Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Clarification on usage of prod. audio - and dialog

mattiasnyc · 12th March 2010

Thank you so much for your (VERY fast) reply Derek.

So one more thing then -

I understand everything you mentioned here and it all makes perfect sense. But it seems that there is a huge difference in the time one has to spend then between cutting out the non-dialog nat sound on tape and putting it on its own track, versus simply cleaning dialog up and leaving that stuff in.

So, when is that decision made and by whom.

Most of my work has been relatively low budget stuff (we're talking 6 figures or below rather than above), and I've ended up delivering stems for a different engineer to spread out to 5.1. At this budget-level everyone is concerned about time and I've simply left the non-dialog nat sound in because nothing else was feasable. There was either no time or no budget to foley "everything", and there have never been any delivery specs that clearly stated what you just said.

So assuming a bit higher profile work: Would this split out be specified in a spec-sheet or would I be told this by some supervisor?

Also another question if you don't mind:

If I have a dialog track and cut out the dialog, I'd perhaps then create room tone to go between the lines in the scene, to make the whole thing seamless. Now, suppose I also take the stuff located on set that is possibly useful (door openings etc) and put that on it's own track (PFX=ProductionFX?).

Seeing that all of this have a certain "tone" to it, and perhaps noise, how would you treat the issue of "fill", or "room tone" when you now aren't just going between that and dialog, but in addition PFX? Would you just have the tone/fill lay in there throughout the scene under both dialog/PFX, or would you cut it out whenever either of those is playing back, or?...

I'm just not sure how much should be left to the mix-engineer to deal with.

12th March 2010	#40
mattiasnyc Gear maniac Joined: Sep 2007 Posts: 269	Thank you so much for your (VERY fast) reply Derek. So one more thing then - I understand everything you mentioned here and it all makes perfect sense. But it seems that there is a huge difference in the time one has to spend then between cutting out the non-dialog nat sound on tape and putting it on its own track, versus simply cleaning dialog up and leaving that stuff in. So, when is that decision made and by whom. Most of my work has been relatively low budget stuff (we're talking 6 figures or below rather than above), and I've ended up delivering stems for a different engineer to spread out to 5.1. At this budget-level everyone is concerned about time and I've simply left the non-dialog nat sound in because nothing else was feasable. There was either no time or no budget to foley "everything", and there have never been any delivery specs that clearly stated what you just said. So assuming a bit higher profile work: Would this split out be specified in a spec-sheet or would I be told this by some supervisor? Also another question if you don't mind: If I have a dialog track and cut out the dialog, I'd perhaps then create room tone to go between the lines in the scene, to make the whole thing seamless. Now, suppose I also take the stuff located on set that is possibly useful (door openings etc) and put that on it's own track (PFX=ProductionFX?). Seeing that all of this have a certain "tone" to it, and perhaps noise, how would you treat the issue of "fill", or "room tone" when you now aren't just going between that and dialog, but in addition PFX? Would you just have the tone/fill lay in there throughout the scene under both dialog/PFX, or would you cut it out whenever either of those is playing back, or?... I'm just not sure how much should be left to the mix-engineer to deal with.