[Max Frank]

Thanks guys,

Well, I finally got the project to open, but was getting ‘out of memory’ errors, and it quit before I could do anything to delete sequences, etc.

I’ll the tips above.

Thanks again for the help & concern.

Wayne

[Max Frank]

After several attempts it still hasn’t opened.

w

[Max Frank]

Dan,

I just want to say that I’m so grateful for your comprehensive article that I linked above because it was so useful to me.
I’m certain it took you a very long time to compile!

I think people need to know the limitations of wireless audio, particularly when it comes to signal strength, diversity, etc – and they should shoot accordingly.
Audio is one of those things that you can’t fix in post: if you have drop-out, or if it’s overmodulated or you can hear clothing rustling against the capsule, your audio is toast. Finished. Broken.

Many of us [myself included] often underestimate the absolutely critical element of capturing good, clean audio in the field.

Audio is often the first thing to be sacrificed on a shoot and one of the toughest to correct or work-around when things go wrong.

I’d sooner buy less lights than a cheaper mic.
After all, you can do much more with color-correction software like MagicBullet Looks to vastly improve an image, even with very, very poor lighting, but with audio, your ‘correction’ options are limited.

My 2c.

Good luck Brian.
Do the best you can with the budget you have, and just be sure to work well within the limitations of wireless audio, and make sure you have an experienced ear monitor everything that’s being laid to tape on the shoot.

Wayne

[Max Frank]

Here’s a brilliant review and overview of lavs:
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/lavs_brockett.html

W.

[Max Frank]

Hi,

There’s a MUCH easier way to increase the volume of audio – see below for Larry Jordan:

Normalizing Audio in Final Cut Pro

I’ve been a fan of normalizing audio for a long time, especially when the audio is really, really too soft.

Normalization means to raise the audio gain of an enitre clip such that the loudest portion of the clip does not exceed a level which you specify. As a note, I never normalize to 0 dB — it’s too loud. I tend to normalize audio between -4.5 and -6 dB.

With the release of Final Cut Pro 6, audio normalization is now a menu choice: Modify > Audio > Apply Normalization Gain.

This is a very fast way to get all your clips to play at about the same level of loudness.

However, the Gain filter ignores any level changes you’ve made to your clip. So, in order to get the results you expect, you must make sure the audio levels for each clip are set to 0 dB.

The easiest way to do this is to select all the clips which you want to normalize, then choose Edit > Remove Attributes.

Select the Levels checkbox to reset all your clip audio levels to 0 dB.

At which point, normalization will work the way you expect.

Wayne’s note: I’ve automated the above by simply creating a button for this by doing as follows:
Tools > Button List > Normalize > drag Normalize Gain Button into Button Bar on Time Line.

Then it’s just one click to normalize a clip or clips!

[Max Frank]

I’ve had good results with:
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/fcplugins/dh_reincarnation.php

W.

[Max Frank]

Run, don’t walk to https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/magicbulletlooks.html

This is exactly what you need!

W

[Max Frank]

I hear this is quite good:
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/movielogger/

W.

[Max Frank]

You can also try:
https://zaxwerks.com/proanimator/index.shtml

Wayne

[Max Frank]

I don’t know what kind of resolution/format you shot on, but if you shot HDV or some other flavor of HD you could just zoom your image in 10-20% and that would probably cut out a huge percentage of the time the heads are in frame and not lose significant quality.
On SD I don’t think it would be wise to zoom in more than 10%, but even that could help significantly.

Another quick-&-easy suggestion could be to add letterboxing, which would obviously cut out the heads. The letterboxing doesn’t have to be black bars.
Since this is a puppet show, you could give the letterboxing a nice color, or even make it look as if you were looking at the puppets on a puppet-show stage, if youknow what I mean.

All I know is, motion-tracking and roto-ing these shots could be a real head-ache.

My 2c.

Wayne