FilmmakerIQ.com

• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  So after a bit of a hiatus doing all sorts of things non-Emily related, I return to finally finish up this project.

  There are four areas of polishing I’ve been sort of avoiding… in order of most importance: Sound, Music, Color Grading, Laptop screen effects.

  Music - I keep stabbing at it… the temp music is okay – I think it has the right mood and I have the rights to everything so I could just leave it… still a part of me thinks there’s more…

  Color Grading – Everything is graded to look nice – just want to experiment with colors to see what can be done…

  Laptop Effects: relatively simple – I keep thinking there’s something more creative that can be done…

  and to the subject of this post…

  Sound is something I’ve messed around with for a while. I’ve got everything sounding decent, except for three scenes. One of them sounds dreadful because we were next to a highway and the mic had to be about 15 feet away from the talent.

  Another scene has a hum that just won’t go away.

  And one more scene was an outdoor restaurant that sounds like it’s next to a zoo. It’s not next to a zoo. It is next to an elementary school.

  So tomorrow, I’m going to rough out some ADR at the actors’ house. I’ve cut up each of the three scenes into bit sized chunks. I’ve added the words in as subtitles and rendered them out as WMV files (sample attached below)

  

  Using Windows Media Player’s Loop function, I’m gong to have the actors watch the video on a laptop and listen on headphones while I record them onto my Tascam Digital recorder.

  The idea (at least to my lizard brain that spends too much in bands) is the looping will help the actor hear a speech pattern and he/she will be able to mimic the sounds.

  I’m going to give this a go tomorrow – hopefully it works out as planned…

  All my Best,
  John Hess
  Creative Industries Media Group | GospelJohn.net
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• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  if you’re dying to see a quick clip, it’s attached below as a zip.

  Attachments

  1. Restuarant_Loop_12.zip Restuarant_Loop_12.zip (364.2 KB, 46 downloads) 2 years old
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• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  So quick update on the ADR session.

  I think it’ll be a smashing success… it’s amazing how a dork with a microphone, laptop, two headphones and a digital recorder can walk down Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood and ADR a film in his actor’s home.

  Funny I was passing by a group of yuppies talking about how they went to film school. I thought to myself… nevermind….

  I’m really excited to hear the results – although I have about 46 minutes of looped audio to sift through….
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• Scott Jarvie said 2 years ago:

  Sweet! I do like the setup you created, sounds simple and a bit easier than the traditional ways I’ve seen… (“This is your line, when the white bar reaches this white bar go.”) I’m also starting to form an opinion about obvious stitching :( your way sounds like a solution!

  Keep the good news coming!

  Dudley Do-Right says:
  “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right!”
  “Remember to always look before crossing the road.”
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• DUNNE said 2 years ago:

  glad to hear this is still chugging along! Hope I didn’t miss any exclusive video content with the site being switched over:P

  I can’t download that clip up there because of your intense distaste for people with Mac’s so I’ll just have to assume it’s great!
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• Scott Jarvie said 2 years ago:

  Silly Dunne, all mac users should learn to become windows compliant, especially if it wants to do business.

  http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/175

  Though I have to say that VLC is good enough to be considered the main video player on both operating systems, pretty good rule of thumb is that if VLC can’t play it, the file’s bad or uses a codec so obscure the person who created it should know better.
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• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  Here’s a quick little demo on what I’m doing:

  
  password: rufus

  You can hear the original audio at the beginning of that clip – lots of noise, a school next door.

  Replacing the audio with the ADR Loops is very “dry” sounding so I added in a bit of ambiance (though it may not come across in the through the internet video). Also had to EQ the ADR loops because they sounded a bit too bassy.

  Music on top of the scene fills it out…
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• Da_Cat said 2 years ago:

  “That day I saw you for the first time” seemed off a bit John, you might have to work a bit more on that, or it might have slipped sync. All in all a good job :-)

  Films are never totally finished……
  ….. they just get a release date!
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• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  @Da_Cat said:
  “That day I saw you for the first time” seemed off a bit John, you might have to work a bit more on that, or it might have slipped sync. All in all a good job :-)

  Thanks for pointing that out!!! – I’m sure there’s hours and hours of fine tuning left to do…

  I had to pull the from the main timeline to another time line — I wonder if something got jilted around.

  I did move it one frame over and I think it does work better.
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• Da_Cat said 2 years ago:

  @Gospel_John-2-2 said:
  Thanks for pointing that out!!! – I’m sure there’s hours and hours of fine tuning left to do…

  I had to pull the from the main timeline to another time line — I wonder if something got jilted around.

  I did move it one frame over and I think it does work better.

  John,

  Can you move it less than a frame ie. half of a frame, or all the way down to samples. I don’t know if you can do that on Premiere Pro, which is why my sound editors use ProTools.

  My lead Dialogue editor, Linda Folk is amazing, she will have edits between the syllables, one word might have 10 audio edits in it. It is extrememly time consuming, and not an easy thing to do, but so worth it when someone like her is involved and you end up wandering was that real production audio or did she do her magic.

  Her and the other A-list sound editors are so worth their weight in gold. Too many times they are ignored for what they do. (but then again I started out in sound editing so I have a very deep appreciation for what they do)

  You should take a look at her IMDB credits, and someday I have to get you to meet her.
  Linda Folk’s IMDB Credits
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• Scott Jarvie said 2 years ago:

  Well post production is the invisible art, people only see what you didn’t do and what you didn’t do right.
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• Da_Cat said 2 years ago:

  @Scott_Jarvie-2 said:
  Well post production is the invisible art, people only see what you didn’t do and what you didn’t do right.

  I kind of have to disagree with you there, yes we are invisible, but they do see what I and the director intend them to see, We are the ones allowed to pull the strings.

  Scott I hope sometime in the near future you get to sit in the back of the theater filled with a couple of hundred people and know in 3 shots from now they are going to laugh and in 30 seconds from now they are going to be totally frightened out of their minds… and we the invisible ones get to control that…..

  btw you can now remove the remote device we aliens implanted in your brain…. :P
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• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  @Da_Cat said:
  John,

  Can you move it less than a frame ie. half of a frame, or all the way down to samples. I don’t know if you can do that on Premiere Pro, which is why my sound editors use ProTools.

  Not on CS4 you can’t. I don’t think they changed this for CS5 **UPDATE, YES YOU CAN, as I found out about 4 months later**. Probably should be using Adobe Audition which can move as little as a sample. I use that a lot to sync up sound from cameras that aren’t jam synced to get that sort of precision.

  @Da_Cat said:

  My lead Dialogue editor, Linda Folk is amazing, she will have edits between the syllables, one word might have 10 audio edits in it. It is extrememly time consuming, and not an easy thing to do, but so worth it when someone like her is involved and you end up wandering was that real production audio or did she do her magic.

  Her and the other A-list sound editors are so worth their weight in gold. Too many times they are ignored for what they do. (but then again I started out in sound editing so I have a very deep appreciation for what they do)

  You should take a look at her IMDB credits, and someday I have to get you to meet her.
  Linda Folk’s IMDB Credits

  Would love to – hopefully I can get this project out and ready for people to see and we’ll see what comes of it and maybe get to do another one.

  @Scott_Jarvie-2 said:
  Well post production is the invisible art, people only see what you didn’t do and what you didn’t do right.

  I think I made the mistake of telling you all what was ADR and what wasn’t – some people may never had caught it.

  But that’s the point of IQ, the lift the veil from the magic act.

  I appreciate the feedback guys! I’ll try to post more stuff, but it’s a balance act of showing the steak but not showing the slaughterhouse.
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• John P. Hess said 2 years ago:

  @Gospel_John-2-2 said:
  it’s a balance act of showing the steak but not showing the slaughterhouse.

  Or more precisely, showing you the cheeseburger and not letting you have the Prime Rib.
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• Scott Jarvie said 2 years ago:

  @Da_Cat said:
  I kind of have to disagree with you there, yes we are invisible, but they do see what I and the director intend them to see, We are the ones allowed to pull the strings.

  Scott I hope sometime in the near future you get to sit in the back of the theater filled with a couple of hundred people and know in 3 shots from now they are going to laugh and in 30 seconds from now they are going to be totally frightened out of their minds… and we the invisible ones get to control that…..

  btw you can now remove the remote device we aliens implanted in your brain…. :P

  I do hope so as well :P but seeing as my next project is a documentary, let’s hope the scary part is left out.

  But I have to disagree that these are to the contrary points. Even so much as altering the pacing to increase the adrenaline to sync it to the sound, the audience is meant to feel the edit, not see it, and that’s what I think is the most beautiful part of post production, the imposition of what you want after the fact that you’ve ever done something.

  People don’t often talk about the cut in the film that scared them but the guy that popped out of no where on that cut with the sharp musical note.

  (I was watching Silent Hill with some friends and there was this long wide aerial shot with the main character walking through a sketchy part of town. In the scene two things are light, the characters path, and a shiny metal garbage can. When the shot was up for more than 5 seconds I knew she was going to walk into the garbage can, and sure enough 5 seconds later she did. One of my friends was so into moment she was startled and become very unsettled by something the rest of us saw coming long before).

  After all, a great Marionette Puppeteer isn’t seen pulling the strings, even though we all know he is.

  And stay away from my implant!!! It’s quite hum sings to me when I’m lonely and it’s shocking buzz keeps me warm at night.
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