Work Flow Question

[Scorer]

I was thinking about my post workflow, and I began to wonder about how it is done professionally.

Sometimes I am not sure how I should edit my audio vs my video, but one thing that I have is that I can use my camera audio to help sync my external audio. This allows me to edit my video before the audio.

How do professionals do this? How do they edit video without having audio to go by? How does the audio get edited in turn?

 

[AudioPostExpert]

There are a couple of different professional workflows depending on budget. At the lowest end of the budget scale, the camera audio is usually a feed from the PSM's (Production Sound Mixer) mixer, so the audio the picture editor uses is not so dire. At higher budget levels, the workflow would include the recording of time-code and other audio metadata during filming which allows automated sync'ing in picture editorial of the PSM's audio (always a copy of the PSM's recordings though!) and so recording the sound on the camera is not necessary.

Once the picture edit is locked, a Linked AAF would be sent to the audio post peeps. This Linked AAF would allow the audio post peeps (specifically the Dialogue Editor) to re-link all the Picture Editor's edits to the PSM's original recordings (which obviously need to be supplied along with the Linked AAF). When time-code and other metadata is used, the whole dialogue editing process becomes even more streamlined because the pulling in of recordings from other mics (say lavs instead of the boom mic) or even pulling in the audio from alt or safety takes is a largely automatic process requiring just a few mouse clicks. An important part of all this is accurate and comprehensive sound logs and EDLs.

In practise it usually doesn't go quite to plan and some picture editing often occurs after audio post has started. This necessitates re-conforming the audio, which is time consuming and requires expensive specialist software and therefore needs to be avoided at the lo/no budget level!

G

 

[Scorer]

So is the picture editing done with or without an audio track to help make it easier?

 

[Sweetie]

With.

Proper workflow has nothing to do with making it easier. It's all about making it better and not having to double up on work for no reason.

 

[Alcove Audio]

The production sound mixer - on big budget projects - will record the boomed mic and lavs on separate tracks, and will also record a track of all of those elements mixed together. The "composite" mix will be sent to the video village, director, DP, scriptie, etc. This is usually the mix that is used for the film edit. The dialog editor(s) (actually, the intern or data wrangler attached to the dialog editor) will sync the individual audio tracks. BTW, there is no reference audio - they're using film!!!!!!

When you get to the middle and low budget arena it is not unusual for all of the audio tracks to be present in the time line when the editor is editing. Of course, as far as we audio post types are concerned, the visuals editor (or whomever did the import/original sync) somehow always manages to f*<* up the audio sync of the individual audio tracks.

Believe it or not, I've gotten projects that had camera audio only, even though there had been a boomed mic and lavs recorded. From the editor - "I figured that all those other audio tracks were just extra junk, so I erased them."

 

[Sweetie]

Believe it or not, I've gotten projects that had camera audio only, even though there had been a boomed mic and lavs recorded. From the editor - "I figured that all those other audio tracks were just extra junk, so I erased them."

I'd believe it. I had a friend who we both entered one of those 48hr film project, screaming on the phone with words along, "They give me 2 hours to complete post audio. Now I find out the director specifically instructed the editor to NOT sync the audio because it was the post audio guys job."

If it's a paying gig, sure... whatever. More money in your pocket I suppose.

The question has to be, how did the editor get that job in the first place?

 

[AudioPostExpert]

So is the picture editing done with or without an audio track to help make it easier?

Always with! At the low (professional) budget level the picture editor will be editing with camera sound (fed to the camera during filming from the PSMs mixer). At higher budget levels the picture editor will be editing with the audio recorder's sound (sync'ed with time-code). Regardless of whichever workflow is used, the picture editor always edits the picture with audio.

As Sweetie also said, I'm not sure I'd describe picture editing with audio in terms of "make it easier". All the professional Directors and Editors I've ever worked with have all described/explained the picture editing using terms like "flow", "rhythm" and "pacing" and indeed their requirements from audio post also always include these terms. A large part of this "rhythm, flow and pacing" is defined by the sound: Music, sound effects and particularly; how the dialogue is delivered by the actors. For this reason, picture editors MUST have the dialogue present when editing the picture and also very commonly add in temp music and some temp sound effects... It's perhaps worth mentioning that even with quite well budgeted indie films, the "rhythm, flow and pacing" is usually what lets them down the most, as far as general public audiences are concerned.

G