Time Compression for Filmscore

[Beauarts]

I recorded a filmscore the other night. Due to the circumstances - no one to work the video, trying to record 14 cues in 4 hours, etc - the time is off on a lot of them. I composed and timed them on computer but of course the ensemble(piano, violin, cello, flute + clarinet) was kind of all over the map tempo-wise. I tried to conduct but it seemed no one was following and after a while it started to hurt my arm. And then it was time to move along to the next piece. For the most part, they're not going to be terribly off. Maybe a couple seconds on a 30 second cue or 5-6 sec on one that is over a minute max.

I can edit and add a few bars or beats here or there but i suspect it could be 10+ hours to get it just so. Since I'm getting a flat rate to compose, record and mix, I'm not looking forward to putting in that kind of work. I already have 4x the time I should have spent just composing the music.

My question is, will the sound be affected if I compress or expand the music? Whats the best way to go about it?

I recorded onto a RADAR and will mix thru a Soundcraft Delta to CD. I have a G5 dual 1.8G but no music software on it except for Toast 6. I have Final Cut Pro 3, that's also the program the client is using to edit. I eventually was going to look into software editing for it but I just don't want to invest $500 or more right now. $100 or $200 i can swing if I have to and it would be nice if it would be something I can use for future projects. If it's a fairly quick simple operation, I can beg a favor from a local mastering engineer.

Help me out here guys if you can. The music is pretty good if I say so myself and the players sound great. I'll post some when it's done. The film is a documentary about Fallingwater, a house Frank Lloyd Wright designed.

Btw, the recording engineer miced the piano a little close and the hammer sound is a too prominent. Anyway to deal with that in the mix? Thanks,


Henry
Pittsburgh, PA

[AlphaDingo]

melodyne is the only this you should use for what you're talking about. You can speed up/ slow down without changing pitch, change key on polyphonic material etc. www.celemony.com

[andrewj]

... and Melodyne is the only one that corrects timing and pitch problems with nearly no loss in my opinion!

[minister]

first time is rough, eh?

do you self a favor and create click tracks next time, bring a metronome, a stop watch, and detail cue sheets and a score with timing and dead cue markings on it. or, at least prepare a video with punches and streamers so you can conduct cues. find a facility that can handle picture scoring and get a intern to run video. doing it wrong the first time becasue you wanted to save a few bucks always makes fixing it later more expensive and stressful...and makes you look bad. with a well-prepared click track you can do it with tempo shifts, accelerandos, decell, time signature shift...anything. in the old days, the composer worked with a music editor who carefully prepared cue sheets and punched holes in the mag stock (according to the 3=2 fomula of feet to seconds) and as the holes passed over the playback heads on the dubbers, you heard a pop or click. they could do sub frames and so virtually any tempo was available. i mean, how do you think carl stalling achieved all that craziness in sync?

what you are saying is you charged a flat fee (normal) but don't want to spend any money... well, i don't see how melodyne will help you. as good as it is, and even if it is the right tool, it is expensive, and there is a BIG learning curve to use it. there a lot of digital tools that can help you, from he old synclavier, to pro tools with beat detective, to time shift plug-ins to cubase to logic to wave shifter plug, to the dolby 585 time scaler to melodyne.

my suggetion to you is to sacrifice part of your fee -- chalk it up to a learning experience and not being properly prepared-- and take the files to an experienced editor who has the tools to sync to video and properly edit your music to the program.

[Beauarts]

It's not my 1st time, why would you think that? This is about the 6th filmscore project I've done. I had metronome markings and and a metronome i was using. I wasn't about to deal with headphones and click tracks. That would have taken a lot more time and been way less enjoyable.

Part of the problem was i had a limited time to record about twice as many cuts as normal so i was really pressed for time. Also the video wasnt cooperating and the intern who was supposed to run it was useless.

I'm now thinking I'll edit or I recall the RADAR has variable speed. I'm going to try that and see if the pitch change will bother me.

[minister]

sure it seems like no fun to have head phones and prepared click tracks... but it seems fun to try to fix out of sync cues later? and to try to fix them without the right tools?

believe me, i understand about tight schedules and small budgets. and unfortunately, there can't be an asterisk by your name in the credits says "did the best he could given the constraints, and it was only his 6th time out".

i was stupid once when i was producing a classical guitar CD and i was doing Vivaldi's guitar concerto. i thought, "how hard are these string parts be? i'll hire these amateur players from the suburban symph. cheap. it's just lots of tied whole notes, right?" NO! it suct! their intonation was terrible and they took three times as long to get results that were barley passable. ever try tuning violins after the fact? don't. i bit the bullet, learned my lesson, sacrificed part of my flat fee and brought in players from the saint paul chamber orchestra. less than an hour. done. great! poorer, but happier. (i did this with horn players on a commercial spot once too. they sucked big time...i had to re-record.)

the fact that you didn't schedule enough time for the session, or that there were more cues than you anticipated is part of the deal of being a work-for-hire composer. you have to manage it. and some jobs you have to cut your losses and deliver a pro product. next time, get more, money, anticipate what will be needed and tell the director or producer that, or make less money yourself, or tel the director, that for 'this much', i will only do 'this much'.

believe me, you will be better off hiring someone who has the tools and knowldge to do it. or, find a young punk who will do it for a little money. do you have black burst? can the RADAR resolve to black and chase LTC?

to learn more about the mechanics of film scoring, pick up earle hagen's scoring for films and advanced techniques for film scoring. karlin & wright's on the track. henry manicin's sounds and scores. complete guide to film scoring, by richard davis. the art of film scoring by george burt. from score to screen: sequencers, scores, and second thoughts : the new film scoring process by sonny kompanek. also, find articles by jeff rona.

film scoring has a craft just like composing does.

i get hired sometimes because the last guy the director hired screwed up the job, or didn't have the mental and physical tools.

[Beauarts]

Hey, thanks for the filmscoring reference sources. I'll look them up.

Well I did fine w/o the headphones + click for the other scores. Though those were jazz oriented with a drummer for the most part and this was classical/ambient style. Headphones for this would have taken another 30-60 minutes of setup/adjusting time that i couldnt afford. I'd also rather have the players hear and play off each other, that was critical for the writing i did. They did a very good job and they're all excellent players but that's part of the price I'm paying for the constraints during this session.

I'm more than a little burnt out on all this so i was trying to find some shortcuts, I guess I should know better. I composed some very nice pieces but I have to tell you, I don't know if i can keep doing this stuff. It's very draining and if i got paid about 3-4 times more than i did, that might almost make it worthwhile - almost. What all would you charge for 16 cues for 15-20 minures of music for a 5-piece ensemble?

[minister]

well, that 30 min. headphone setup might have saved you. and...the players should take one ear off to her intonation in the room -- don't pick up tuning from headphones. and sometimes, it is just the conductor using the click...

hey, who said film scoring was easy?

hey, i have worked on all sort of budgest, but for that, my composing fee would be, probably somewhere between 8-10 grand and then add anywhere from 2-5 grand for the players and the facilities. but i have done lessor scores for more, and greater scores for less. it all depends. it is a slippery business. often times, the documentary director says, i got 4 grand, that's it. can you do it? in one case, about 8 years ago, i said sure. but i recorded at my place, and put in a ton of time. and i was trying to build the reel. in another case, i got paid like $1500 to score a 7-10 minute piece, but it was a fabulous piece and it was a first job for an agency that was doing it pro-bono ... i ended up with a client who comes here frequently and pays my full room rate... sometimes the investment pays off....sometimes it doesn't....