Dialogue sounds distant

[Michael Gissing]

Are you listening to a mix of camera mic and another closer mic?

If not, then no, you can’t make it sound closer. You can buy headphones to monitor in the field to avoid problems and if you really want to go crazy, employ a professional sound recordist. (I know, there is no budget silly me)

[David Knight]

i used a boom mic connected to a mixer then plugged into the camera.

[David Knight]

i was also using sometimes 2 radio mics into the mixer then into the cam if that helps.

[Michael Gissing]

Was the camera switched to the external mics or left on the camera mic? Was anyone monitoring the sound at the camera?

[Michael Kammes]

A few things:

For lo/no budget shoots, have the camera / onboard mic into mic jack 1, boom into 2. That way, in your NLE, you have your choice as to what mic worked better.

Since you’re past that, you’re pretty much screwed. You can *try* a technique called ‘upwards expansion’, which creates a larger difference between loudness and softness of a sound. Often it’s used to get rid of background noise during dialogue. The same technique can be utilized to help minimize some of the slapback /reverb / echo your track may have…perhaps enough to add in some background ambience to mask things.

That being said, it’s something that is VERY difficult, and really takes an experienced ear. I’ve been doing post sound for years, and it’s something I can only get to work in very, very small quantities and in very specific circumstances.

Your best bet is ADR, or try and cut around it and use alt takes.

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Andrew Rendell]

It’s not so much a question of what gear you used as how you used it…

There’s just a chance that some smart use of compression and eq might save the day, but you really need to go to someone experienced to get it done. Even then, if there’s a lot of ambient noise on the track it may well not work and even make things worse.

If you want to have a go yourself, you’ll need very high quality monitoring in a very quiet room and to listen very critically as you slowly adjust your settings. When it sounds right, take out half of the correction that you’ve just put in as you’ll almost certainly have over done it. Then if you’re like me, you’ll probably take what you’ve just done and throw it away anyway 🙂

Good luck.