When is the Dolby made?

[e-k]

Hey! I might be stupid, but I just to be honest. I never got that idea of the Dolby thing.

If I want to make a film whetever with Dolby Digital or Dolby Surround what do I need to do. Is there anything I have to do in the shooting process (except high quality sound like DAT, MiniDisc or XLR2Camera), or will I do the whole Dolby process in post? Of course I know there is different between Surround and just digital, but beyond the aspects of all this...what is really the dolby thing about? Its just a proove of sound quality into the film right? So what do I need to do when I want Dolby in my films? There is lots of rules and regulations for this right, pluss al the tech.

Hope for an answer and thanks!

 

[DerekEastham]

There are no stupid questions...

Ok... as for Dolby...
Dolby is not something you can make in the field.
Infact... Dolby, Dolby Digital, Dolby Surround etc... are not related to the film making process at all... or almost not.

What dolby is, is high quality presentation hardware & software. Dolby is renowned for their hardware's ability to separate sounds and present them from different speakers.

Basically... Dolby is what you have at home... on your surround sound reciever... assuming of course that it's got a trademarked logo on it specifying that it's Dolby Certified.

The only process in making a film that involves any kind of Dolby... is when you encode your audio tracks for distribution...
the audio tracks for theaters with a dolby system have to be properly encoded for dolby decoding... that way the sound will be properly projected with the image.

Anyhow...
hope this helps you out.

I would recommend that if you wish to know more that you visit the Dolby & THX websites... don't hesitate to start a dialogue with one of those companies... find some of the contact information and contact them... it never hurts to ask... no matter whom you're asking.

Good luck.

 

[ralph]

did you get answers?

did you get answers?

HI, now as i guess you are at the same process i am at:
do you know if all movies are dubbed? Is it possible in this world to get a good sound and then get the dolby with direct recorded sound or are all movies we see in the theater's dubbed?

 

[Bob Kessler]

The amount of dubbing done on a film is very dependent upon what type of film is being made. The dialog in Sideways is almost all production sound. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is about 90% ADR. The ambient noise of the location will dictate what will need to be ADRed. Action/Adventure films and films with lots of CGI tend to need lots of ADR. "Quiet" films tend to need less ADR if the production sound is well recorded.

Dolby, which began as a noise reduction process, is now an encoding system for Stereo, 3.1, 5.1 and 7.1 audio playback systems. This is applied during the mixing/re-recording process. So Dolby Digital is not "in" your film, it is one of the encoding processes available for delivering the audio of your film to the audience.

 

[bossen]

Hello!

DerekEastham, you wrote a reply with this text:
The only process in making a film that involves any kind of Dolby... is when you encode your audio tracks for distribution...
the audio tracks for theaters with a dolby system have to be properly encoded for dolby decoding... that way the sound will be properly projected with the image

If I capture a film with a DV cam with two audio channels, how can that be Surround Sound?

Thanks

-- Bossen --

 

[Bob Kessler]

The two tracks of audio captured by your DV cam (you're not using a DAT, Nagra or FR-2? Shame on you!) will later become a part of the audio mix of the film. The location sound, and any other sounds, are edited and mixed during the audio post process. The placement of the sounds is determined here. Even if you are doing a 5.1 mix the dialog will almost always be in the center speaker.

It is common for young film makers, once they have found out that they can do it, to want to pan the dialog left and right to match what is seen on screen. This is completely unneccessary; the ears are fooled by what the eyes see. I recently saw a demonstration of 9.1 surround, where the sound can be moved along the vertical axis as well as the horizontal. Are you going to want to pan the dialog verticaly dependent upon how tall the talent is?

Spielberg said that sound is half the experience.

An audience will forgive mediocre visuals if the sound is great. They will NOT forgive poor sound, no matter how gorgeous the visuals. Isn't the dialog a major part of the performance? Doesn't it make sense to capture it well? How effective is your story going to be if the audience cannot understand what the actors are saying?

Uncle Bob will now get off of his soap box.

 

[bossen]

Thanks for your reply!

Now i have an other question. What is DAT, Nagra and FR-2? What effect have they?

Thanks.

-- Bossen --

 

[MarkG]

DAT is Digital Audio Tape: basically CD quality on tape.

Nagra is an older very high quality analogue tape recorder that was used for movies before DAT became popular.

Don't know what an FR-2 is .

 

[Bob Kessler]

DAT, Nagra and the FR-2 are sound recording devices used on the set and in the field in conjunction with the microphones and sound mixers.

The Fostex FR-2 is a digital field recorder that records to PCMCIA 1.8" hard disk drives and Type II Compact Flash. It can record up to 24-bit 192KHz. There are other similar field recorders out there. Some record four tracks and there are hints of eight track recorders coming soon.

The Nagra is still widely used on sets, and sound editors like myself love it for recording loud sound sources like guns. The analog tape has a natural compression that makes the distortion "musical". Many large budget films run multiple systems on the set, usually the Nagra and either the DAT or an FR-2 type of device.

 

[MarkG]

Good point: I'd never considered the benefits of analogue audio recording when you have loud noises like that. DAT and DV recording peaks horribly if the audio signal is too much for the recorder, but presumably the Nagra will still record some detail even when the signal is very loud.

 

[bossen]

Thanks for your reply!

Can I use DAT, Nagra or FR-2 on my DV cam?

 

[MarkG]

You can record sound on anything, but you'll have to sync it up to the video afterwards.

 

[bossen]

Hello!

How do I sync the sound when using DAT, Nagra or FR-2 with my DV Cam?

Thanks

-- Bossen --

 

[Bob Kessler]

The basics are great documentation and a clapboard or slate.

Despite all of the technology available to us nothing beats a great pair of eyes and ears. The editor syncing the dailies finds the take and the corresponding audio from the documentation and lines up the audio SMACK with the visual CLAP of the slate. THAT is why you actually clap the slate. It gives both a visual and audio reference for syncing.

BEFORE you begin shooting make sure that all of your video and audio gear are running at the same frame rates. Taking a few minutes every time you change reels/tapes/disks/flash cards to verify frame rates, etc. can save you hours and days of sync problems later on.

 

[Bryant Falk]

Dolby

Dolby

Keep in mind if you want to encode your short film in Dolby you will have to pay a fee as it is a licensed process. If you have a short that needs encoding for festival use only and you are a student, you may be eligible for a waver. This will allow you to encode with Dolby and not have to pay a fee or at least not the full fee.