Concert film, surround sound design

[David Roth weiss]

[jayarthur] “keep it coming if you have time”

You’re on your way now… When it comes time to bring the 6 final tracks into Compressor come on back and I’ll help you through the assigning of tracks if you need it.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Jay Curlee]

David, et al,

Regarding the interview segments of my movie, do you have any suggestions on how to design it for surround?

Half of my interview content was shot on a ship with heavy duty engine room rumble. I created a discreet sound effects track which emulated the sound of a concert going on outside the room where the interview was happening. (Most of the movie is shot on Delbert McClinton’s Sandy Beaches Cruise, which has concerts going on from 11am until 4am, every day for 7 days)

Intuitively I would say that the concert sound efx would sound good if sent to the back channels.

I would also assume my timeline then would have 12 tracks, checkerboarded. (6 for song mixes and 6 for interviews)

Jay
http://www.rockingtheboatmovie.com

[David Roth weiss]

Jay,

Just mix for stereo and bring the discrete channels to your local surround mix facility and let them give you suggestions. Typically, they will split sound effects to both front and rear in ways that sound natural and won’t cancel each other out.

I don’t recommend doing anything that calls too much attention to itself. Resist the temptation to suddenly have the chorus or an instrument blast from the rear surrounds. I heard an Eagle’s surround mix that did just that. Besides scaring me half to death, and making me jump out of my seat, it was incredibly unrealistic. Had all the guys on stage suddenly run all the way to the back of the concert hall just to blast us with a new rendition of “Welcome To Hotel California.”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Michael Gissing]

Jay,

What I meant is that the whole sound track should be sound post produced and a final 5.1 mix produced. This included your interview dialog. From what you have described you are trying to integrate music 5.1 mixes with dialog that is in FCP. These elements also should be mixed on a sound DAW, EQed and dynamics compressed properly and de noised if neccessary.

I am recommending not using FCP. Your final 5.1 mix can go straight to compressor. No need to load anything in FCP.

[Stu Siegal]

Hey Jay,

Just looked at your website, the film looks fantastic. Going to put it on my holiday wish list.

Have you done any interviews on the “making of”? I’d love to hear your story, think many others would too.

Stu

[Jay Curlee]

Stu,

I am going to include a bit of “making of” material in the new release. The big hold-up for me right now is getting my 5.1 tracks from the sound engineer. I am down to about 30 copies at Filmbaby. It is the original cut and has a nice stereo mix. We actually sold about 2300 copies.

We had a pretty good run at film festivals, having gotten into 6. People laughed, cried, and applauded in all the right places and it was nice to see our work up on the big screen.

If you love Great American Roots Rock music you should order a copy of this release, while it is still in stock. I expect to be sold out in a week or so. Then it will be a couple of months before we get the next version out.

This was a labor of love project. Our money. As you know, you’re not supposed to do that.

Anyhow, Thanks for your interest,

Jay
http://www.rockingtheboatmovie.com

[Stu Siegal]

Jay, was wondering if you’d consider doing an interview for an article on your production? You can drop me an e-mail off list at stu at verite-media dot com.