Interviews Recorded Outside - First Project post *Post* Internship

[82Downing]

Good Day Professionals -

Just finished my first internship at a post house in NYC, and now I'm going to give a stab at polishing a 22 minute indie docu all by myself. Yippeee! The piece consists of interviews of five different female hip hop artist, all recorded outside using a Zoom H4. The interviews are then juxtaposed with a live performance by each individual artist. There are three sources of sound: Zoom, camera, and board (live performances.) I have a general game plan, but I'm really concerned about the dialogue outside so since this is THE place to come for newbie questions, here we go:

1. Each interview has completely different background noises, what would be the best way to even them out and give the appearance of one unified interview?
2. Would anyone have a workflow they'd like to share, or know of a book or tutorial on what to focus on during each pass?
3. Any other general tips/tricks?

I use ProTools LE w/DV Toolkit, Waves and Izotope RX for repair.

Thanks a LOT.

[Bill@AudioVision]

Of the interviews, I would note what sounds are common to all and which are unique. Hi pass filtering can help and/or mild expansion to take care of general rumble. Try to add what's missing to the cleanest interview from what's in the noisiest. In other words, if there's more traffic sound in one interview, try adding a little to the others. Also, your general mix technique could help smooth things. For instance, have the interviews start and stop with the live performances faded under, to soften the transition.
Try to avoid over-processing the interviews, but keep an ear on intelligibility with some mild upper mid-band EQ.

[Jfriah]

Smartass reply #1: Welcome to the party. Apparently you weren't consulted BEFORE they decided to use a Zoom H4 outside with probably just the onboard mic.

I was just called on in an 'emergency' situation from a production currently shooting (that we'll be posting) "we need to know if you have any way of cleaning this gawdawful noise...or what our options are: ADR/Reshoot"

Another 'external mic into Digital SLR' down 'n' dirty shoot for this particular piece of it. Noise floor was broadband and measured -15dB (!!!) and DIA peaked at 0.

My answer was "reshoot". I went through the NR motions (noise reduction for you OP) in various ways and they heard them and agreed. Then I asked "who the hell did the recording?!? And why didn't they hear that on the headphones?!?!?"

Answer was that they contracted another company even though WE are doing final audio post. "Sorry about that; guess we learned our lesson on this one"





-----now to address your questions: there really is no 'common starting ground' without hearing your materials. Definitely EQ / rolloffs and things like C4 multiband comp will help--as may FILL in order to do judicious voluming around the words.

Good luck. I feel your pain.

Jeff