What do you think about this new approach

[deadtrick]

Definitely looks like a great film, I'm sure the location sound mixer/recordist had one heck of a time capturing all of that audio.

[Pedantic Sound]

I'm not generally a huge fan of musicals, but I think I'll be seeing that one.

[Divercity]

Brilliant.I do feel sorry for whoever has to sync the orchestra and the vocals afterwards

[12ax7]

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It is very nice to see that there ARE folks ballsy enough to decide to use technology for the AVOIDANCE of "cheating" for a change!

I must admit that I have always wanted to be involved with this exact approach...

...But every time I ever even mentioned the idea (even hypothetically), all I got was eyerolls, facepalms, and outright laughter.

I really hope this works out well for these people.

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[Smallbudgetguru]

+1 to all that's been said. What an endeavor indeed!

Nice technical challenges for good reason.

It's the best of both worlds really, perform and shoot it like a live play, cut and post it like a dramatic feature. Awesome!

[Uncle Bob]

Sure, it's a challenge, but isn't it really capturing a live theatre performance on film - and you get to do retakes?

[Lion73]

Melodyne!

[ErikG]

I'd say a major issue is editing this different emotional and tempo based shots together... And then eventually rewriting that full score to chase the singers tempo on set...

A hugely ballsy, fun nightmare!

[Steven1145]

Wow! For once this might be a musical I'd like to see. Kudos to Simon Hayes the production sound mixer.

[Garret]

Wow maybe the next person to win an Oscar for best sound mixing of a Musical will actually have earned it.

[pethenis]

Great concept, definitely see the advantages in performance. Can you imagine the sense of "justice" the sound recorder will have when asking for a retake because something wasn't right, and getting it ;-)?

I'm sure if he/she is any good, most major acoustic problems will be delt with before the start of the recording, so it should sound great properly eq'd and compressed to fit with the orchestra.

"sounds great, but what's that hammering sound in the background? That my friend, is the sound of a pianist playing his mute 88 weighted keyboard, but I'm sure you have a plugin for that"

I do hope the picture-editor has a feel for music, otherwise this is going to be a lot harder to crack for the orchestra than the bizarre music-edits I get sometime. "yeah but it worked in the editsuite..." No it didn't....

[12ax7]

Originally Posted by ErikG

I'd say a major issue is editing this different emotional and tempo based shots together... And then eventually rewriting that full score to chase the singers tempo on set...

A hugely ballsy, fun nightmare!

I would think there'd have to be some pretty interesting judgement calls being made on set during shooting:

After the master shot was done, I'd think that (at least in some cases) the same keyboard track would serve for subsequent shots.

...Might also be doing a few "test edits" right there on set before moving on to the next shot/setup/scene.

If this thing ends up working really well (and the fact that this YouTube video exists indicates that they have every confidence that it will), it would be VERY nice to see a musical film wherein the lead vocals actually LEAD for a change!

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[SoundGuyIC]

I've always wanted to do something like this as well. Excited to see the final product!

[loois]

holy crap! soooo excited to see this!! other than having to watch crowe and jackman singing...cringe!

[soundboy]

Originally Posted by loois

holy crap! soooo excited to see this!! other than having to watch crowe and jackman singing...cringe!

Jackman has huge musical theater creds, and Crowe has had a band for years!

[eonomine]

Originally Posted by soundboy

Jackman has huge musical theater creds, and Crowe has had a band for years!

Indeed.. I believe a local band has even written a song in tribute to the greatness of Mr Crowe's musical output..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1DRTnP0gY8

[loois]

Originally Posted by soundboy

Jackman has huge musical theater creds, and Crowe has had a band for years!

haha, i don't doubt that jackman has, here's hoping his singing is better than his acting..
and i have seen clips of russell crowe's band...which was part of the reason why i was cringing...

Les Mis has been my favorite musical since i was a child, i guess i just got a little when i saw wolverine and the gladiator in the cast...

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by deadtrick

I'm sure the location sound mixer/recordist had one heck of a time capturing all of that audio.

No doubt, but I'm also pretty certain he'd have just taken it in his stride. Probably one of the best choices they could have made was getting him.

[its_in_da_mix]

Oh, that looks wonderful - and the result will be great, it works a treat!
First time I'm seeing it on this scale (cinema) , but the system is not new - the first time I worked this way was back in 1995 - last time a couple of months ago. Try working for a small-time public broadcaster who doesn't see the use of spending good money on prerecording songs for playback!

It's great fun (although timeconsuming of course) and very rewarding for the mixer - but the composer usually has very little hair left at the end of the run.

The work is worth it - especially in group songs, as every character is recorded separately, you can bring out the voices to follow the image edit, which simply works better for TV/cinema sound than simple playback, with a nice "even" music mix. And of course, the actors have the freedom to do what they like with their acting...

The one thing I always worry about is the actual mixing of the music - after all, I'm a dubbing mixer and not a music mixer, and they are different jobs, whichever way you look at it. So that makes me nervous. However, somehow, it always turns out OK in the end.
And I suppose a production like this one has top people for each specialty available.

So Barajevic: no need to be sceptical......

[zealen]

They can't record all the singing on location ? One scene in the trailer she is standing in the rain, you can't record singing in the rain? So they must do some "ADR singing" in post, or what do you think?

[sitbh]

Originally Posted by zealen

They can't record all the singing on location ? One scene in the trailer she is standing in the rain, you can't record singing in the rain? So they must do some "ADR singing" in post, or what do you think?

Some ADR was shot yes, but the scene you are referring to had a custom made rain machine built to make the water droplets so small, with a special material on the ground, to make the sound of rain barely there on the recording. Granted there was some bleed still.. but with library rain ontop of it, it's not noticeable.

[zealen]

Originally Posted by sitbh

Some ADR was shot yes, but the scene you are referring to had a custom made rain machine built to make the water droplets so small, with a special material on the ground, to make the sound of rain barely there on the recording. Granted there was some bleed still.. but with library rain ontop of it, it's not noticeable.

oh that's cool. So are they also going to use the recordings from the location to the Official Soundtrack ?

I know that when they did Mamma Mia Meryl Streep did sing on location like this too.

[kdm]

I think this is brilliant, esp. for a work like Les Miserables. The emotional aspect of the live performances should be stunning.

[Leverson]

There is a fantastic post about Les Miserables over on the JWSound forum, with production mixer Simon Hayes writing some really great posts about the process. Well worth a read, seems like a fantastic team effort by all departments involved.

Les Miserables, live singing.... - Current - Discussion Group