Holy Production Tracks, Batman!

I try to avoid reading anything about a movie I'm excited about before I see it, which is becoming more difficult in our media-saturated world. And so, I waited to read FilmSoundDaily!'s excellent articles about the sound for The Dark Knight until after I'd taken in a screening.

I've now gone twice (two short of the minimum nerd quota, but hey, I've been busy). The first was at Cinetopia in Vancouver, WA., an all-digital cinema with some of the best sound-systems I've ever heard (and this is from a former THX auditorium junkie).

The second time was in IMAX. As I wipe the drool from my chin, let me tell you that it was an absolutely amazing experience, with the same power and spectacle that the movies used to hold for me when I was a kid, before I was spoiled on DVD and home surround systems. Certain sequences of the film were shot in IMAX 70mm 15-perf, filling four stories of screen with an incredibly sharp and lushly detailed image

And the sound...huge, dynamics for days, rib-shaking lows and crystalline highs, punch-you-in-the-gut and smack-you-in-the-face, but in a good way. It was cinema as it should be: larger than life, and turned up to 11.

So, um, yeah...I liked it. :)

But the best b-chain in the world is nothing without a quality mix. FSD talks to production sound mixer Ed Novick about the challenges of getting good tracks on one of the biggest movies of the year. Snip:

FSD: Nolan said in a recent interview, “I just think separating the voice from the face and the body is very tricky… It is, after all, blatantly unreal.” With an established dislike of ADR, was Nolan more accepting of input from you on set?

EN: Chris likes to use the production sound for the final, yes. And if during shooting I can identify a problem - that’s fine. But he expects me to have a solution, as well. His method of shooting one camera at a time is very sound-friendly. I think we both agree that matching the camera perspective (wide shots sound more distant than close-ups) is correct, and that a well-positioned overhead boom mic will be better than a lavalier hidden under the clothing...

Chris made sure that sound was invited to every location scout (emphasis added). Many potential problems are solved this way, as issues like generator placement and cable-entry can be worked out in advance. This movie had a number of locations in practical office buildings, so identifying location issues (escalators, air-conditioning, elevator dings, etc…) early can help make them go away on the day. James McCallister (location manager) and his location team were terrific in this regard.

See? It can be done, folks. I've ranted previously about this very thing, and it's refreshing to see a director care as much for that ephemeral quality of sound captured in the moment. It does make a difference, and going the extra mile certainly didn't hurt the movie's bottom line. What's even more telling is this quote from Supervising Sound Editor Richard King, in his interview with FSD:

Chris likes the sound of production.I think there's maybe half a dozen looped lines in the whole movie.

King goes on to say that Novick was very diligent in getting wild tracks of anything that might have been called into question in post.

Now, I'm fully aware of why looping is so prevalent on bigger budget productions: it's the economy, stupid. It's far cheaper to have two or three editors and one actor re-record the lines in a controlled environment later than it is to make one hundred-plus crew and expensive talent hold for that plane. But you sacrifice something else when you do ADR, something that can't be replaced or imitated, that very subtle but integral connection to an event in an acoustic space. Novick and crew did their very best, with the approval and encouragement of the director, to maintain that connection, and the results speak for themselves.

FilmSoundDaily links:

Dark Knight Part One
Dark Knight Part Two
Dark Knight Part Three

And That's the Truth About the Soundbooth, Ruth

I'm a few weeks behind on this one, but I was busy with my IRL job, so, you know, sue me...

{Note from sync.sound.cinema Legal Dept. : "Well, Mr. Dolan certainly has what we in the industry call a 'sense of humor'. To wit, we do not endorse any language that may directly or indirectly induce someone to take legal action against the staff and administration of sync.sound.cinema. Thank you."}

From various places around the web: Adobe has released a free beta of the next version of Soundbooth. Snip from Adobe's site:

Try the Soundbooth beta now. The prerelease of the next version of Soundbooth provides new tools video editors, designers, and others who do not specialize in audio need to accomplish their everyday work such as:

* Arranging audio files on multiple tracks
* Making quick edits and applying fades
* Matching volume levels with a single command
* Removing unwanted noises and background sounds
* Adjusting tempo and pitch
* Recording and polishing voice-overs
* Adding effects and filters
* Previewing MP3 compression quality
* Easily creating customized music — without musical expertise

New features give you even more flexibility and control over your audio. Now with multitrack support, the ability to match volume levels across one or more files, the ability to preview MP3 compression settings before saving, and an enhanced Soundbooth Score workflow, the next version of Soundbooth is a necessary addition to your creative toolkit. Also, with the new Adobe Sound Document file format you can take “snapshots” of your work-in-progress and undo changes made to your audio assets.

It's cross-platform (Intel Macs only), and good for a 2 day grace period.

Link.

Quiet On Set

Wired.com is featuring an article about the ever-increasing level of man-made noise pollution, and its impact on the biosphere. Snip:

Krause has a word for the pristine acoustics of nature: biophony. It's what the world sounds like in the absence of humans. But in 40 percent of the locations where Krause has recorded over the past 40 years, human-generated noise has infiltrated the wilderness. "It's getting harder and harder to find places that aren't contaminated," he says.

From a filmmaking standpoint, it's becoming nearly impossible to find an area completely devoid of background noise. For Car Trouble 2: Them's the Brakes, the first project I ever did audio post for, the director and I drove four hours in every direction over two days to try to get some clean background tracks (or atmos, for those of you across the pond) and came up empty handed. Ultimately, we ended up looping nearly every line, and creating the remaining sounds from scratch using library tracks, recorded years ago when you actually stood a chance at getting a clear recording.

Please to enjoy (bear in mind, that in addition to being my first post outing, that it was also mixed in Final Cut Pro 3, a blunt tool for audio):




Link to Wired article.

And I'm All Out Of "Snap" Jokes...

Audio Ease's Snapper is a new audio utility that streamlines a lot of the grunt work of audio post: locating, transcoding and track-splitting happen directly in OS X's finder (sorry, Mac only right now), without having to open a separate app. Snip, from multimediashooter.com:

When you select an audio file in the Mac Finder, Snapper immediately appears right beneath the current window, showing you the wave form. In the Snapper wave form you can select a part of the sound file and:
• drag it out, to create a new file.
• upload it to your Pro Tools cursor.
• turn the selection into an mp3 file.
• split stereo files into separate .L and .R files or vise versa
• convert to mp4 and attach it to an email in one go.
• export to AIFF, WAV, BWF, mp3, or m4a.

But the demo video must be seen to be believed. Very, very fast and simple. If only all DAWs were this lean.

Link.

We're Surrounded!

Soundtrack Pro has certainly come a long way in its short life, having added surround mixing capabilities in version 2 (though truth be told, while I like the program, it still has a ways to go). But once you've done your fancy 5.1, how do you get it out of the box? Kevin Mcauliffe over at Creative Mac takes us through it step by step. Snip:

I thought that for this article I would look at three very common ways to get your surround sound mix out to tape/DVD. One method for DVD, and two choices depending on your equipment setup for tape.

Link.

Also, be sure to check out Kevin's earlier article about surround mixing in STP.

Illogical, Captain

Apple has announced the long-awaited update to Logic, its high-end music-composition and recording application.

Snip from the press release:

Logic Pro 8 now features an intuitive, single-window interface for instant access to powerful music creation and production functions. New audio production tools have been added to speed up common tasks. And surround production capabilities have been enhanced with support for True Surround software instruments and effects.

Along with a nearly 50% price cut, Apple has included Soundtrack Pro 2, enabling a full-fledged post audio workflow.

What I find interesting is the quote in the release from sound designer Frank Serafine, who has done quite a few big movies:

It is a very sophisticated new way of editing sound and I am currently switching over my Pro Tools|HD rigs to do all the post production sound, dialogue editing, sound effects editing and the final mix all on the Soundtrack Pro platform for my next movie project and future projects.

Now, I do field mixing for a living, but I also do post for short films, and hope to expand that area of my repertoire in the future. It would behoove any production sound mixer to familiarize themselves with post; it is, after all, the whole reason we do any of this in the first place. In-depth knowledge of the needs and capabilities of audio post can only make you a better field mixer.

The quote caught my attention because, until now, Pro Tools has been considered the only game in town for serious audio post (notable exceptions being Nuendo and Fairlight's own consoles), and is widely accepted as an industry standard. Hearing that someone like Serafine is willing to trade out his rigs for SP2 is kind of a big deal. I'll be very interested in seeing if anyone else follows suit.

Link, via postmagazine.com.

Two Snaps Up.

Happy 4th, y'all (and I'm sure that you're all wearing hearing protection with those fireworks, right?:).

Today's post is about soundsnap.com, a new website that offers free sound effects and music loops for download, as well as creating an online community for artists to upload and share their own recordings.

From the website:

What is Soundsnap?

Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD's.

What Soundsnap is NOT:

* An alternative to Myspace, Limewire or BitTorrent.

* A place to upload your band's songs or your favourite mp3's. Soundsnap is only for sound effects and loops.

* A place you can upload or find sounds from commercial libraries. All sounds here are original- made or recorded by its users.

Soundsnap is the brainchild of 25 year old Tasos Frantzolas, a sound designer and musician who recently returned to his home country of Greece to launch the website.

From Creative Cow News:

He started Soundsnap in order to fulfill a need for a library of high quality, on-demand free sounds. He gathered a talented team of contributing sound designers, producers, web designers and developers to start the Soundsnap community.

I've covered one other open-source SFX website before, but Soundsnap takes things a bit further, wrapping everything in a very pleasant AJAX-y interface, complete with very high-quality Flash previews of each sound. For download, MP3 is offered alongside uncompressed PCM, in either WAV or AIFF format, depending.

Along with the slick visuals, Soundsnap is very intuitive and easy to use. Samples are tagged, allowing quick keyword search, as well as more traditional categories, such as Human, Film and Comic FX, and Science Fiction. There's even a tag cloud, showing quantities of samples relative to one another.

As I've said before, there's often no substitute for a professionally recorded and produced FX library. But for those on a budget, or just on the lookout for something new and fresh, I heartily recommend giving Soundsnap a try.

Link to soundsnap.com.
Link to Creative Cow News article.

Free Guide to Audio Meters

Via ProSoundNews Online Daily: DK-Technologies Debuts Audio Metering Guide.

Snip:

Have you ever wondered why engineers measure audio levels? Or why they use the dB scale? Or what Leq and Dynamic Scales are?

Audio Levels and Readings offers engineers a basic insight into the world of audio levels and metering and covers many topics, from the basics such as what is an audio signal and how does one measure level, through to more complex issues such as Loudness, A-Weighting and how analog levels relate to digital scales.

Link to DK-Technologies website with download; direct link to PDF.

Back from the Dead

Hey, campers.

Recently returned from eleven days on the road with a well-known reality TV show. Of the two camera teams, we each ran 5-6 wireless, a boom, and a wireless hop for the majority of shooting, which I will cover in more depth at a later date.

As for today's tidbit, back in May Macworld ran a first look at Adobe Soundbooth CS3.

Snip:

Unlike most audio editors, which are designed largely for audio professionals and enthusiasts, Soundbooth was created with video in mind.

Rather than offering countless ways to tweak audio waveforms or alter those waveforms with a dizzying array of effects, Soundbooth includes a focused set of tools for performing the kinds of tasks designers most need for their video projects—removing noise, performing basic cuts and fades, and automatically generating background music tracks.

With Adobe editing software finally returning to the Mac platform, entry-level audio-for-video on the Mac has just gotten a little more interesting.

Link to the article, via macworld.com.

Free, as in Beer AND Speech

When building a modern soundtrack, you generally have two choices: either you go out and record what you need as you need it, or you purchase a pre-recorded library, usually organized around a central theme: doors and windows, automobiles, weapons, etc.

Most soundtracks are ultimately a mix of both, since there's rarely the time or the money to record every single effect needed, while re-using the same library tracks can make the project feel stale and repetitive.

But what about the indie folks, with limited budgets and schedules? One option that is free is The Freesound Project, an online database where you can download user-produced sound effects and music samples, all under a Creative Commons license.

Snip:

The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to

* browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more
* up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license

The project was started by the Music Technology Group at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain in 2005.

I can tell you that I've used it and I highly recommend it. It's certainly no substitute for a professionally recorded commercial library, but the effects and samples are of very good quality and the search engine is one of the better I've used.

According to the license, you are allowed to use the tracks in any way you see fit, at no charge, so long as you identify the source. In this day and age of the RIAA suing grandmothers for "piracy", this kind of respectful openness is appreciated.

Link to the Freesound Project. For more about Creative Commons, go here.

Soundtrack Pro 2: The Soundtrackenning

Since I'm out on the road for a gig (in Walla Walla, no less, ooh-la-la), this one will be brief.

Apple had their annual to-do at NAB this past Sunday, where they announced Final Cut Studio 2, which includes Soundtrack Pro 2.

From 2-pop.com:

# 5.1 surround sound mixing with stereo and 5.1 in the same project and aligned with 3-up video display;

-Finally, they get the big-boy toys!

# Surround sound Plug-ins;
# Library of over 1000 music tracks and sound effects supplied in 5.1;
# A new continuous Conform feature that tracks changes, syncs changes, etc. in Final Cut Pro and updates the Soundtrack Pro project accordingly, with differences highlighted that you can accept or over-ride;

-Speaking as someone who just spent over 120 hours doing post with Soundtrack Pro, I can tell you that this feature will be huge. I had numerous changes to implement, and something like this will greatly streamline that process and possibly lower my blood pressure.

# Frequency spectrum view in built-in waveform editor

-A feature that some of us had been drooling over since we saw it demo'd as part of Adobe Audition.

Pro Tools is still the de facto standard for film post, as well as in many other pro audio markets. But if the inroads made by Final Cut are any indication, Soundtrack Pro may have the same potential to shake things up a bit.

Competition like this can only help end users, as it nudges companies out of stagnation, encouraging innovation and, eventually, economies of scale.

Economy is paramount in the indie world, where I do my post work. Here, daddy needs a new pair of everything, and an affordable, powerful platform like this upgrade promises to be could even the playing field a bit for us entry-level folks.

Link to the main Soundtrack Pro 2 splash page, via apple.com.

Holy Foley

In this modern age of DAWs and desks, one of the more active jobs in audio post is that of that of the foley artist. In this tutorial, Philip Rodrigues Singer, M.P.S.E., takes us through some of the finer points. Snip:

On a film set nothing is real - the sword is made of plastic, the marble floor is painted plywood. Foley replaces or enhances that live sound; the result is a sword that rings like metal and floors that echo like marble! During filming, the location sound recordist tries to capture only the dialogue. Microphones are keenly positioned on set to record even an actors slightest whisper without the background noises from camera and crew. Foley helps to add back a controlled background layer of sound to produce a rich and realistic track.

Link to the tutorial.

Audio Post FAQ, ASAP

Pay attention, kids, 'cause the alphabet soup's gonna get thick PDQ:

Bruce Nazarian, M.P.S.E. has put together a great FAQ for feature film audio post. It's a very thorough overview that covers everything from THX to M&E.

Snip:

Ever since silent movies began to talk, filmmakers have been looking to control and improve the quality of the sound of their creation. As soon as creators realized there was a way to control and enhance the sound of their pictures, Audio Post was born, and has been a fact of life ever since.

Link to the FAQ, via gnomemedia.com.

Meter? I hardly know her....

Howdy, y'all.
Some of you out there may be too young to remember the venerable VU meter (or generation loss, or any of those other "charming" frustrations inherent in analog production technology). But with the advent of digital, well, everything, new meters, and more importantly, new practices had to be applied in their usage.

The fine folks over at Dorrough Electronics have put together a short video demonstration on how to effectively read these newer audio meters. In it, they give a quick overview of the meter's history, along with a live demonstration in a post audio context.

Snip:

From the beginning of electrical audio signals and the telephone industry's first meters through the broadcast and motion picture eras, the evolution of audio monitoring standards are presented in this interesting historical chronicle.

There is a low quality version, split into two parts, along with a high quality single clip.

Link to multimedia page, via dorrough.com.

The Five Commandments of Film Mixing

Found this article over at ifp.org the other day. In it, Steve Borne muses on the changing landscape of film post, summarizing with his "Five Commandments of Film Mixing". The article's a few years old, but the theory is still entirely relevant.

Snip:

1) Thou really ought to try and see all of the elements before the mix. Surprises = Time = $$$.
2) If thou hast ignored the first commandment, thou shalt not panic. We can fix it. Fixes = Time = $$$.
3) There is hopefully only one director. Thou shalt give your honest opinion but bow to his/her will. Arguments You Cannot Win = Time = $$$.
4).Thou shalt not talk incessantly on thy telephone while the mix is in progress. We need to hear the film. Get thee to another phone please.
5) Thou shalt consistently overpay your Sound Supervisor/Designer. He/She deserves it.

Amen to 5. :)

Steve does rant just a tad, but what do you expect from overworked audio folks? Anyway, filmmakers both rookie and veteran would do well to read and heed this...screed (sorry, couldn't resist).

Link to the article, via ifp.org.

Foam on the Range

Anyone who has ever tried to deaden their home studio by stapling up camping mattresses or used egg cartons will appreciate this brief tutorial in acoustic treatment by GK Acoustics.

The tutorial starts with a basic overview of acoustics and related terminology, before essentially turning into a shopping assistant for the company's products. Don't let this dissuade you; it's still very informative.

Link to gkacoutics.com (you can find the tutorial link on the front page)

New Audio Post Forum

Hey there, campers.

The venerable gearslutz.com has recently added a forum specific to audio post. While there are other forums out there (most notably the Digidesign User Conference, or D.U.C.), they are mostly product-oriented, whereas this one is just about audio post in general.

In addition to her day job at Global Audio, Georgia Hilton, M.P.S.E., C.A.S., has posted quite a bit of good info over there about the history of audio post, as well as a guide to industry terminology, so be sure to check those out.

Link to gearslutz post forum.

(Note: don't be confused by the website's name. Anyone expecting to see scantily clad women draped in microphone cables will be sorely disappointed :)

Post Toasties

Buenos, y'all.
Today's post will be about, well, post. The majority of the blog thus far has been about production audio, since there seems to be a dearth of coverage regarding that particular discipline in the media blogosphere (and, if you know of any that I don't, please let me know). But since production is all about the creation of raw material for final assembly later, it's wise to keep post in mind while on set.

Ben Balser over at eventdv.net has put together a quick primer for round-tripping audio from Apple's Final Cut Pro to Soundtrack Pro and back again, making a quick pit-stop for noise-reduction.

Snip:

There are two ways to use STP with FCP, and both use the Send To function built into all the Final Cut Studio applications. Once you go through the process and are back into Final Cut Pro, your new sound files and projects will already be in FCP and ready to use.

Link to tutorial, via dvguru.com.