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Sound Post Production Video
- Thread starter Utopia
- Start date
Okay, will you volunteer to take over the job?
Seriously, though, I am having fun building tracks. I just wish I could quit my damned day job! 3 hours per night just doesn't cut it. I'm approaching the halfway mark, though.
Oh, yeah, that's about right. Takes me about a full day per scene (depending on length, type of sequence, etc.) to cut apart the production tracks and checkerboard them, set levels, strip out the in-between, EQ/reduce noise, add fades to beginning and end of each chunk, layer in tone and ambiance, and add sync effects. Foley hasn't been recorded yet, so I still have all that to do. And music is being composed by someone else. This is a supernatural thriller, so there are some sequences that are pretty FX heavy. They are definitely the most fun, though.
I'm using Soundtrack Pro on a G5, and it frequently locks up on complex sequences. Anybody have any suggestions on how to minimize that?
Yup - get Pro Tools!
If you are using a lot of audio plug-ins and automation that is sometimes the cause; you're just pushing the CPU too hard.
In my home studio I work with PTLE, so I break a project down into smaller sessions by type - dialog, Foley, sound FX, ambience - and shorter lengths, usually the traditional reel of about 20 minutes. In my personal work flow I do the dialog editing first, do a rough NR, EQ & mix, and print a reference mix for the other sessions. I then do stems for a master mix session. (It's more complex than that, but you get the idea.)
Seriously, you may want to consider PTLE. The Mbox-2 is about $450; seems expensive until you consider that you a PTHD system starts at about $20k. There is also Nuendo and Logic. STP just doesn't cut it if you are doing any serious audio post.
It's a feature. My third, but first effects-heavy genre piece. I'm hoping to finish before the end of this year.
I bought it used on eBay, so there was no manual. I maxed-out the RAM for that processor and I think I've got it set to largest buffer, but I'll double-check.
I'm not using plug-ins or automation, but you're right, I realize it's because I'm taxing the CPU. Just wondered if anyone had any tricks. What I've been doing is muting tracks I don't need to hear while working on others; seems to help.
ProTools would be awesome - I worked with a post house that used it for my previous feature and it kicked ass - but I'm halfway home with STP so I might as well stick it out.
Here's a few scenes I put together a couple of years ago for fund raising purposes when I was just starting production. The sound mix on them is just temp, of course.
Couldn't figure out how to embed it, but here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q_FM6dmdtM
Couldn't figure out how to embed it, but here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q_FM6dmdtM
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Wow.
I can't tell if the dialogue is ADR or all production on my laptop. It's nearly flawless. Sounds great.
I would go a bit deeper with the ambiences, however. If you don't mind me adding - the ocean sounds a bit like an "underwater" perspective.
I especially love the fountain above the coffee shop and how it fades out as the camera goes beneath him.
That's awesome.
Was it production or ADR? Some/most of it? What mics were used?
I can't tell if the dialogue is ADR or all production on my laptop. It's nearly flawless. Sounds great.
I would go a bit deeper with the ambiences, however. If you don't mind me adding - the ocean sounds a bit like an "underwater" perspective.
I especially love the fountain above the coffee shop and how it fades out as the camera goes beneath him.
That's awesome.
Was it production or ADR? Some/most of it? What mics were used?
All dialogue in those clips is raw production tracks; no isolation, NR or sweetening, just crossfades. I think I wound up ADRing only 2 or 3 lines in the whole movie. If you heard it with better speakers you'd hear the BG shifts, but this was just a quick & dirty mix.
Trust me, those are NOT the effects I'm using for the final mix!
Those ambiances were just crappy cuts from a $5.00 drugstore CD. For the real thing I'm using a pro library.Footsteps, doors, pouring wine, etc. were library FX. Dialogue was production. I used a Sennheiser M66 with phantom straight into my camera, which was set on auto level.
The final version of this will be 10 times better, believe me!
Thank you, ROC!
I'm one of those (apparently rare) directors who thinks sound is just as important as picture. In fact, in this kind of genre I think sound may actually be MORE important.
I'm one of those (apparently rare) directors who thinks sound is just as important as picture. In fact, in this kind of genre I think sound may actually be MORE important.
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In STP, are you using the "Send to Sound Track Pro" option... or exporting to AIFF, then building yoru mix from there? I ask because if you use the "Send.." command and have lots of longer clips, it uses the full clip (not just in to out points) for each visible clip in the timeline... horrible, but true. I'd recommend AIFFing each audio track and building your STP timeline from scratch, that solved all those problems I was having (same crashes as you).
I am using the "send to Soundtrack Pro multitrack project" option. Are you talking about audio clips or video clips or both? If you're talking about audio clips only, I am aware of that, because I usually go in and apply my various effects to the whole clip so that it fixes all used sections at the same time.
I see what you're saying, though. Might have to rethink my process.
I see what you're saying, though. Might have to rethink my process.
I was doing it that way... and if you initially capture your footage form the camera all as one go rather than as little clips that are just single take things, then each clip in the timeline references the whole file over and over again... once I started exporting my mix track by track to AIFFs and using STP as a stand alone, that problem went away... then after that, I started capturing clips as single entities and not only solved this issue over all, but was able to save a ton of Drive space by not capturing all the crap I'd never use as well