voiceover for animal? - like Homeward Bound haha

[MistaDobalina]

I'm new. I need to make this short 30s clip in the next 3 days. In it, a dog is talking to a guy in a car. How can I make the sound nice and even for both the guy speaking and the dog's voiceover?

All I have is a handheld camcorder and an apple computer. Should I record the dog's voice in the camcorder or on a computer's recorder and add it over the video?

help appreciated. thank you.

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

Even cheap camcorders have great quality audio recording capability. The key is the microphone. In your case, you may actually want to use the camcorder's microphone, but record straight through to your laptop, so the tape motor isn't running on the camcorder, which is likely to make noise. If you can find a really, really quite place to record, and you keep the camcorder mic pretty close to you (about 2 feet or a little less), you should get a decent voice over.

Obviously, you'll have to record the two voices separately. When you edit, if you pan one voice towards the right channel, and pan the other voice to the left, so they match the locations of the actors, you could get something that sounds about right. You'll also want to go out on a street (not too noisy) and record background audio that you will mix in for realism.

Doug

 

[knightly]

Experiments with stereo dialog that have been done have shown that the audience doesn't like voices coming from anywhere but the center unless the speaker's off screen.

There are three ways to treat this audio.

You will be recording the two voices separately,
1)
actor 1 recorded in scene
actor 2 recorded in scene
audio added to the dialog afterwards. They should be in the same place as the other actor for sound continuity.
2)
actor 1 recorded in scene
actor 2 recorded right near camera (much better sound)
add reverb/echo to the voice and room tone (you did record room tone right?) to match the other voice.
3)
actors re-recorded just after the scene right near camera (better sound)
echo and room tone added to feel right for the scene (best sound, maybe not best for performance unless actor can pull off the same delivery after the fact).

 

[MistaDobalina]

thanks!

as far as the channels, I plan on not having both in the frame together while talking...just 3 simple views: oustside car, view of guy, view of dog. therefore i don't see why i would pan the voices to different sides.

and no haha i don't plan on driving the car while filming. the dialogue will take place at a stop in a neighborhood so i won't really need to add street sounds.

@knightly: there is only one actor, the guy. the only other actor is the dog but he obviously won't say anything. he will just be filmed and i will add a voiceover later. (unless you mean the dog is actor 1 then ok yeah i understand.)

also, what is room tone?

and what do you mean "re-recorded"? you're saying that i should record actor 2 dialogue three times at different distances and re-mix together after? won't that sound kinda weird?

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

room tone is the street sounds. it's the ever present background audio that you don't notice, but you notice when it's not there. birds chirping, wind blowing through tree leaves, distant car motors, etc.

technically room tone is what you'd record, in the same place where you're recording your dialog, but nobody is talking.

Knightly, I understand that dialog should be centered, but I was picturing that it might have been difficult to tell when the dog was speaking. A slight pan to one side might hint at which actor was speaking. I haven't seen the visuals, so I'm just flailing in the dark here.

Doug

 

[MistaDobalina]

that would make it sound better? recording sounds in the car and adding it in underneath the dialogue later? i'll try that out i guess.

i just don't want that crappy home-movie sound.

while people are viewing this...does anybody know of a good free post-production software for mac osx? my uncle works for apple but i dont want to drive to his house to use it and would rather do all the post-p at home.

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

free post production software? I'd recommend the iTools (GarageBand and iMovie) for audio and video editing. Audacity is pretty good, and it's free, but it just works with audio.

I'm not sure you realize how important that background audio is. It may be barely noticeable, but like I said, you notice when it's too quiet. The reason we record room tone is two fold;

1) it can be used to establish a noise signature that can be used to remove some noise
2) if you need to cut something out of your audio track, and you don't have that room tone to put in it's place, you'll have a dead spot that will be very noticeable.

In your case, you want ambience to make the scene seem real. The only time it's dead quiet in the real world is at 4AM after a fresh foot of snow has fallen, and just before you're going to be pummeled by a tornado. Haven't you ever heard someone say, "It's too quiet". Too quiet is ominous ... unnatural.

However, you want to record your ambience separately, so you can mix it in at a very low level to keep it from detracting from your dialog.

Hopefully this all makes sense, but if it doesn't, just go out and record your movie. If it doesn't work the way you expect, you'll learn a whole bunch from your mistakes. Then you go out and do it all again.

So, regarding your question, did you mean to ask about a free Non-Linear Editor for OS X ? Post production covers a very wide range of tools.

Doug

 

[MistaDobalina]

No I wasn't being sarcastic about room tone. It's a great idea and i'll definitely do it.

And yea I was just wondering if there was some sort of video OR audio editing software that I could download to help me edit my video since I have none. thanks.