Terrible Sound. Help!!!

[DeuxCats]

Ok. we are finally done with our first short film. you can see it here

And Ive noticed the sound is just bad. I can hear the rooster and the dog form outside the house. the ambiance sound is terrible. We recorded straight to the camera. How do you record sound? Do we have to dub the dialogues to avoid unnecessary noise. You see we do not have much of an equipment and we will be shooting our second one in a couple of days and we certainly do not intend to commit the same mistake. Do you guys have any suggestions to make our film look and sound like a pro?

I thank you all for all the help in advance.

[srbclarke]

Stage 1. Buy this DVD http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/DVXPage/

Stage 2. Accumulate the equipment covered.

Stage 3. Practice.

Good luck!

[srbclarke]

I should also say that good sound doesn't come cheap. Hire equipment if you can. And don't just hand ball the sound off to whoever isn't currently doing anything on the shoot. Sound takes dedication. I;d choose someone on your team and say "Alright, you're the sound guy, now learn everything you can!" Sound is a trade, and a very valuable one. If you can learn how to do it well, and have all your own equipment, expect a few jobs to come your way.

[srbclarke]

I'd also recommend moving this thread to Equipment & Gear, as it doesn't belong in Post-Production. The damage is done, and all you can really do is make your next film better.

[rayw]

Hi, Deux

There's a difference between "how the world really sounds" and how we "want the world to sound".

Short. Sweet: pretty much delete the entire audio recorded with the video and lay in only relevant audio information in various tracks on your editor.

Have a track for the background/ambiance/environment sound you WANT.
You'll likely have to go record that separately.
You might get lucky and can salvage a good length of audio off a take you already have.
In the future just spend a few private moments recording a few minutes of clear ambient audio.

Have a track for key sounds.
Record a drawer being opened, pause, then close it. Adjust timing in your NLE or with an audio editor.
Record a knife being drug across the counter top.
A door handle being grasped and turned.
The door opening and closing.
Tinker with sounds in an audio editor to keep EXACTLY what you want, then build a audio library for each project, and store all of these little tidbits there.

Have a track for dialog.
The on-camera mic is only good for about three to five feet out.
Everything outside that bubble is going to rapidly start sounding like sh!t.
Get a good mic and a friend that can keep that thing just off camera aimed at mouths (not general directions) and pull a good dialog recording.
Ideally, it will have pretty much just dialog and very little else.
No real drawer opening, knife scratching, door handle turning, or door opening sounds.
You're going to put in bogus recreations of those sounds when you edit!

And then a track for your background music, your soundtrack.
Throw this in last so that you can "create" your base non-soundtrack audio to as close to artificially perfect as you want or can.


Welcome to the all fake make-believe world of filmmaking!


GL!

Originally Posted by srbclarke

I'd also recommend moving this thread to Equipment & Gear, as it doesn't belong in Post-Production. The damage is done, and all you can really do is make your next film better.

Nah, I'm pretty sure he can strip it all out and rebuild it with doctored post-recorded audio.
It's quite salvageable, and a good experiment to practice with.

[Alcove Audio]

Here are the basics of sound-for-picture:



Solid production sound is all about using the proper techniques.

The proper techniques are very much enhanced by having the proper equipment.



In audio post you strip out everything except the dialog.

The dialog is cleaned up using NR and EQ.

The empty space in between lines of dialog is replaced with the room-tones and ambient backgrounds you should have recorded during production.

You then Foley in every movement made by the actors.

You edit in all of the "hard" sound effects like doors, vehicles, weapons, furniture, etc.

Full ambiences are constructed from scratch.

All music cues are spotted and edited.

The resulting tracks are mixed into a cohesive whole.




That's sound-for-picture in a nutshell. There are numerous websites and books that cover the technical aspects of production sound and audio post, but you will not have that "Ah Ha!" moment until you work with a professional. Trust me, I played thousands of gigs as a musician and logged thousands of hours as a music recording engineer, but even after doing several shorts (and doing a decent job) I didn't really "get it" until I worked with some highly experienced professionals. And despite everything that's written about doing things on a DIY micro-budget there are some things that cannot be ignored, and adequate production sound and audio post are two of them.

[knightly]

As a microbudget filmmaker, I'll gladly say skimp on the visuals a bit, but spend your money getting good audio. There are options for getting decent gear at fairly reasonable prices. If your camera has a microphone input of some sort, we can get decent sound in there for around $350 - $500. If that sounds too expensive, then you may have to settle for somewhat poor audio for a while. Cheaper than that $350 starts to get into gear that will actually introduce noise into your recording and make it harder to deal with that you're currently experiencing.

Cost of entry on filmmaking is somewhat steep, which has been a gatekeeper for folks for decades, the introduction of cheap video equipment has tons of people not seeing the other aspects of production as any different... but they are still in the mostly spendy ranges... after all, the camera records audio

[rocksure]

Something I have come across for years is that people spend their money on cameras and lighting and learn how operate cameras well, but neglect the audio skills and equipment needed for professional results. There is JUST AS MUCH to learn about getting good sound as there is about good camera work and post production skills. You can't skimp on sound and think you will get good results.
It takes money for good gear and lots of practice using it, plus a good trained ear to know what to listen for.