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Post Production Audio Advice
I’ve recently done a two camera ‘corporate drama’ shoot. Four short scenarios that we shot with two cameras mostly because the client didn’t want to be tied down to a script and wanted to ‘free-flow’. Hmm, that caused issues in it’s self, but that’s a different story.
Anyway, so for the most part I’ve got two players, who over-lap quite often, each on a radio mic going to seprate tracks (both recorded to one camera) and I’m usually just cutting between cameras. Obviously the 2nd camera audio I’m only using as a sync guide.
For the most part I’m using the ‘best take’ and just running with that. But if there’s better part takes I’ll find a clean, non-overlapping splice and cut into part takes.
So my question is, how would you guys suggest I appoach the track lay/audio edit? Should I attempt to edit the off-mic lines from each others tracks? Thing is, because they overlap, there are times when I won’t be able to do this. So I guess I just keep it all in right?
Excuse this dumb question, I usually get someone else to do post sound on protools, but for a few reasons I can’t at the moment.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Tankboy -
3 Replies
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I do not know what software you are posting on but in FCP I would lay in my basic 1st layer of video with matching audio (V1-A1, A2) then for different takes put the new video above the first video track and the audio below the first audio track (V2-A3, A4) and then either cut or fade the audio between different versions making sure that only one version of track one (or track 2) is up full at the same time. If you play around with it you will find theat you can overlap take 2 track one with take 1 track 2 and tighten up dialog a great deal. Common sense will tell you that you dont have the same character saying different things at the same time so that is something to watch out for.
I hope this helps,
DrewChaos is the beginning of everything.
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Yes That is helpful thanks loads Chaos.
Um, this is a basic Q I know…but, you’d give each character two tracks one panned L & and one R – right? Only, I read somewhere it’s safer(?) to put em down the middle, but that seems to defy the concept of stereo.
Cheers
Tankboy -
Dialogue is generally kept centre-panned in a stereo mix. This “phantom centre” is created by playing the sound in-phase at equal levels on both speakers.
You can accomplish the same effect by duplicating a track and panning one track hard-right and the other hard-left. However, you’re just doubling the number of tracks you have to work with, needlessly increasing the amount of work you have to do. Moreover, if the two tracks aren’t identical (perhaps one gets moved slightly), you could experience all sorts of phase-related problems.
Keep the Dialogue mono, and use effects and music to build a nice stereo image.
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