Audio Post-Production - Keep It In Mind!

[outpost-travis]

As a professional in the San Francisco film community, I see again and again directors who haven't reserved an adequate budget for completing the sound mix for their film.

"Have I kept the audio from alternate reels in case sound bytes need to be replaced in my selected footage?"

"Will I be mixing in surround sound?"

"Am I preparing my film for foreign distribution?"

"Have I budgeted for music/scoring for my film?"

"Who will pay for Dolby/DTS/etc. licensing?"

These are all important things to keep in mind. In considering the experience of your viewer, do not forget that your film tells a story, and storytelling has roots in speech communication.

So before you take the plunge and wring out your budget on color-correction and finishing edits, make sure your film's voice (dialog) is good and strong-- your audience can close their eyes, but they cannot close their ears!

 

[Bob Kessler]

As a professional in the San Francisco film community, I see again and again directors who haven't reserved an adequate budget for completing the sound mix for their film.

It's much, much worse than that; most lo/no budget filmmakers don't even properly capture the production sound, the dialog that tells their story. Then they wonder why it takes lots of money/time just to clean up the dialog tracks.

I think that the problem is that they don't see sound; once they are on the set all they focus on - pardon the pun - are the visuals.

 

[grinner]

audio is half of video.

 

[BenB]

Audio is three quarters of video! You'd be shocked, as a trainer and consultant, how many times a month I get calls and emails asking me how to clean up bad audio, then when I hear it, I can only say, "That sound is so poorly recorded there's no hope for it." But, people don't want to hear that. "Can't I remove noise in SoundTrack Pro?" I have to say, "No, that filter is called 'noise REDUCTION', not 'noise removal', and it's got limits." They use Radio Shack microphones, no wind muffs, record to consumer audio recorders that are lower quality than the video camera they're using, it's just ridiculous! When will kids learn to take as much care with audio as they do with video?

I partially blame things like 48 Hour Film Project. I've participated in it, it's a great event. But kids get into it, and events like it, and bad video/sound is totally acceptable. They learn to come up with a good story, but I find it discourages good production quality practices. Then they wonder why they don't have success at higher end film festivals... duh! Good film with bad audio does NOT win higher end film festivals!

Sorry for the rant, it's a sore spot for me. Get production quality audio, folks! GGGGRRRRrrr.....