panning Q from non pro

[canopener]

I'm helping a friend do sound and scoring for his no to low budget promo video for his/my private school. It's a giving back kind of thing. And it's turning into a doc and he wants to put it on DVD and Blue Ray. Now, I'm a composer/orchestrator who has done a lot of work in high end film and done some low end scores on my own, most of which I mixed myself. I don't totally suck. But I'm not a sound editor/dubbing mixer. My friend is using Final Cut Pro and he's sending me VO and stereo background sound on separate tracks. What's the usual approach for panning backgrounds (if 'backgrounds' is the right terminology) or do you mess with that at all?

Thanks very much for helping out this very non post pro with any advise if you can.

Jim

[canopener]

Okay, too much useless info in the first post. Let me re-phrase. I'm working with stereo production sound captured by a high end sony hd camera. The project is a documentary so there will be no panning effects. Just wondering if it's typical for the original capture to get hard panned L&R. Being a music guy, will hard panning get in the way of the score.

Thanks

[Uncle Bob]

About 99% of the time the dialog, VO, etc. is dead center in a stereo mix or the center speaker in a surround mix.

Other sounds will be panned as deemed artistically appropriate. (Believe it or not some docs use quite a bit of sound FX and Foley.) The key is to keep the dialog, VO, etc. understandable. Among the many "tricks" is to EQ things so that they don't conflict with the frequency range of the spoken voice. It's not unusual to "carve a hole" with EQ into the ambiences, sound FX and score so that there is space for the voices. In addition to the instrument choices and, of course, the volume of the score, it is also not unusual for the instrumentation of the score to be panned so that doesn't cause any conflicts . In addition to all of this I frequently listen in mono to assure that the dialog, VO, etc. is clear and understandable.

I'm sure that others will chime in with additional thoughts and corrections.

[canopener]

Thanks very much, Uncle Bob. I get the bit where the VO is king, queen and country. As to the other subtleties, I should have paid a great deal more attention to those aspects of the 'soundscape' while I was in the trenches. Never mind. Your comments are much appreciated.

Jim