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what's the criteria to pick up sound in post

Hi all,

I am now editing my short film shot a couple of days ago...My location sound recorder recorded our sound with both shotgun and lavalier mic for most of the scenes and therefore I got mostly 2-3 different sound tracks for editing, and I am a bit confused here.

From my poor sound knowledge learning from film school, it seems in most cases shotgun sound sources are our first choice for doing editing, I am not sure if this is right...Actually I cannot quite tell the huge difference between those sound tracks. I mean I understand lavalier mic picks up clearer dialogues since it's an omni mic and hide close under the actor's mouth. I just wanna ask what is the criteria to pick up sound in post?

Is it that if the dialogues are clear with no noise, we choose the sound recorded by shotgun, if there's some problems with it, we choose the sound recorded by lavalier as a second choice? Or another different understanding, we choose Lavalier's sound as a first choice when there's dialogue during that take?

Any suggestions? Thanks a lot!!
 
As a sound editor when I'm doing dialog I go for the boomed mic first. It has a more natural quality if it has been recorded properly.

If there is a momentary problem with the boomed mic track I look for "patches" in the audio from the unused takes. The tonal and reverberant qualities will be very similar so require less EQ and other types of matching during the mix.

There are definitely situations where I would go for the lavs - usually very intimate scenes where the closeness of the micing is an asset artistically. However, I always have the boomed mic track available in case the rerecording mixer and/or director prefers that track.

If you're editing dialog you absolutely MUST read this book:

Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures: A Guide to the Invisible Art - John Purcell

http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Editing-Motion-Pictures-Invisible/dp/0240809181


BTW, if you can't tell the difference between the boomed mic and the lavs you either need a better set of speakers and/or a better listening environment, or you really need to improve your listening skills.
 
use the best sound. usually the lav for dialogue and shotgun for everything else.. even if u use the lav, you can always throw in atmosphere tones.

If you are doing a proper audio post you use ONLY the dialog from the production sound, so I don't even know what "everything else" you are referring to. And almost every dialog editor, supervising sound editor and rerecording mixer I have worked with, met, or interacted with over the 'net prefers the boomed mic over the lavs if the boomed mic has been properly recorded.

And what do you mean by "throwing in atmosphere tones"? Are you referring to room tones or ambient tones for the dialog track, or are you referring to the constructed ambiences that are a part of the sound FX tracks?
 
I just wanna ask what is the criteria to pick up sound in post? ... Is it that if the dialogues are clear with no noise, we choose the sound recorded by shotgun, if there's some problems with it, we choose the sound recorded by lavalier as a second choice? Or another different understanding, we choose Lavalier's sound as a first choice when there's dialogue during that take?

Ultimately, you need the dialogue to be clear (easily understood) and you want the dialogue performance which best supports or enhances the story and the actor's visual performance. To this end, there are no absolute rules, it's just whatever works best, even deliberately changing the pitch or spectral content of words or individual syllables is acceptable to achieve this artistic end. In practice it's very unusual to get a great visual performance, a great dialogue performance and a high quality recording all at the same time in a single take. Therefore, a large part of the skill of the dialogue editor is in editing together dialogue from different sources (mics, takes and even ADR) to artificially create the best performance, while fooling the audience so they are unaware that any of this is going on.

Good dialogue editing therefore requires a good knowledge of how sound works and how we hear because human hearing has evolved to accommodate the necessity of our species to communicate with spoken dialogue. Good dialogue editing is a real art and is why the top dialogue editors are so well paid.

Unless you have a very high quality monitoring environment, I would advise editing (not mixing) dialogue on a good quality set of studio headphones.

G
 
^
Yes, if you don't have high quality powered studio monitors, then high quality headphones are the next best thing. Audio guys can chime in with recommendations, but I think you can get a decent set of headphones for about $100.
 
Yes, if you don't have high quality powered studio monitors, then high quality headphones are the next best thing. Audio guys can chime in with recommendations, but I think you can get a decent set of headphones for about $100.

Even high quality studio monitors might not be the best thing as the performance of studio monitors is defined by the room they are in. The whole environment (room and monitors) need to be very high quality to be better than good headphones when it comes to dialogue editing.

I personally would spend a little more than $100, for example Sennheiser HD 380 Pro headphones list at $199.99 (can be found up to $50 cheaper) and are the highest quality headphones you will ever need professionally.

G
 
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