Capturing clean dialogue question.

J

jj4vr

Afternoon,
So here's the scene. 3 guys in a "4 man raft" (yeah right). Floating down a very calm river. One of the guys is pushed out of the raft into the river and starts splashing around crying for help. The other two sit back and laugh and have a few words of dialogue.

In this instance above, what's the proper way to capture the dialogue? We captured it straight as it played, and of course we got the sounds of the splashing water mixed with the voices. Should we have done a wild dialogue take? With them doing their lines and screaming help without any splashing and then captured the splashing of the water?

In my mind I feel like if I were to turn off the dialogue after it's edited, the scene should still work audio wise... where right now if i did that, we would lose the sound of the splashing.

This is a small production group and we are trying to continue to increase our production value each film we make. For this scene we used an ME-66 directly into a Tascam-60D.

Thanks!
 
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jj4vr said:
In this instance above, what's the proper way to capture the dialogue?
Click to expand...

Moot question - you've already shot the scene.


And yes, you should have done all of those things:

jj4vr said:
wild dialogue take... doing their lines and screaming help without any splashing... captured the splashing of the water...
Click to expand...



As with the visuals you want as many options as possible when you get into post.

If I was doing the audio post I would first comb through all of the takes for the "best" takes. "Best" being a series of trade-offs, mostly having to do with performance versus intelligibility/consistency balanced against technical.

Of course I would be doing Foley and sound effects for everything else.
 
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This was our first day of shooting and so I wanted to make sure going forward that we don't make the same mistake.

We have the option of going back on location to capture that dialogue as the location is only 5 minutes from us. And everyone is willing to re-shoot if that fails.

Thank you so much for taking time out to respond.
 
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1. Have your actor do a scene where he splashes around and mouths the dialog without any sound - so you have your correct sounding splash
2. Have him do the scene where he is crying out for help
3. Bring him back to shore and have him cry out with the same intensity as he did in the water.

Chances are, that if you shoot it at an angle where his every mouth movement is not visually crisp and clear of the splashing water, I don't see any reason why you won't be able to replace a mix of 1 & 3 over 2. That's how I would do it. It's not perfect advice, but I'd try it out.

Here's a scene where I mixed up the audio.

https://www.poptent.com/media/55763

1. In the scene you see, there is no thunder during the shoot.
2. The shoot audio, was not used as there is a leaf blower to the right of the camera blowing everything and destroying the audio.
3. I reshot the scene with no leaf blower, but her screaming with the same intensity. Once replaced, it's hard to tell what's really going on.
 
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Thanks... that's about how I was imagining we should have done it and will do it from now on.

We've come a long ways from our first production, looks like we need to just pay more attention.
 
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You're thinking of it backwards, at least from my perspective as an audio post guy. All I want is "clean" dialog. I will create all the other sounds. The splashing done on the set will most probably not be as expressive as I would want, as much as it may occasionally be in sync after editing is completed.

Action scenes are a tough gig. I mostly hope to get clean enough production dialog so I have something to use as a reference for the ADR sessions. Or, if the director and producer have really thought it through, they can get clean dialog during an action scene (although that's not going to be easy in/on the water). It's as simple as - and as complicated as - the talents says their lines, then the action happens, the talents says their next lines, then the action happens, ad nauseam. Properly shot and cut this can be quite effective, but you need to plan it out carefully.

Now, as a "down in the weeds" kind of audio post guy, I know the handicaps under which you are working. ALL THE MORE REASON TO PLAN IT VERY CARFEFULLY!!! There are already quite a few things that will be beyond your control, so plan your edit in advance. Maybe when the two guys remaining in the boat say their lines you can't see the third guy splashing in the water. When we see third guy in the water he splashes around, says his lines, and splashes around again. You can also use an "over the shoulder" perspective when the two guys in the boat say something to the third guy in the water. This gets you (relatively) clean dialog from the guys in the boat, and you can mix in the (separate) sounds of the third guy splashing in the water with the (clean) dialog of cries for "help" or whatever under their lines of dialog, and while third guy is splashing in the water you can use the "over the shoulder" shots with cleaner dialog from other takes if needed, as sync does not have to be 100%.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
If I was doing the audio post I would first comb through all of the takes for the "best" takes. "Best" being a series of trade-offs, mostly having to do with performance versus intelligibility/consistency balanced against technical.
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Sorry to hijack the thread but I had a question about this. I'm pretty unexperienced in post-audio (but I'm learning), wouldn't the film be picture-locked before sound work is completed? If so, would you work with the editor and director to determine the best takes? Or am I just completely off?
 
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@Alcove

You're probably right about the "thinking backwards" thing. I try to avoid a situation where I'd have to do ADR in post. So I try to get the real audio that I'll use, during the shoot. so I design the post during the shoot. For instance you could probably take water splash sounds in your collection and make it sound like any splash scene, because you have experience doing it. I don't. So I'd rather cover my bases by recording the realistic splash at the scene.

But of course your approach is technically correct. My approach is meant for someone who's working without highly skilled people on the team.
 
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JayRuz said:
wouldn't the film be picture-locked before sound work is completed?
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It varies from project to project and, of course, budget and scheduling also have a lot to do with it.

At the low/no/mini/micro budget level I usually do get a locked picture. At the well-budgeted level the post sound team will start working after the first rough cut, and the sound effects field team has already been busy collecting sounds for the sound effects library (if it's that kind of film).


JayRuz said:
If so, would you work with the editor and director to determine the best takes?
Click to expand...


During a properly managed production the sound designer/supervising sound editor has already had in depth discussions with the director about the sound of the film during pre production, and the discussions have continued all the way through the shoot. Once the shoot has wrapped and the first edit completed (or even just some scenes) the audio post team gets to work - dialog editors, Foley team, sound effects editors and music editors. The composer starts fleshing out the sketches and themes already approved by the director into a score.

The dialog editor(s) organize all of the production sound and start the clean-up. A review of the footage puts together the ADR list. (At the big budget level they will ADR anything where there is even a remote possibility that it may be needed. Many "Hollywood" films record lots of ADR that is never used; believe it or not, in the long run it's more cost efficient.) Lip smacks and all sorts of other extraneous noises are cut out. Mumbled words and phrases are replaced. Better performances are cut together and synched. All the sound between lines of dialog are removed (actually placed on other audio racks). And all the other audio post teams all start to go through their similar paces.

At the end of all this the sound track is mixed. There can be hundreds, even well over a thousand of tracks of audio and hundreds of thousands audio clips.

I would recommend that you read a few books on audio post:

Sound Design - David Sonnenschein
The Sound Effects Bible - Ric Viers
Dialogue Editing - John Purcell
The Foley Grail - Vanessa Ament
Audio Postproduction for Film and Video - Jay Rose
Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound - David Yewdall
Audio-Vision - Michel Chion

These will get you started, there are many more. Also spend time at FilmSound.org; lot's of great history, interviews and glossaries.
 
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Alcove, again great information. We actually ended up with only 1 line "ruined" really as we tried to work around all the noise, it's just we over looked the splashing of course. I have other issues with the audio... but it's a learning process for our entire team.

Pay attention to details.

Thanks again!
 
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Alcove Audio said:
It varies from project to project and, of course, budget and scheduling also have a lot to do with it.

At the low/no/mini/micro budget level I usually do get a locked picture. At the well-budgeted level the post sound team will start working after the first rough cut, and the sound effects field team has already been busy collecting sounds for the sound effects library (if it's that kind of film).





During a properly managed production the sound designer/supervising sound editor has already had in depth discussions with the director about the sound of the film during pre production, and the discussions have continued all the way through the shoot. Once the shoot has wrapped and the first edit completed (or even just some scenes) the audio post team gets to work - dialog editors, Foley team, sound effects editors and music editors. The composer starts fleshing out the sketches and themes already approved by the director into a score.

The dialog editor(s) organize all of the production sound and start the clean-up. A review of the footage puts together the ADR list. (At the big budget level they will ADR anything where there is even a remote possibility that it may be needed. Many "Hollywood" films record lots of ADR that is never used; believe it or not, in the long run it's more cost efficient.) Lip smacks and all sorts of other extraneous noises are cut out. Mumbled words and phrases are replaced. Better performances are cut together and synched. All the sound between lines of dialog are removed (actually placed on other audio racks). And all the other audio post teams all start to go through their similar paces.

At the end of all this the sound track is mixed. There can be hundreds, even well over a thousand of tracks of audio and hundreds of thousands audio clips.

I would recommend that you read a few books on audio post:

Sound Design - David Sonnenschein
The Sound Effects Bible - Ric Viers
Dialogue Editing - John Purcell
The Foley Grail - Vanessa Ament
Audio Postproduction for Film and Video - Jay Rose
Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound - David Yewdall
Audio-Vision - Michel Chion

These will get you started, there are many more. Also spend time at FilmSound.org; lot's of great history, interviews and glossaries.
Click to expand...

I really appreciate your help, Alcove. I'm enjoying The Sound Effects Bible now! Thank you.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
All the sound between lines of dialog are removed (actually placed on other audio racks).
Click to expand...

Sorry to bug again. This quote above... just to understand... between every line of dialog you would cut out the stuff in between and move it down to a different track... then you would utilize clean room tone in the now silent space?

And what's the purpose of keeping the stuff in the middle on a separate track? Reference for Foley and/or other sound effects?

Looking into getting the books you mentioned thanks!
 
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what's the purpose of keeping the stuff in the middle on a separate track?
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Part of the reason: So when a foreign distributor does a foreign language dub, it'll work. If your sound mix only works with that room tone baked into the dialogue, foreign dubs will be strange without that room tone seeing they'll record the dialogue in a studio.
 
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Thanks... That part I kind of knew. It's more a question of, why keep the surrounding stuff instead of just deleting it. Sorry for not being clear.

I guess it's kind of like video editing in that I never actually delete and throw away anything permanently.... I never know when I might need something from what I thought was bad.

Thanks for the response Sweetie!
 
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jj4vr said:
Sorry to bug again. This quote above... just to understand... between every line of dialog you would cut out the stuff in between and move it down to a different track...
Click to expand...

Yes

jj4vr said:
then you would utilize clean room tone in the now silent space?
Click to expand...

Correct.

jj4vr said:
And what's the purpose of keeping the stuff in the middle on a separate track?
Click to expand...

Yes, it can serve as a reference for Foley and sfx, but not often. Mostly it has the original noise of the set on it, and during pre-dubs the dialog mixer has references to start the "noise print" for the noise reduction process.

At the micro budget level it's easier to bring the volume of an entire "noise" track up or down than digging between each line of dialog.
 
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