Normalizing film dubs

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by jason kanter

Apologies if this has been covered previously but I'm about to turn the 5.1 as well as the stereo mixes over to my director for a DVD pressing. This is an indie feature release that the director plans to submit to festivals and hopefully get some sort of theater release. He'll be encoding the 5.1/St to Dolby E utilizing Final Cut(Compressor).

The mixes are uncompressed and my thinking is that I should normalize all the 5.1 tracks and then all the ST tracks since I've had bad experiences at festivals with projectionists who don't seem overly concerned with the sound levels from film to film.

Is there a protocol for this? Can anyone give me a reason why this would be a bad idea?

Thanks.

No. You do not do this, as you will wo not have a mix that represents the mix, as mixed at proper calibrated levels.


This isn't music mixing.

[philper]

Originally Posted by jason kanter

Apologies if this has been covered previously but I'm about to turn the 5.1 as well as the stereo mixes over to my director for a DVD pressing. This is an indie feature release that the director plans to submit to festivals and hopefully get some sort of theater release. He'll be encoding the 5.1/St to Dolby E utilizing Final Cut(Compressor).

The mixes are uncompressed and my thinking is that I should normalize all the 5.1 tracks and then all the ST tracks since I've had bad experiences at festivals with projectionists who don't seem overly concerned with the sound levels from film to film.

Is there a protocol for this? Can anyone give me a reason why this would be a bad idea?

Thanks.

Do you know where your peaks are, and how high they go? If you normalize all the way to 0 then on some system your peaks will probably distort. If you are having trouble with the dynamic range of the track the time to fix that was in the mix--overall compression will not sound good. Festival projection people will do what they do in any case, and smart directors arrive early and ask for a brief level-check before the show.

phil p

[Henchman]

And if the mix doesn't sound like a proper feature mix, well, then it wasn't mixed properly.
There is no magic "mastering" done to film and tv mixes after the fact, to make them sound the way they do. So as Philper said, no additional compression should be done to the mix.

[jason kanter]

Understood and thanks for the advice.

Just to clarify, I wasn't looking to compress the mix at all, I just didn't know if there was a normalization process that mixes underwent so that the peaks are at a certain level before being encoded for a DVD release.

I know it's not "kosher" to compress or normalize for a theater release but I also know that festival operators/projectionists can often have a set it and forget it mentality. I've had my mixes playback too low before due to other films that were mixed above reasonable levels. I'm not looking to participate in a volume war but I don't want to have a mix that loses intelligibility due to dynamics either.

Thanks.

[Henchman]

When I am mixing something that I know will probably only play at a festival, and after that on tv, I mix it at 82.

What was your mix level?

[jason kanter]

That makes sense. My room is small so I mix at 79.

[thermisonic]

Originally Posted by jason kanter

Apologies if this has been covered previously but I'm about to turn the 5.1 as well as the stereo mixes over to my director for a DVD pressing. This is an indie feature release that the director plans to submit to festivals and hopefully get some sort of theater release. He'll be encoding the 5.1/St to Dolby E utilizing Final Cut(Compressor).

Do you mean Dolby Digital? Compressor only does ac3 AFAIK.

A further complication with this kind of film is whether the DVDs are for festival submission or festival screening. Feature film dynamic range on a submission DVD is a bad idea as the festival programmers will probably listen on small TV speakers or laptop with headphones. Obviously you would want feature film dynamic range for a screening DVD, though typically only smaller festivals will play DVD (projectionists hate screening DVD for obvious picture quality reasons).

In other words, you may need to give the director both.

Hope this helps,

Rob Walker AMPS

[jason kanter]

Ooops- yes, I meant AC3.

Good idea about the dual mixes for festivals.

Thanks.