Just yesterday I completed a "Crowd" recording session with quite an ambitious script. Even though I only got a small crowd of maybe 6 people, I managed to get all the script necessities I wanted to cover for the Crowd noises and walla to fill in my mixes on the Hoopfighters mini-episodes.
Also on the table right now is the 2nd of 2 songs for Nova. Built 2 mixes for the first song (both Troy & I did our own). After we finish this song it should be crunch time for Hoopfighters.
Lastly, the wedding footage I shot back in October with Michael Fowler - a very talented photographer, for his clients finally arrived in my possession to begin editing.
Not a whole lot of visuals on this post unfortunately, but lots on the table this last bit of the year. I'll be taking some time to dive in depth on my sampling process next post because there's some cool things I'd like to discuss, and some questions and issues I've run into with my particular system for working at sample library creation (this being my first major foray into the domain). If anyone's got suggestions or tips or links they'd like to share on designing sounds for sample libraries, categorizing, workflows, and best practices; I'd greatly appreciate it!
Showing posts with label mixing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixing. Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Friday, August 31, 2012
What Does A Ninja Sound Like?
Welcome back to part two. It's been getting a bit hectic trying to wrap up several projects and get a ton of new stuff rolling but I'm going to get a little more technical and in-depth on this article because I wanted to share some more in-depth information.
I should note that my production workflow has been extremely loose from project to project in terms of sync and audio capture. I don't normally bring in my audio and try to sync inside of my NLE. Instead, what I do is just leave the in-camera audio on the NLE's primary audio track and label it Scratch. During picture lock, which is the stage in which I can safely say I will no longer be making any time-based changes to my arrangement of clips or their lengths I begin exporting the project to work in my DAW. Typically this is done via OMF export options.
One thing I always do as I start editing and importing audio into Sonar is it's crucial to find the spots where transitions or cuts happen in the video. As I work to the picture and import my sounds and start placing them on the timeline I find the cuts in the video and place markers on my timeline for easier recall.
This
has helped saved time especially as a workaround for Sonar's lack of
real-time video scrubbing (at least for me). It seems that for some reason no matter
which file format I work in or resolution (HD / SD) I still have
buffering issues with Sonar: The further away from the beginning of the timeline I get the longer it takes to respond to user input. In this regard I think my next video
projects I'll try Avid Pro Tools seeing as how they've had a
long-standing history with working to picture as it's been the industry
standard for such a long time. I just haven't had the chance to do this yet, as Sonar is my most comfortable DAW and one I instinctively gravitate to.
A huge workflow tip: as I edit and mix is using the clip features in Sonar such as creating clip groups to keep multiple audio tracks in sync with each other.
This
practice helps keep me moving through spots quicker. Even in the
picture above there are 2 clips overlapping in each of the audio tracks. I
grouped each one separate so I can still edit the timings between the
clips if I need to. You can also group large quantities of clips spanning various tracks together (great after building a "sound" up from various elements and not quite ready to create a bounced stem). Once these clips are grouped things like slicing and fades and trimming apply uniformly to the entire group.
Once I've got the audio where I want it and things match up to picture well, I make avid and religious use of the clip lock features in Sonar. I clip locked both the data and the position to show this case:
Sonar
allows independent locking of both Position and actual clip data. I
normally just clip lock position and then can come back to it later for
doing things like clip automation (gain, fades, etc.) but in this case I
don't need to do any of that so I went ahead and locked both position
and data. The biggest benefits for independently locking these two ways of manipulating clips is to accommodate the different workflows:
Example:
This provides a huge advantage of saving yourself from trouble later on in the event of mishaps like the program locking up or hanging for a moment while you're making selections / deleting / moving things around. The most common mistake is ending up way ahead in your project before you notice something is missing or has changed due to one of those overlooked circumstances.
It's Wednesday, May 9th (just over a week after the original shoot) and I've managed to rough in all the audio for the first spot - the 60 second Ninja version. I first set out to capture the worldization of the music track to blend in with the actual song and give the music some room to sit in the visuals and then pop out when it's supposed to.
It's worth noting the time frame in which I'm working. We did all of our pick-up shots this same day I'm already beginning audio work on picture-locked versions of the commercial.
Projects like this usually have a 2-3 day turnaround time if not less. In fact, in a future blog article I will discuss time-frames on my other commercial project Zenergy Band. Long story short, a full day of shooting with a rough cut turnaround to the client in just 6 hours after the production wrapped. But for now, back to what Worldization is.
Worldization is a clever yet simple technique (in concept) of playing back a sound or sample into a given environment, and recording the new sound as it's interacting with that environment.
The commercial spot has several different ranges between each of the 3 ninjas and the main actors sitting in the back room. The music track ended up being a last minute selection to fit the deadline and still fit the mood of the commercial. Since I can't be on location I set up 3 mics in my house and just used my JBL's to play back the solo'd music track, with the microphones' 'input echo' off (so they don't feedback into the recording).
The first mic I put up was in the middle of the hallway. I opened the hallway closet up to help with some dampening so it didn't sound completely like a hall.
The
2nd mic is the Audio Technica in the far end of the room adjacent to
where I'll be playing the music from. The Rode NTG-3 is placed closest
to the room but facing as off-axis as I can get it, and aimed directly at
the wall just feet in front of it almost perpendicular to the
direction of the sound source. This should help enhance low-end
reflecting off of boundary surfaces as large as the wall it's aiming at which is also in front of a small cove for the entry way that naturally
enhances low frequency content.
So looking at the screenshot above again The green automation lines represent the volume changes throughout the tracks to simulate room changes when the camera cuts between locations.
The next step was to record Foley for the sword whirling and clothes cutting. I called Troy up to come over and help out as running Foley sessions is a 2 person job at best. The first thing we discussed was tackling the sword whirling sound and we went through several items and settled on a broken power extension cable.
There's a particular setup I'm using with 3 mics. I chose this method to give me the greatest range of options for panning and color as each mic is distinctly different. An Audio Technica 3035 (cardioid condensor), Rode NTG-3, and an AKG C414 in Omni placed high up to get more ambiance.
The microphones' various recordings came out perfect and I ended up with an LCR approach to the mixing for stereo. I imagine if I ever had to upfold this project or completely re-mix it for a 5.1 surround track I would have more than ample material to place in the 5.1 mix and still maintain a good balance and presence.
The editing workflow I use is pretty solid to me a this point as I've done several projects that have steadily grown in audio demands and complexity or have allowed me the freedom to experiment (which is a great opportunity to have)!
While getting to see the project and all the edits I did. It's much more helpful just to describe my workflow and the order I like to do things in.
After capturing the audio the first thing I did was move the audio tracks far down the timeline away from any of the actual commercial material although ideally I would have just created a separate project for the recording session and what I'm about to describe next.
The first actual bit of work I set out on these audio clips is to clean them up, which involves denoising and any sort of effects for processing to get rid of unwanted background noise. Once these are applied (which I normally do to each clip individually, and not the track), I then bounce the clips to commit the processes to audio. Then, I begin slicing up all the useful bits and deleting useless audio gaps.
Sonar has a cool little process that can be applied to clips on the timeline that remove silence. However this tool still requires some finessing and the volume levels of our Foley session vary so greatly it was easier and quicker just to manually slice the bits I needed. After all the cutting, fades were applied, then came the arrangement of those clips which you can see their final place in the image above.
It's now Thursday, May 10th and I've just gotten to the point where I can transfer all the audio work I've done from the 60 second ninja spot. I now have to build the audio for the 30 second spot.
I felt like exporting all my tracks out of Sonar individually to try my hand at working to picture in Pro Tools later. Sonar has some really cool ways to easily bounce tracks and commit to audio all the Effects and even track and bus automation. Note, this is not my workflow process I used since I actually stayed inside of Sonar for the entirety of the project. I just want to highlight a really useful feature for quickly getting a project like this out of this daw and quickly into another daw like Pro Tools.
I highlighted all the tracks I want to export individually, and go to File > Export.
This is where I need to pay attention to my output options. Sonar can output the tracks I want but I don't want it
With
Tracks selected under Source Category, I un-check the box for "Track
Automation" and since this is bouncing out the tracks individually
before they hit the buses I don't have to worry about bus automation.
I normally un-check Fast Bounce just as personal preference but it really doesn't matter as any quality difference between Fast bounce and normal bounce is completely inaudible in most cases.
The next thing to follow immediately when I click save is a dialog box:
Sonar will not let you hit save unless you type something in the file name area.
I chose to simply put B and hit enter and this dialog box appears to confirm the following Actions Sonar is about to perform.
It clearly shows each individual file that's going to be created in the place I chose to save them, and that they all have a prefix "B" and Sonar automatically formats the file name with B-*track name*.wav
A really handy feature to have, as well as time-saving.
Sonar renders out the audio in one pass so it can take a while to process and write all the individual files at once.
I saved out OMF files for each of the individual spots and opted to simply rebuild audio for each of the 4 commercials individually. I have greater control inside of Sonar and don't have to deal with the limited interchange options for audio from inside of Premiere Pro this way and thus I can move much faster.
The OMF for the 30 second ninja spot gets saved out the new project file. Import the video track and set up the buses. Here's the new template:
More cool tips! Sonar has lots of hotkey commands that help save
time. When opening an OMF the audio tracks are placed on the timeline
with the clips properly but the default selection is their outputs just
go to your audio hardware's first output, and there are no buses. So the
first thing I do is create a master bus.
Right clicking on the bus and you'll be able to see the option to "set as default bus". A cool time-saver for future tracks that get created will now immediately route to the master bus as their output.
Next I simply create the remaining buses I know i'm going to use for the mix later on and these will all automatically route to "master":
Now
comes the interesting part. As I import the audio tracks I tackle
track management and start creating folders and sending the tracks to
the proper buses.
Here's
another cool little time saver. I can just select the tracks I want to
put into a folder, once I have them all selected I just simply right
click and there's an option to "move to folder".
This
can work in various ways but since Sonar only has 1 folder level to
work with, if audio tracks already reside in folders the option will not
be there, instead "move to folder" will be replaced with "remove from
folder" and then you have the option to place the tracks into existing
folders / new folder.
Since I imported the tracks all at once, they are all routed to the master bus. I simply just open up the folder track and select all the tracks within.
Shift+click at the bottom track in the SFX folder to select all of
them, which brings up the last track selected in the channel preview
on the left side. The default bus is still Master so hold down CTRL
and select "SFX" as the new bus. this applies the new bus selection to
all the selected tracks.
Next, I have all the audio tracks and clips selected in the timeline I want to trim all the silence away and leave me just the audio material clips to move around and re-fit for the 30 second version.
The dialog box appears for the Remove Silence tool.
I set
the open and close level to -68 dB. The settings above seem to produce
good cuts without any sudden pops or clicks as the waveform leaves 0
degrees. The look ahead also gives ample time for changes using the 2
millisecond buffer in the attack and release times. It's worth noting that I'm choosing to use this tool here instead of earlier doing the original cuts to the foley session as on these rendered out tracks there is "true" silence. There should be no clutter and I should be left with only the audio clips I want and already edited.
I saved the settings as a preset (because Sonar doesn't come with any default ones). Run the tool. and below is the result from the trimming.
Now
to focus on placement for the 30 second version and figuring out how to
tackle the music track for the shorter play time. It's back to the
routine set up, placing markers along the timeline to mark the shot
changes in the video. Moving and trimming the clips to fit the shorter
shots, and then re-mixing the music with automation.
Between the 60 second and 30 second versions of the Ninja project, I have all the audio material I need to use these two project files as templates for building the biker's 60 second and 30 second spots. I simply saved out each project file (copying audio to a new folder) and named it accordingly. This choice in project management allows me to keep additions to sound clips added in for the biker content like the bikes pulling up in their respective project folders and not cluttering up the whole project.
As I wrapped up the first two (one sixty second Ninja and Biker version) I uploaded them privately on youtube for the client to review. The okay was given and they asked for a 2nd variation at the end where the tag-line was different. This was a simple edit, in Premier Pro I simply swapped out the last clip with the correct one for the new tag-line, keeping the same length. In the audio projects I simply saved the project and labelled it "alternate" to identify each of the 4 commercial projects with the new tag-line, dropped in the voice track and synced it up and processed it.
Mixing was a bit more of a duty to attempt uniformity across all the projects but still simple none-the-less. Since I didn't have any of my plugins or processing done until after all the project files had been duplicated from each other, I simply went in to each track and bus and saved out FX Chains and Presets from the plugins, and simply followed the load-out on each of the projects.
Now, with audio mixed and mastered, I headed back into my premier pro project file and loaded up the appropriate audio files to replace the audio of each sequence. Finally, text was added and final grading was done, and the results are now posted on youtube... The time difference between when I finished a bulk of this work and actually closed out the project was due to a client hiatus. Sometimes things happen and when projects reach their milestone like this and the client is unable to give any feedback or communicate they are ready for another step forward in the project is when ultimately I am stuck sitting on my hands waiting to be told what to do.
Some insight: [] We shot this on a shoe-string budget, with a small schedule expecting a short turn-around. I had all 4 commercials ready for the client to approve and deliver within the first 2 weeks but because of unforseen circumstances on the clients side, communication breakdowns occured and my producer and I were left waiting for approvals on things for almost 3 months. However, most of the work was paid for (aside from some of the editing).
IF jobs like these pop up, always make sure to cover yourself legally, or at the very least as a work ethic demand payment up front in full. If for some reason political aspects begin to play into the business end of things like getting paid for your work, you need persistence and follow-through to make sure you get paid. I've learned this the hard way through the years of growing my business from the ground up.
I'm not saying this out of personal aggravation (though there was a little of that). I understand this happens and the catch here is learning not to take things like this personally, it's just business, and in the end whether you get paid or not you have only your sanity. Roll with the punches, don't get angry when they hit you. Keep on trucking, and do what needs to be done.
I should note that my production workflow has been extremely loose from project to project in terms of sync and audio capture. I don't normally bring in my audio and try to sync inside of my NLE. Instead, what I do is just leave the in-camera audio on the NLE's primary audio track and label it Scratch. During picture lock, which is the stage in which I can safely say I will no longer be making any time-based changes to my arrangement of clips or their lengths I begin exporting the project to work in my DAW. Typically this is done via OMF export options.
One thing I always do as I start editing and importing audio into Sonar is it's crucial to find the spots where transitions or cuts happen in the video. As I work to the picture and import my sounds and start placing them on the timeline I find the cuts in the video and place markers on my timeline for easier recall.
A huge workflow tip: as I edit and mix is using the clip features in Sonar such as creating clip groups to keep multiple audio tracks in sync with each other.
Once I've got the audio where I want it and things match up to picture well, I make avid and religious use of the clip lock features in Sonar. I clip locked both the data and the position to show this case:
Example:
building a sound design element it's usually more crucial to have the sound in sync before working on the actual sculpting of the sound, therefore locking position can assure you that while you affect the clips with plugins, fades, and even trimming (not affected by position lock), the clips are not accidentally moved.Example 2:
Clips that require movement but want their particular trims, fades, and other clip-based edits to remain intact while you move them along the timeline, the data lock ensures these do not get altered.
This provides a huge advantage of saving yourself from trouble later on in the event of mishaps like the program locking up or hanging for a moment while you're making selections / deleting / moving things around. The most common mistake is ending up way ahead in your project before you notice something is missing or has changed due to one of those overlooked circumstances.
It's Wednesday, May 9th (just over a week after the original shoot) and I've managed to rough in all the audio for the first spot - the 60 second Ninja version. I first set out to capture the worldization of the music track to blend in with the actual song and give the music some room to sit in the visuals and then pop out when it's supposed to.
It's worth noting the time frame in which I'm working. We did all of our pick-up shots this same day I'm already beginning audio work on picture-locked versions of the commercial.
Projects like this usually have a 2-3 day turnaround time if not less. In fact, in a future blog article I will discuss time-frames on my other commercial project Zenergy Band. Long story short, a full day of shooting with a rough cut turnaround to the client in just 6 hours after the production wrapped. But for now, back to what Worldization is.
The commercial spot has several different ranges between each of the 3 ninjas and the main actors sitting in the back room. The music track ended up being a last minute selection to fit the deadline and still fit the mood of the commercial. Since I can't be on location I set up 3 mics in my house and just used my JBL's to play back the solo'd music track, with the microphones' 'input echo' off (so they don't feedback into the recording).
The first mic I put up was in the middle of the hallway. I opened the hallway closet up to help with some dampening so it didn't sound completely like a hall.
So looking at the screenshot above again The green automation lines represent the volume changes throughout the tracks to simulate room changes when the camera cuts between locations.
|
| here it is again if you don't wish to scroll.... |
The next step was to record Foley for the sword whirling and clothes cutting. I called Troy up to come over and help out as running Foley sessions is a 2 person job at best. The first thing we discussed was tackling the sword whirling sound and we went through several items and settled on a broken power extension cable.
 |
| Moving positions for the "ripping" foley. |
The editing workflow I use is pretty solid to me a this point as I've done several projects that have steadily grown in audio demands and complexity or have allowed me the freedom to experiment (which is a great opportunity to have)!
While getting to see the project and all the edits I did. It's much more helpful just to describe my workflow and the order I like to do things in.
After capturing the audio the first thing I did was move the audio tracks far down the timeline away from any of the actual commercial material although ideally I would have just created a separate project for the recording session and what I'm about to describe next.
The first actual bit of work I set out on these audio clips is to clean them up, which involves denoising and any sort of effects for processing to get rid of unwanted background noise. Once these are applied (which I normally do to each clip individually, and not the track), I then bounce the clips to commit the processes to audio. Then, I begin slicing up all the useful bits and deleting useless audio gaps.
It's now Thursday, May 10th and I've just gotten to the point where I can transfer all the audio work I've done from the 60 second ninja spot. I now have to build the audio for the 30 second spot.
I felt like exporting all my tracks out of Sonar individually to try my hand at working to picture in Pro Tools later. Sonar has some really cool ways to easily bounce tracks and commit to audio all the Effects and even track and bus automation. Note, this is not my workflow process I used since I actually stayed inside of Sonar for the entirety of the project. I just want to highlight a really useful feature for quickly getting a project like this out of this daw and quickly into another daw like Pro Tools.
This is where I need to pay attention to my output options. Sonar can output the tracks I want but I don't want it
I normally un-check Fast Bounce just as personal preference but it really doesn't matter as any quality difference between Fast bounce and normal bounce is completely inaudible in most cases.
The next thing to follow immediately when I click save is a dialog box:
Sonar will not let you hit save unless you type something in the file name area.
I chose to simply put B and hit enter and this dialog box appears to confirm the following Actions Sonar is about to perform.
It clearly shows each individual file that's going to be created in the place I chose to save them, and that they all have a prefix "B" and Sonar automatically formats the file name with B-*track name*.wav
A really handy feature to have, as well as time-saving.
Sonar renders out the audio in one pass so it can take a while to process and write all the individual files at once.
I saved out OMF files for each of the individual spots and opted to simply rebuild audio for each of the 4 commercials individually. I have greater control inside of Sonar and don't have to deal with the limited interchange options for audio from inside of Premiere Pro this way and thus I can move much faster.
The OMF for the 30 second ninja spot gets saved out the new project file. Import the video track and set up the buses. Here's the new template:
Right clicking on the bus and you'll be able to see the option to "set as default bus". A cool time-saver for future tracks that get created will now immediately route to the master bus as their output.
Next I simply create the remaining buses I know i'm going to use for the mix later on and these will all automatically route to "master":
- Voice
- SFX
- Music
Since I imported the tracks all at once, they are all routed to the master bus. I simply just open up the folder track and select all the tracks within.
Next, I have all the audio tracks and clips selected in the timeline I want to trim all the silence away and leave me just the audio material clips to move around and re-fit for the 30 second version.
I saved the settings as a preset (because Sonar doesn't come with any default ones). Run the tool. and below is the result from the trimming.
Between the 60 second and 30 second versions of the Ninja project, I have all the audio material I need to use these two project files as templates for building the biker's 60 second and 30 second spots. I simply saved out each project file (copying audio to a new folder) and named it accordingly. This choice in project management allows me to keep additions to sound clips added in for the biker content like the bikes pulling up in their respective project folders and not cluttering up the whole project.
Mixing was a bit more of a duty to attempt uniformity across all the projects but still simple none-the-less. Since I didn't have any of my plugins or processing done until after all the project files had been duplicated from each other, I simply went in to each track and bus and saved out FX Chains and Presets from the plugins, and simply followed the load-out on each of the projects.
Now, with audio mixed and mastered, I headed back into my premier pro project file and loaded up the appropriate audio files to replace the audio of each sequence. Finally, text was added and final grading was done, and the results are now posted on youtube... The time difference between when I finished a bulk of this work and actually closed out the project was due to a client hiatus. Sometimes things happen and when projects reach their milestone like this and the client is unable to give any feedback or communicate they are ready for another step forward in the project is when ultimately I am stuck sitting on my hands waiting to be told what to do.
Some insight: [] We shot this on a shoe-string budget, with a small schedule expecting a short turn-around. I had all 4 commercials ready for the client to approve and deliver within the first 2 weeks but because of unforseen circumstances on the clients side, communication breakdowns occured and my producer and I were left waiting for approvals on things for almost 3 months. However, most of the work was paid for (aside from some of the editing).
IF jobs like these pop up, always make sure to cover yourself legally, or at the very least as a work ethic demand payment up front in full. If for some reason political aspects begin to play into the business end of things like getting paid for your work, you need persistence and follow-through to make sure you get paid. I've learned this the hard way through the years of growing my business from the ground up.
I'm not saying this out of personal aggravation (though there was a little of that). I understand this happens and the catch here is learning not to take things like this personally, it's just business, and in the end whether you get paid or not you have only your sanity. Roll with the punches, don't get angry when they hit you. Keep on trucking, and do what needs to be done.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Subject to Change
It's been a long few weeks working on a
big studio project. At this current juncture, Troy and I are in the
main mix and master phase working on a 5 song EP for Chris McClure.
Both Troy and I have been working very hard on this project. We both
have a passion for bringing the best sound possible to the music. Just
what is "the best sound"? This question has so much subjectivity that
even today is always a relevant and somewhat controversial debate
amongst mixing engineers and recording artists, mastering engineers,
even musicians and artists that care to delve into this realm. Let me
start by sharing a very interesting (at least to me) video with you:
As I stated already, what "sounds best" is highly subjective. Subjective to the listening environment, the genre of music, the intended audience. Just as David Byrne talks about in the beginning of the video, it's no accident that the west African music sounds the way it does or is written in such a way that compliments it's listening environment (free field), or that early band music used instruments that could project well in a small venue to be heard well above the ambient noise of the audience dancing and yelling and whatever else it is one would do there.
Fast forward to today and we have such amazing technology to allow us to create, simulate, emulate, even overcome obstacles in achieving just about any type of sonic impact we want, which makes it all the more critical and complex on just about every "job" in this industry. Everyone, even professionals in the industry - have personal tastes when it comes to what sounds pleasing to them. Not just musical genres, but the particular mixing and mastering styles, "sonic signatures" if you will.
Imagine the sound capabilities and quality of the earliest phonograph recordings being the particular sonic signature a modern band wanted to encapsulate their music. I can't vouch for anyone else, but I would assume today's audience would not be pleased by a recording of a modern band that sounded as such.
As a mix engineer, there is a true and mysterious art to getting the recordings to sound the way we expect them to. Today's music is so heavily processed there is rarely any concept of the natural or "raw" sonic impact of what the instruments sound like. I usually hear people say (and I've said it myself too) that when we do our job right we become invisible. Our jobs aren't actually transparent anymore, it's quite the opposite. The post-production desired and even required by modern tastes have created a huge demand for a certain level of "polish" to be recognized by the "mainstream audience".
Take a listen to your favorite band's album. Go ahead, pick one.. take a listen, and tell me if you've heard that band sound EXACTLY the same live. I'm not talking about imperfections in live versus recorded performance, as I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of auto-tune and "time correcting". What I'm referring to is the particular sounds of instruments, their presence in the mix and the ability to hear every instrument clearly.
Live performances have a very very different sound to them. Whether it's a tiny band performing without any PA system in a garage venue or a popular band playing at a huge arena venue, the mixes differ greatly. The sounds between those environments also are very different. Lets take the recording you listened to and imagine hearing that same song performed live. It's almost impossible to get the exact same sonic signature out of each and every instrument, even the performance has to change. Where once a vocalist might have been just above a whisper in your ear in the recording now has to sing much louder to achieve unity and harmony with the song in the context of a live performance. The impact is as David Byrne mentioned: A product of the environment.
Even deeper however, the live performance is still subject to the technical and creative abilities and tools of the mixing engineers; both Front of House: who creates the mix for the audience, and the monitor engineer - who must often create individual mixes for the various performers on stage to hear what they need to perform at their best. The original sound source may sound almost nothing alike when comparing the "raw" to the processed.
So here we are today, with recording technology more easily accessible and available to more of the public than ever before. The landscape of the music world shifting greatly as the industry that arose from it is now subject to change according to the freedom of the masses now able to "do it yourself" where once access and resources were save for the select group of those chosen based on their "sell-ability". The sea of music online and available in stores now is so vast it is almost as if the magic of the impulse buy has left us. People hear demos online of bands that are "less than polished" and it has become so saturated that the likelihood of the audience connecting with it puts them off to the possibility of spending money on a product when they feel it is inferior.
That particular magical allure has faded and people spend less on the impulse buy to pay homage to the artist for their ideas. It may not be the artist's fault at all in fact; the idea may be a great one. However, it may have been poorly executed, or just not right for the particular sonic signature that was achieved. Music is highly emotional, and the sonic impact it has is the driving factor that must be executed precisely or else the emotional impact is lost.
An individual can pick up an instrument, a microphone, and a recording interface to a computer and easily make their ideas into a product available on a global market. That's a lot of power. However, the expectation of the modern audience has also never been higher. We expect to hear perfect music. The best possible representation of the idea or concept that lets the listener transcend the medium and connect with the idea internally - emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise.
I've heard the phrase "loudness war" many times since I've pursued the audio engineering path and today i'm less and less convinced it is simply about that anymore. The revolution of independent freedom from the tradition of the market being closed doors has also put a lot of scrutiny on it. It's both helped and hurt it. I'm more convinced the loudness war isn't as relevant as is the war on education. The technology may be available to just about anyone now, but the education and understanding of how sound and music work are still (if not more) important and no more or less available than before.
I just thought I'd post something in between all the jobs I've been busy with. There will be more updates coming soon as we head in to the final days of the EP project, and should have several video updates for them soon.
I pose a question, and I hope everyone who wishes to leave their answers in the comments below be unafraid of criticism for it. It's your opinion and it is most welcome. Do you think that audio engineers are as much a part of the music now as the artist who wrote and/or performed the material?
(View the conversation page here: www.ted.com/talks/david_byrne )
As I stated already, what "sounds best" is highly subjective. Subjective to the listening environment, the genre of music, the intended audience. Just as David Byrne talks about in the beginning of the video, it's no accident that the west African music sounds the way it does or is written in such a way that compliments it's listening environment (free field), or that early band music used instruments that could project well in a small venue to be heard well above the ambient noise of the audience dancing and yelling and whatever else it is one would do there.
Fast forward to today and we have such amazing technology to allow us to create, simulate, emulate, even overcome obstacles in achieving just about any type of sonic impact we want, which makes it all the more critical and complex on just about every "job" in this industry. Everyone, even professionals in the industry - have personal tastes when it comes to what sounds pleasing to them. Not just musical genres, but the particular mixing and mastering styles, "sonic signatures" if you will.
Imagine the sound capabilities and quality of the earliest phonograph recordings being the particular sonic signature a modern band wanted to encapsulate their music. I can't vouch for anyone else, but I would assume today's audience would not be pleased by a recording of a modern band that sounded as such.
As a mix engineer, there is a true and mysterious art to getting the recordings to sound the way we expect them to. Today's music is so heavily processed there is rarely any concept of the natural or "raw" sonic impact of what the instruments sound like. I usually hear people say (and I've said it myself too) that when we do our job right we become invisible. Our jobs aren't actually transparent anymore, it's quite the opposite. The post-production desired and even required by modern tastes have created a huge demand for a certain level of "polish" to be recognized by the "mainstream audience".
Take a listen to your favorite band's album. Go ahead, pick one.. take a listen, and tell me if you've heard that band sound EXACTLY the same live. I'm not talking about imperfections in live versus recorded performance, as I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of auto-tune and "time correcting". What I'm referring to is the particular sounds of instruments, their presence in the mix and the ability to hear every instrument clearly.
Live performances have a very very different sound to them. Whether it's a tiny band performing without any PA system in a garage venue or a popular band playing at a huge arena venue, the mixes differ greatly. The sounds between those environments also are very different. Lets take the recording you listened to and imagine hearing that same song performed live. It's almost impossible to get the exact same sonic signature out of each and every instrument, even the performance has to change. Where once a vocalist might have been just above a whisper in your ear in the recording now has to sing much louder to achieve unity and harmony with the song in the context of a live performance. The impact is as David Byrne mentioned: A product of the environment.
Even deeper however, the live performance is still subject to the technical and creative abilities and tools of the mixing engineers; both Front of House: who creates the mix for the audience, and the monitor engineer - who must often create individual mixes for the various performers on stage to hear what they need to perform at their best. The original sound source may sound almost nothing alike when comparing the "raw" to the processed.
So here we are today, with recording technology more easily accessible and available to more of the public than ever before. The landscape of the music world shifting greatly as the industry that arose from it is now subject to change according to the freedom of the masses now able to "do it yourself" where once access and resources were save for the select group of those chosen based on their "sell-ability". The sea of music online and available in stores now is so vast it is almost as if the magic of the impulse buy has left us. People hear demos online of bands that are "less than polished" and it has become so saturated that the likelihood of the audience connecting with it puts them off to the possibility of spending money on a product when they feel it is inferior.
That particular magical allure has faded and people spend less on the impulse buy to pay homage to the artist for their ideas. It may not be the artist's fault at all in fact; the idea may be a great one. However, it may have been poorly executed, or just not right for the particular sonic signature that was achieved. Music is highly emotional, and the sonic impact it has is the driving factor that must be executed precisely or else the emotional impact is lost.
An individual can pick up an instrument, a microphone, and a recording interface to a computer and easily make their ideas into a product available on a global market. That's a lot of power. However, the expectation of the modern audience has also never been higher. We expect to hear perfect music. The best possible representation of the idea or concept that lets the listener transcend the medium and connect with the idea internally - emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise.
I've heard the phrase "loudness war" many times since I've pursued the audio engineering path and today i'm less and less convinced it is simply about that anymore. The revolution of independent freedom from the tradition of the market being closed doors has also put a lot of scrutiny on it. It's both helped and hurt it. I'm more convinced the loudness war isn't as relevant as is the war on education. The technology may be available to just about anyone now, but the education and understanding of how sound and music work are still (if not more) important and no more or less available than before.
I just thought I'd post something in between all the jobs I've been busy with. There will be more updates coming soon as we head in to the final days of the EP project, and should have several video updates for them soon.
I pose a question, and I hope everyone who wishes to leave their answers in the comments below be unafraid of criticism for it. It's your opinion and it is most welcome. Do you think that audio engineers are as much a part of the music now as the artist who wrote and/or performed the material?
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
We get some Soul..
This last weekend Troy & I went to Milpitas to film a live performance of Pacific Soul as a favor to a friend of a friend. Wow! This group is a nine-piece band that performs R&B classics and are a really well-rounded, amazing sounding group! Pretty much everyone in the band sings and harmonizes together, Everyone's got a function in the band that plays well.
It was sort of last minute and a little under-communicated, but I think we've pulled it off with a decent look. We shot with the Sony Z1u and the Canon T2i so the look between cameras is vastly different, and is a real pain to get a close match between them. The area they were performing at was inside at a seafood marketplace, and was really dark (no lighting).
The Canon T2i fared well as we simply boosted the ISO to 3200 and the footage came out clean even at high ISO for video. The Shutter speed pretty much sat at 60 and Troy walked around with the T2i getting various close-ups and shots with the shoulder rig we were lucky enough to have borrowed from a friend's production company! Thanks Ian, we'll have it back to you ASAP.
I kept the Z1u stationary and just did simple panning and zooming as best I could while taking notes and monitoring audio. I brought my XLR cables for just such an opportunity to get a direct feed from the Front-of-house (FOH) mixer. This was where I ran into a problem. Once I started monitoring the audio coming into the camera with my headphones I noticed severe compression and limiting and I had already set the camera's gain settings for the XLR inputs to -18dB (the furthest down it would go). I thought maybe it was the camera doing the limiting and maybe just maybe it would be decent.
The next level to the audio problem was the mix itself. The FOH mixer was only creating a mix for the PA system to pump out to the audience. I know how live mixing goes and for a session of this size the PA really just needs to fill in the gaps for the lowest level performers: Keyboardist who has no amp on-stage but has a monitoring speaker by him, the vocalists who also have a couple of monitoring speakers in front of them on the ground. The Bassist has a cab on stage but it's mic'd and instead he's also using a monitoring speaker on the floor. There is a percussionist in the back, and to add to that an electric acoustic guitar being played by one of the singers as well who's got a direct out feeding the mixer. The drummer has some mics on the kit but I couldn't see much as he was behind the stage.
The problem with getting a mix from the FOH is the mix is designed to fill in the mix around the drums which are naturally loud. The keys had a prominent position at teh front of the mix, the vocals collectively sat just behind that, and the drums were barely audible in the mix at all feeding the PA system. the Bass sat just under the Vocals as well and was primarily low-end. However, the mix was either being heavily compressed in the mixer or as an artifact of the signal coming into the camera.
We had no idea how it would turn out in post, but would have to make due with what we got. Before the performance started we had time to set up and talk to the engineer at the FOH mixer. I did notice he had a macbook with Pro Tools ready to rock and the idea was that he was to capture the multitrack performance from the mixer so that the whole session could be mixed properly in post later on. After the performance was over we talked to the engineer again and that was when we were informed there was no capture into Pro Tools! Sometimes these things happen and miscommunication can lead to issues that need troubleshooting later on.
So I'm at home dubbing the tape from the Z1u into Premier Pro and then importing all the captured video from the T2i. Once we started dropping the video on the timeline I got really curious as to the sound of the audio from the T2i. I was greatly surprised by how well it could fill in the mix once i started getting everything in line. I knew I'd have to battle with sync issues as there was no way to lock the two cameras together so that frames and timing would be in sync.
You won't notice it by the video as the lip-sync between both cameras is not noticeably off, but where you will immediately hear it is in the audio tracks lining up. It creates a slight delay affect that's a quick echo. So, this can be simply remedied by bringing the audio into Sonar later on and aligning them so they are in-phase. The natural top-end clarity due to the small diaphragm of the built-in mic in the T2i was able to lend clarity to the mix from the Z1u which was quite muddy, and the lost transients and the natural room tone (the live sound) came back making the drums present again.
My final issue to tackle is creating a good blend between the two audio sources in mixing to get the sound to blend. There is a couple spots where the main audio track (FOH mix) cuts out. First in the very beginning something happens to the mix cutting out.
Then I had Troy run the T2i while I changed tapes because I was running off a previously used tape that still had 30 or so minutes unused. Finally got the fresh tape in and it took a little bit to get to camera speed.
Other mix conditions have to do with Troy's camera position around the band and how it captured the sound of whichever instrument or vocalist is most present. Some positions he took with the camera are directly out of phase with the direct mix as he's standing next to a speaker 180 degrees out of phase with it.
Just barely wrapping up final edit. It's getting even more hectic as there are a couple jobs coming up, and i've been getting contacted about more job opportunities elsewhere.. The immediate agenda for now is to just finish this video and get back to my story-board and novel projects.
It was sort of last minute and a little under-communicated, but I think we've pulled it off with a decent look. We shot with the Sony Z1u and the Canon T2i so the look between cameras is vastly different, and is a real pain to get a close match between them. The area they were performing at was inside at a seafood marketplace, and was really dark (no lighting).
The Canon T2i fared well as we simply boosted the ISO to 3200 and the footage came out clean even at high ISO for video. The Shutter speed pretty much sat at 60 and Troy walked around with the T2i getting various close-ups and shots with the shoulder rig we were lucky enough to have borrowed from a friend's production company! Thanks Ian, we'll have it back to you ASAP.
I kept the Z1u stationary and just did simple panning and zooming as best I could while taking notes and monitoring audio. I brought my XLR cables for just such an opportunity to get a direct feed from the Front-of-house (FOH) mixer. This was where I ran into a problem. Once I started monitoring the audio coming into the camera with my headphones I noticed severe compression and limiting and I had already set the camera's gain settings for the XLR inputs to -18dB (the furthest down it would go). I thought maybe it was the camera doing the limiting and maybe just maybe it would be decent.
 |
| Pulled frame from T2i footage |
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| Pulled frame from T2i footage |
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| Pulled frame from T2i footage |
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| Pulled frame from Z1u footage |
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| Pulled frame from Z1u footage |
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| Pulled frame from T2i footage |
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| The timeline cursor (red bar) you can see the right channel cut out and then the left channel. |
Then I had Troy run the T2i while I changed tapes because I was running off a previously used tape that still had 30 or so minutes unused. Finally got the fresh tape in and it took a little bit to get to camera speed.
 |
| The timeline cursor is where you can see the gap in the main video and audio feed. |
Just barely wrapping up final edit. It's getting even more hectic as there are a couple jobs coming up, and i've been getting contacted about more job opportunities elsewhere.. The immediate agenda for now is to just finish this video and get back to my story-board and novel projects.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Cut Your Teeth on some Commercialism
The last few weeks have been pretty up and down with my back problems. However I've been extremely productive this weekend and this week with commercial production and networking for some jobs lining up soon!
First, take a look at the behind the scenes I put together:
Hope you enjoyed that, it was definitely fun working on these 3 shoots on 3 days, even despite the long odd hours! Let's take a short trip back to Thursday the 17th. Harry and Michael contact me to ask me to help out with some commercials they wanted to shoot and they had put together a couple scripts for their separate ideas. I get the scripts in email and read through them roughly. That night we went to the house where we were to shoot Hot Diggity Dawg and plan out lighting and camera angles.
The idea was pretty simple and according to how he wanted to shoot it pretty much a majority of the audio would be built in post. So on production evening the next night: Friday, I brought my Rode NTG3 and my Audio Technica AT3035 and ran some creative mic placement with the AT3035 in different positions in the room for when we did voice takes for when Lori had to say her lines.
I should mention that Friday before the shoot, Michael and Courtney showed up here before to do some quick foley session for all the sound elements we would need. We had just enough time to record all the material. That night Mok came by after and we dubbed the tape and brought it into a project to start a rough build, as well as capturing a separate session for the Door and gargle noises. I didn't get to start cutting and editing the sound recordings until Sunday.
Bathroom Gargle & Door.zip
Saturday I spent most of my time processing and cleaning up audio making cuts to Hot Diggity Dawg and revising, all before production was supposed to start for It Takes A Lady. We were to meet at Mok's location for shooting at 5pm.
When I got there everyone was setting up lighting and rehearsal.
The same two mics were used for all three commercials: Audio Technica AT3035 for room tone and ambience, and the Rode NTG3 on the boom for dialog and close-up. We shot a ton of material that didn't make it into the 30 second spot, but perhaps later on we'll post up the 1 minute spot that the full commercial could have been.
I placed the AT3035 right along the right wall just passed the cable hanging from the window sill to pick up a wide stereo effect for the scene where Troy Allen gets a kiss-assault on the couch. I boomed the NTG3 slightly left overhead to pick up the left hand grabbing the couch and the AT3035 picked up the whole wall early reflections and movement ruffles Troy did when slamming himself into his seat for dramatic effect. The Rode also helped for getting the close up of Arielle in her heels when she steps into frame as Troy Allen looks up at her in shock. I blended the two mics to get just enough room tone and low-end to give some body to the heel sound but still have the prominent click for the impact on the hardwood floor that made it a definitive heel sound.
It was difficult working in some tight spaces between the wall and the couches even with a long boom as trying to get the angles right for all the actor movements would tend to fall out of the scope of the mic or in the case of dialog with head rotation would cause severely noticeable off-axis sonic characteristics because of the narrow field of focus for the shotgun mic. Luckily in the best takes that we used for the final cuts those issues weren't a problem.
One thing i tried to keep in mind as production sound mixer and boom operator is what the camera operator's position is dealing with. During the productions we had 3 connections running to the camera (2 XLR's for phantom powered mics, and headphones so I could monitor sound).
Both mics were run with 50 foot cables so there's a lot of free cable all around the floor, and my heaphones (a pair of Sennhieser HD280 pros) are a much shorter length coiled cable. One solution I tried was to use velcro cable wrap to attach to the operator and hang some of the cable up through his belt-loop. However, Michael and Harry both were switching the camera between them fairly often so this became impractical.
They were pretty good about it but I kept my eye on the cables for them and for complex shots where they needed the freedom to move I held the cables out of their way while operating the boom; The Rode boom I have is extremely lightweight even with the mic attached which made it very easy to operate for longer periods of time and even one-handed.
The daytime on Sunday I spent an hour or so with Harry and his friend he had brought down from Sacramento to do the voice-over for Hot Diggity Dawg, and then that night I proceeded to post and sound design which was the most fun on this one as it called for a little "enhancement" and the use of sound design elements really helped sell what was happening on screen.
The first shot where Troy slaps Daren's hand away I utilized several sounds layered in over the production sound track. The swish sound of a whip through the air and a separate bullwhip crack together with the sound of Daren's hand being slapped and the ruffle of the Doritos bag sit well in the mix that really draw the attention to the fact that he's getting his hand slapped away.
The biggest sound design elements I took my time with but still went really fast to make were the whooshes in and out of Troy's delusional dancing around in his head. The first whoosh I used several layered elements including the noise of the water running in the sink I had recorded the other night, and some quick on-the-spot recordings I did with my mouth to mimic wind. I processed these all heavily and mixed them together to get the final sound. I used some parallel processing of dry and processed with some distortion, delay, and lots of reverb. The result are some very crunchy and in your face whooshes that I pushed even further in the final mix for the comp. The final element was an orchestral cue I had created just a sustained chord.
The last element was the record scratch sound, and I re-used the whip noises for the butt-slap. Doritos has a ton of assets they provide for the contest which includes music. The rules are also extremely specific and limiting for the contest but I believe by sticking with the actual music from the contest assets they provide (which is what they specify) and venturing just a little bit outside of that for the orchestral cue just from my own sampler library and triggered with a midi keyboard, we were breaking the rules in just enough of the right ways.
Another mixing decision that the rules were a bit vague on (they specify that you are not allowed to alter the music assets) was "Lo-fi" affecting the classical song that plays in the beginning to emulate the sound coming off a flat-panel TV, Band-Passed EQ very heavily compressed and then a subtle distortion applied after compression. All in all I edited audio late into the night (about 4 am) into Monday morning.
Monday morning however I had to be up at 7 AMto meet at Mok's location at 7:30 AM to shoot our final commercial he had thought up just the other day. Running on just a few hours of sleep we were all a little tired and tried to get into it quickly. Dewitt also had to be at work after 10 AM so we had to get as much as we could shot with him before he had to go.
I had to operate the camera this time and got to cut my teeth some more on cinematography helping Michael get all the shots he wanted for this one, but even then the idea was so simple and quick there wasn't much to do. A big factor in the difference between this one and the previous two is Natural light. His open window with the blinds provided much of the light, but we still used some CFLS to help fill in, as well as Michaels new portable LED panel to accent key light.
I'd like to point out that shooting with the Sony Z1u I was happiest with the look of this video out of everything else we've shot on that camera. It's an older one though it does HD well it's anamorphic (squeezed pixels at 1440x1080), and due to the age of the sensor even with a nice big lens it doesn't look very crisp especially when you starve the sensor of light. The lighting on this commercial definitely came out the best, all the others just felt under-lit.
Some thoughts on music scoring and comedy:
A few things I noticed when it came to this contest in particular is that working under constraints can be very rewarding in ways you weren't expecting. Before we had finished editing we were still looking up all the rules for the contest and I was expecting to be able to write original score material. And, while I noticed with a fair bit of examining competitive content on the crashthesuperbowl website had broken a few rules, all of them had some kind of score or use of music to it. I don't think there was a single contest entry up that didn't utilize at least the music provided by the contest, some went so far as to make music the gimmick by having kids rap about Doritos or something to that effect, but very few if any featured any kind of scoring outside of the approved assets.
While it would have been nice to create custom music to make our commercial stand out that much more, we were already under time constraints and to our surprise the music they provided actually proved to be very easy to get the mood we were looking for.
On a side note, congrats to Trials & Memories on their hard work and effort over the year working on their album. The EP Hits local shelves and online Black Friday:
My first commercial work with orchestration is on all 4 tracks at over 30 minutes for the EP and the full length album will be 11 tracks which I will be working on starting next year.
Thanks for reading, and as always these are just my opinions. Most importantly I like to hear others' opinions, suggestions, and commentary on these topics. Feel free to leave comments, they're much appreciated!
First, take a look at the behind the scenes I put together:
Hope you enjoyed that, it was definitely fun working on these 3 shoots on 3 days, even despite the long odd hours! Let's take a short trip back to Thursday the 17th. Harry and Michael contact me to ask me to help out with some commercials they wanted to shoot and they had put together a couple scripts for their separate ideas. I get the scripts in email and read through them roughly. That night we went to the house where we were to shoot Hot Diggity Dawg and plan out lighting and camera angles.
The idea was pretty simple and according to how he wanted to shoot it pretty much a majority of the audio would be built in post. So on production evening the next night: Friday, I brought my Rode NTG3 and my Audio Technica AT3035 and ran some creative mic placement with the AT3035 in different positions in the room for when we did voice takes for when Lori had to say her lines.
I should mention that Friday before the shoot, Michael and Courtney showed up here before to do some quick foley session for all the sound elements we would need. We had just enough time to record all the material. That night Mok came by after and we dubbed the tape and brought it into a project to start a rough build, as well as capturing a separate session for the Door and gargle noises. I didn't get to start cutting and editing the sound recordings until Sunday.
The first Foley session with the chip and bag noises I set up out in my living room for a large open space. I used my Audio Technica AT3035 running through a snake which fed into an RME Fireface 800, and an SE Electronics Reflexion Filter on a 2nd mic stand (those things are beastly and heavy). Michael was more than happy to oblige eating Pork Rinds and Tostitos, I actually had him stand almost a foot away from the mic even with a low gain.
The 2nd half of the session I brought the mic down toward the floor, and the Reflexion Filter as well. We have a huge area rug but I brought in a small thick carpet mat and laid it down and covered it with a coupe strips of plastic wrap. We did a few takes with a pair of sandals crunching on Pork Rinds, and then the same with Tostitos. Then, we removed the thick carpeted mat and just did it again on the area rug which a much harder surface. Several passes of "pitter patter" in various configurations.
Later that night for the 2nd session, I employed my AT3035 outside the bathroom door in the hallway with the reflexion filter on for more direct sound and less room interference, close proximity to the door.
The NTG3 was placed inside the bathroom aimed down toward the sink, and then after a couple takes aimed up toward Mok. The room tone inside the bathroom is very prominent but the door sounds after the gargles used the NTG3 aimed directly toward the door handle. I decided I'd share these with everyone.
Notes about samples provided: All the samples provided below are recorded at 96k / 24-bit and are provided in mono microsoft .wav format. These are the raw unprocessed cuts, no processing, noise reduction or manipulation have been applied (not even gain adjustment).
Copyright notice: These are provided free for use in any form private or commercial use and I don't even require credit for use or duplication. Feel free to share, distribute, edit, mangle, destroy and make the sounds into whatever you like, for whatever you like.
Bathroom Gargle & Door.zip
- Size: 4.28 mb
- 4 files
- Size: 7.84 mb
- 19 files
- Size: 9.45 mb
- 13 Files
- Size: 16.41 mb
- 12 files
Saturday I spent most of my time processing and cleaning up audio making cuts to Hot Diggity Dawg and revising, all before production was supposed to start for It Takes A Lady. We were to meet at Mok's location for shooting at 5pm.
When I got there everyone was setting up lighting and rehearsal.
The same two mics were used for all three commercials: Audio Technica AT3035 for room tone and ambience, and the Rode NTG3 on the boom for dialog and close-up. We shot a ton of material that didn't make it into the 30 second spot, but perhaps later on we'll post up the 1 minute spot that the full commercial could have been.
I placed the AT3035 right along the right wall just passed the cable hanging from the window sill to pick up a wide stereo effect for the scene where Troy Allen gets a kiss-assault on the couch. I boomed the NTG3 slightly left overhead to pick up the left hand grabbing the couch and the AT3035 picked up the whole wall early reflections and movement ruffles Troy did when slamming himself into his seat for dramatic effect. The Rode also helped for getting the close up of Arielle in her heels when she steps into frame as Troy Allen looks up at her in shock. I blended the two mics to get just enough room tone and low-end to give some body to the heel sound but still have the prominent click for the impact on the hardwood floor that made it a definitive heel sound.
It was difficult working in some tight spaces between the wall and the couches even with a long boom as trying to get the angles right for all the actor movements would tend to fall out of the scope of the mic or in the case of dialog with head rotation would cause severely noticeable off-axis sonic characteristics because of the narrow field of focus for the shotgun mic. Luckily in the best takes that we used for the final cuts those issues weren't a problem.
One thing i tried to keep in mind as production sound mixer and boom operator is what the camera operator's position is dealing with. During the productions we had 3 connections running to the camera (2 XLR's for phantom powered mics, and headphones so I could monitor sound).
Both mics were run with 50 foot cables so there's a lot of free cable all around the floor, and my heaphones (a pair of Sennhieser HD280 pros) are a much shorter length coiled cable. One solution I tried was to use velcro cable wrap to attach to the operator and hang some of the cable up through his belt-loop. However, Michael and Harry both were switching the camera between them fairly often so this became impractical.
They were pretty good about it but I kept my eye on the cables for them and for complex shots where they needed the freedom to move I held the cables out of their way while operating the boom; The Rode boom I have is extremely lightweight even with the mic attached which made it very easy to operate for longer periods of time and even one-handed.
The daytime on Sunday I spent an hour or so with Harry and his friend he had brought down from Sacramento to do the voice-over for Hot Diggity Dawg, and then that night I proceeded to post and sound design which was the most fun on this one as it called for a little "enhancement" and the use of sound design elements really helped sell what was happening on screen.
The first shot where Troy slaps Daren's hand away I utilized several sounds layered in over the production sound track. The swish sound of a whip through the air and a separate bullwhip crack together with the sound of Daren's hand being slapped and the ruffle of the Doritos bag sit well in the mix that really draw the attention to the fact that he's getting his hand slapped away.
The biggest sound design elements I took my time with but still went really fast to make were the whooshes in and out of Troy's delusional dancing around in his head. The first whoosh I used several layered elements including the noise of the water running in the sink I had recorded the other night, and some quick on-the-spot recordings I did with my mouth to mimic wind. I processed these all heavily and mixed them together to get the final sound. I used some parallel processing of dry and processed with some distortion, delay, and lots of reverb. The result are some very crunchy and in your face whooshes that I pushed even further in the final mix for the comp. The final element was an orchestral cue I had created just a sustained chord.
The last element was the record scratch sound, and I re-used the whip noises for the butt-slap. Doritos has a ton of assets they provide for the contest which includes music. The rules are also extremely specific and limiting for the contest but I believe by sticking with the actual music from the contest assets they provide (which is what they specify) and venturing just a little bit outside of that for the orchestral cue just from my own sampler library and triggered with a midi keyboard, we were breaking the rules in just enough of the right ways.
Another mixing decision that the rules were a bit vague on (they specify that you are not allowed to alter the music assets) was "Lo-fi" affecting the classical song that plays in the beginning to emulate the sound coming off a flat-panel TV, Band-Passed EQ very heavily compressed and then a subtle distortion applied after compression. All in all I edited audio late into the night (about 4 am) into Monday morning.
Monday morning however I had to be up at 7 AMto meet at Mok's location at 7:30 AM to shoot our final commercial he had thought up just the other day. Running on just a few hours of sleep we were all a little tired and tried to get into it quickly. Dewitt also had to be at work after 10 AM so we had to get as much as we could shot with him before he had to go.
I had to operate the camera this time and got to cut my teeth some more on cinematography helping Michael get all the shots he wanted for this one, but even then the idea was so simple and quick there wasn't much to do. A big factor in the difference between this one and the previous two is Natural light. His open window with the blinds provided much of the light, but we still used some CFLS to help fill in, as well as Michaels new portable LED panel to accent key light.
I'd like to point out that shooting with the Sony Z1u I was happiest with the look of this video out of everything else we've shot on that camera. It's an older one though it does HD well it's anamorphic (squeezed pixels at 1440x1080), and due to the age of the sensor even with a nice big lens it doesn't look very crisp especially when you starve the sensor of light. The lighting on this commercial definitely came out the best, all the others just felt under-lit.
Some thoughts on music scoring and comedy:
A few things I noticed when it came to this contest in particular is that working under constraints can be very rewarding in ways you weren't expecting. Before we had finished editing we were still looking up all the rules for the contest and I was expecting to be able to write original score material. And, while I noticed with a fair bit of examining competitive content on the crashthesuperbowl website had broken a few rules, all of them had some kind of score or use of music to it. I don't think there was a single contest entry up that didn't utilize at least the music provided by the contest, some went so far as to make music the gimmick by having kids rap about Doritos or something to that effect, but very few if any featured any kind of scoring outside of the approved assets.
While it would have been nice to create custom music to make our commercial stand out that much more, we were already under time constraints and to our surprise the music they provided actually proved to be very easy to get the mood we were looking for.
On a side note, congrats to Trials & Memories on their hard work and effort over the year working on their album. The EP Hits local shelves and online Black Friday:
My first commercial work with orchestration is on all 4 tracks at over 30 minutes for the EP and the full length album will be 11 tracks which I will be working on starting next year.
Thanks for reading, and as always these are just my opinions. Most importantly I like to hear others' opinions, suggestions, and commentary on these topics. Feel free to leave comments, they're much appreciated!
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