That's why you use a blimp and a dead cat.

...plus sound of the cameraman pressing buttons on the camera (I suppose you're more likely to hear these on a camera mic than on any other form of audio capturing device).

That's why you use a good mic on a boom. It also shows lack of set discipline by the crew. Is anyone monitoring the sound when you are shooting?

Anyway, my project calls for shooting on a street. while shutting the street down and cutting out background sound as much as possible (cars driving past) would be convenient for me... it wouldn't be for the town. So how exactly would I work and trying to keep the sound as clear and 'white noise' free? Try and capture as much silence as possible to use later in editing? I don't have enough money to go and buy noise-reduction plug-ins... and so I want to be able to do it the cheap way and still have everything sound good.

Go back and read my long post earlier in the thread. Go back to the same street - same day of the week and same approx. time - and record about 20 minutes of ambience. Then slice and dice to conform. Another option is to go out now late at night - before the crickets get active - and record "empty street". Get a good hour or more to capture individual cars. Then use empty street and cut in the cars when you see them in your edit.

If you can't get back to the location you can use any empty room for room tone. It won't have the unique character of the set but will be better than nothing.

A lot of noise reduction can be done with hi-pass filters (roll off at between 80Hz and 120Hz kills most rumble problems) & low-pass filters (roll off at between 8kHz and 10kHz kills most hiss problems) and parametric EQ (you'll have to figure out the specific frequencies and use a narrow Q).