music for film.... HELP ME!!!

[daveytinners]

Hi there,

I've been put on the spot a little here and am in need of help pretty sharpish.
I've just been put on a session tomorrow that involves recording some music for a film. We're mainly a tracking studio, and to be honest I don't know why something like this hasn't ever appeared before but it hasn't. So needless to say after recording band after band during my time here, being asked to do this has caught me off guard slightly.

Obviously the recording aspect is fine. The thing that I'm concerned about is the time code and syncing aspects which I've never ever touched on before.
Apparently the video will be playing in protools and the musicians will be cued by the video. On cue the recordings will occur at specific time points throughout the duration of the film (I guess that this is normal, 101 stuff).

I've just got to track a few violins and such, then export the files as their individual comped edits along with a mon mix tracked at the same time.
I've done a tad of video using pro tools before, but nothing that was in anyway serious, it's just literally the file formats and exporting that I'm concerned with. I understand that these files will need to appear in the exact same places within a different project when moved on to the next stage of the production. Making that happen is something I have no idea about. I'm a total newbie at this end of things.

So considering what I've told you what will I need to be doing. I'm running PTHD 8. I've got PTLE 8 at home so I can have a practice run. The studio and myself also have logic pro though it isn't my preferred sequencer.

Any help would be massively appreciated. The session is in about 12 hours and most of that consists of sleeping. As a smart person would've done, I did actually turn it down, but no one else was available to do it either so unfortunately I've been thrown in at the deep end.

Dave.

[terminal3]

Ideally you should find out from the next person in the chain what they want regarding formats and how they want them bounced. Last time I did music for film the dubbers wanted stems of all my score (did a strings/synth stem, a piano/celesta stem, a percussion/fx stem and a bass stem) - this as opposed to a full mix or individual tracks. So I bounced out full-length stems out of Pro Tools (all from zero/the beginning of picture - had to do one group at a time of course) - and they wanted 16/48 WAVs.

This isn't to say though that maybe they don't want full mixes - it depends on how complex the dub will be. I've seen everything from "proper film dubs" to "we're gonna drop the finished tracks into Final Cut Pro, adjust the clip gain on the camera tracks and layback to tape." So that's why you just gotta ask...

Basically, just make sure that everything is lined up fine - if there's no pop tone or anything supplied, just tell them "the session starts when the movie you gave me starts." Should be all good as long as there are no framerate shenanigans.

Hopefully the movie you're working with has a timecode window burn, that will make life much easier too as I would assume that the musicians will be able to see the ref. video on a monitor... nice big numbers, if they need 'em. You can get into streamers and stuff at this point too but without any notice it's not something you can really drop in at the last second, so you might need to shift stuff around. I would often record a cue with no streamer but I would come in late, so I'd have to back it all up, but as long as I 'ran long' everything would be OK - editing on the fly isn't that tough if the programme isn't too long.

On larger productions a music editor might be employed to help shoehorn everything into the right spots too, but that of course depends on budget/need.

Best of luck!

[surflounge]

ProTools postproduction info:
Musical Score to Picture: Get Reliable Inspiration

[gsilbers]

it will problably have time code burn in so syn in up and tell them to tell you what timecode is in . drop frame? film? pal (not likley)

you can have one main sesison to do everything or several depending on the size of it all.

one thing to think about is the metronome and the production track and or sequences made in the composers DAW.

cause u have to import the metronome midi into pro tools. maybe theyll be supplied as an audio file maybe midi.

maybe have separate cues or a fast way of soloing dialog, sampled music and or production track and or temp score.

the movie file has to be any format quicktime and less compressed the better, so try not to get a h264 or mp4 as those are usually for internet streaming and take a toll on PT processing.


as for export formats, it depends on the project and the mixer/composer as to how tight and organized the recording sync should be, thus if they import your recording via session data or audio file they know exactly where each cue is. it has to be stupid proof as u never know what others know.

i learnt the hard way cause a team working an a movie had this way of syncing stuff:
there is a time code and the audio starts 2 bars before the start of the audio file. so you synced 2 bars before the timecode.
which not only can get confusing but some cues had many time signature changes and some in the 1st 8 bars of a cue.

so get that part figured cause it can create chaos if u arent sure and the others are not sure. but it depends. some composers will know exactly where those strings goes others will struggle with sync.

[sonnykeyes]

Originally Posted by daveytinners

The session is in about 12 hours and most of that consists of sleeping. As a smart person would've done, I did actually turn it down, but no one else was available to do it either so unfortunately I've been thrown in at the deep end.

So what happened?

Sonny Keyes
Ricochet Audio
Toronto