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Getting the Best Sound for Your Movie
What moviemakers need to know about creating great audio
Sound is one aspect of the film craft which, because of the medium’s overwhelming visual bias, is often undernourished—even by experienced moviemakers. Master provocateur Alfred Hitchcock was fond of saying that we should be able to turn the sound down on a good movie and still be able to follow the plot. Yet a motion picture sound mixer, like the director of photography, is the head of a department whose efforts are often inseparable from the overall success or failure of the final release. You only need to turn the volume back up on any of Hitch’s movies to know that the implacable director had his ear finely tuned to the power of sound.It’s tempting for moviemakers to forgive a weak sound recording if they instead get the shot they wanted; the hope is that any shortcomings in the mix will be corrected during post-production. Given the vast array of surprises and contingencies that inevitably arise during production, it’s understandable that certain things get sacrificed to the gods of expediency. For producers, this is often a matter of dollars and sense. But savings taken out of the front end of a production can come back to bite you during post.
According to production sound mixer Pawel Wdowczak (The Royal Tenebaums; Leaving Las Vegas), “Good sound is a savings: the better the sound you start with—location sound and production sound—the bigger the savings you have in post.” Among professionals concerned with motion picture sound—be they mixers, vendors or the ministers of post-production—there is a clear consensus: if you want good audio, get it in the field!
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| L to R: Sound mixer Pawel Wdowczak on Mike Figgis’ The Loss of Sexual Innocence; Rob Janiger on the Tall Tale and Speed 2 sets. |
Casting
it starts with casting. Alan Gus at Matlin Recording in New York City, works with picture audio in post. “There is nothing more important than hiring a good sound person. Having your brother or friend record sound is a definite don’t.” Seek out a professional who clearly knows the job, has a kit that meets the needs of your picture and is at ease dealing with people. This last point is underscored by sound mixer Rob Janiger (Timecode; Bram Stoker’s Dracula), who claims that “On a big film you have 100 to 200 cast and crew, and in one way or another, those 200 people are all working for picture. Then there’s the mixer, the boom operator and the cable person—the only three people on that film set who are concerned with the soundtrack. In a lot of ways, the mixer is a second-class citizen and s/he has to find a way to get people to help them out.”
Listening
once you’ve hired someone you trust, listen to them. “Sometimes directors or producers will say, ‘I can’t wait for your fucking airplane,’” laughs Janiger. “‘Hey, it’s not my airplane—it’s your soundtrack!’” Giving the sound crew your ear will pay off in the long run. For instance, if there is a problem with audio on a given take, the mixer may request a “wild track” (a vocal run-through of the scene without camera). It’s worth taking a few minutes to do this: the actors will be in touch with the rhythm and meaning of the scene in a way that can be difficult to reproduce later on in ADR. ADR, or Automatic Dialogue Replacement, is the post-production process of replacing an actor’s spoken words from the original production track. The actor—seated in a sound booth while watching a given clip from the film—listens to the section of the corresponding production track that needs to be replaced. After watching and listening to the selection several times, s/he speaks the line being replaced, trying to match the general tone and quality of their original performance.
It’s little wonder that experienced actors in particular tend to be alert to the requirements of the sound crew; it’s not easy to convincingly recreate a performance months after it has been shot. Directors and producers who are sensitive to this fact, and determined to get good audio on set (not to mention know the additional costs involved), stand to earn the gratitude of their performers, who might prefer to spend Christmas with family rather “looping” dialogue on an ADR stage.
“Don’t expect to ADR,” consuls sound engineer Jay Rose, CAS, author of Producing Great Sound for Digital Video (CMP Books) and proprietor of Boston’s Digital Playroom. “‘Automatic Dialogue Replacement’ isn’t really automatic. It’s very time consuming (and that’s when done by professionals with the right equipment), and rarely gives the best performance… If you start with good dialogue tracks, you can build an excellent overall mix.”
And the audience is listening. Kirk Miles, rental manager at GEAR in Austin, Texas, points out that the eye is very often led by the ear. “Studies have repeatedly shown that people listen to televisions as much as they watch them: they will surf the Web, eat, flip through a magazine and then look up when they hear something. Most directors and producers are visually stimulated people, and everyone on set is looking at the monitor.” Miles suggests that moviemakers get a headphone distribution system and attune themselves to the location.
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| On the set with production sound mixer Gary Gossett. |
Planning
Jason george, a sound supervisor at Todd A-O in Burbank coaches customers to think the audio process through carefully. “If there’s a scene near a busy street, [you should ask]: can your close-ups be done at a different time than the establishing shot, when it’s not so noisy? In a different place? It is likewise advisable to have your sound mixer present during pre-production on your location scout. They will be able to forecast and plan for potential sound issues with a location that others might miss. Adds Derick Cobden of Airwaves Sound in Vancouver, BC, “Make sure you spend the time before you shoot to meet with a post company to avoid extra expenditures in the budget during this time.” If you can involve the post sound crew on a basic level with the production sound people they can share ideas, which may lead to better overall results.
Consistency & Craft
whatever degree of competency the sound crew possesses, it doesn’t hurt to be aware of some of the practical issues that tend to arise, particularly on indie productions. “Sound problems on the set are usually due to poor mic placement,” states Alan Gus. “Some situations are impossible, but controlled environments should never have bad sound. We work on lots of independent films, and so many need ADR… If the scenes were better miked, they probably could avoid most of the ADR.”
“The most common mistake beginners make with production sound is treating the mic like a lens,” adds Jay Rose. “It isn’t. You can’t point it at one person and not expect to hear the other people, noises or echoes in the room. The only way to get good dialogue is to have the mic close to the actor, either with a boom mic (usually overhead and pointed to the mouth, and no further than about 2’) or a lav. Lavaliers are very small mics designed to be worn on the body in the vicinity of the chest cavity; a boom is a handheld pole housing a mic at one end. A camera-mounted mic—even a very good one—will almost always be too far away to do a decent job.”
The norm on film sets is to have a dual recording system: recording audio onto a recorder and image to camera, synchronizing the two later in post-production. Film cameras (70mm; 35mm; 16mm) do not have built-in mics, so a dual recording set-up is the de facto standard. However, digital video cameras do come with a built-in mic. New digital moviemakers often record sound directly onto the camera mic, which—though a natural temptation on low-budget productions—can lead to poor audio. The mic on a digital video camera, particularly Mini DV camears, is going to produce audio that is generally below par by professionals standards. It’s advisable to use a separate, professional quality mic, and channel whatever it picks up through a mixer before it goes to camera.
Steve Joachim, sales manager at Location Sound in Los Angeles, elaborates: “We encourage young filmmakers using video formats to insert a mixer into the audio chain… Either way, a sound professional should be hired to mix to camera or record to portable recorder. By having a professional sound mixer controlling the gain [the level of the signal coming into a device] and the output that’s going to camera and monitoring the return signal from the camera, you can hear exactly what’s going to tape.” This solves a lot of problems ahead of the game.
“One thing we see too often,” observes Gus, “is when the soundperson records material without monitoring. We just did a documentary that had a very notable figure as the narrator, but the quality of the recording was terrible. There’s no way the soundperson could have been monitoring off-tape during the interview, and there is no way the filmmaker is going back to this celebrity to re-record.”
“The most important thing is consistency from take to take,” states Rob Janiger. “Just because the camera angle changes, you don’t want to start changing your microphones, changing your EQ (equalization), etc. You’ve got to make sure—first and foremost—that the scene cuts together. If you give the post-production guys tracks where there is a consistency in the recording—even if there is background noise and other problems—they can make it work.” Any good sound mixer would agree that, as a rule, it’s not a good idea to switch microphones within the scene. Some brands of microphone, though excellent by themselves, do not mix well. “Sennheisers and Neumanns are not so compatible with each other,” offers Pawel Wdowczak. “If you mix them up, it can be hard to match in the cutting room.”
“The combination of wireless lavs and boom-mounted mics can cause discrepancies in room tone, presence and proximity effect,” says Brian North, a sound engineer at The Victory Studios in Seattle, WA. “Distant scenes shot in warehouses or visually large, ambient rooms are usually recorded with the use of lavs due to their ability to be easily hidden from sight. The result, however, is dialogue usually sounding as if recorded close and up-front, thereby lacking the appropriate ambience and room tone.” Inevitably, with all these concerns to juggle, most productions will ultimately need to turn to a post house for sound sweetening of one form or another.
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| Left: The Location Sound team demonstrates the MKH416 right: Professional Sound Services’ Rich Topham discusses sound options with a customer. | |
Post-Production: Choose Wisely
even for moviemakers with home-based editing and sound sweetening systems, employing a post-production facility to handle at least part of the chores is often a must. Half of the job in this case is choosing a post house that is genuinely suited to your project. The experts suggest first looking for a facility that has some experience working on pictures similar to your own. “If your project involves shooting film, editing on video and releasing on film,” Gus points out, “then you’d better choose a facility that understands the entire procedure… Are you shooting on DV PAL but intend to release on film? Then your audio post facility better know how to deal with these issues.”
You should also ask to meet the engineer(s) you will be working with before you agree to take them on, as they will be responsible for taking your picture to completion with you. Jay Rose cautions beginners to choose wisely: “Some places foist beginning engineers on beginning filmmakers, and save the good talent for regular customers. Also, be sure to ask about an overall budget, not just an hourly rate. Some studios pile on extra charges for sound effects or to use specific equipment, and drastically inflate the cost of DAT tapes or CDs.” That caveat notwithstanding, there are many facilities who are genuinely committed to working with independent moviemakers, tailoring their services to all kinds of budgets. “Find a company who is excited to work with you and your project, and willing to work within your budget,” advises Derick Cobden.
Remember though, that if the field audio is poor, there are limits to what even an experienced and well-equipped house can do. “Applying such things as EQ and compression (minimizing the amount of dynamic range of an audio signal) can help alleviate some of the ‘presence,’ or unwanted audio, but it cannot eliminate the sounds entirely,” says Brian North. “On the flip side, however, it’s quite easy, with the use of SFX libraries, to add in the sound of dogs barking or children playing. Adding the right kind of reverb (the amount of sound that continues to exist in a room after the source sound has stopped) can also make that distant indoor shot have just the right amount of echo, while importing in-room ambience from previous scenes can help fix any room tone issues that may have previously existed.”
Home-based systems present a growing field of choices
and options. “If
the home computer is in a good monitoring environment,” offers Gus, “and
the person behind the system knows what they’re doing, the mix is probably
going to work. There’s nothing wrong with preparing tracks and trying
things at home, but if you don’t have the experience mixing for film
or broadcast or live venues, then make sure you let someone who has that
experience play with the mix. It can make a huge difference in the final
product. All too often, people lose interest in films because the audio
is so bad; it becomes distracting. It used to be that you can tell an
indie film by the poor sound quality; that doesn’t have to be the case.” MM
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Anthony D'Amico on 3/05/08 at 1:39 pm
Hello Movie Maker:
How can I offer my sound editing abilities to independent film makers, or get in contact with an editorial house who is in demand of experienced talented sound editors.Thank You
This story was published in the Spring 2003 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Sound for Motion Pictures / What moviemakers need to know about creating great audio
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