Low $ for film recording.

[em0070]

I am looking to set up a good but inexpensive digital recording studio for film making.

My editing software is Adobe premiere pro 1.5 on a new p4 designed for video editing.

I am a newbie so any suggested reading or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks
E

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by XHipHop

why is that?

Becasue there's so much to know. It's not like music. If you screw up your levels for layback, you can end up owing more than your getting paid for the gig, to fix it.

I suggest anyione wanting to do audio-post, to learn from people actually doing it.
Not by reading forums.

[radiospace]

Are you trying to set this 'recording studio' up as a business, or to edit and mix sound for your own low-budget film and video projects?

[em0070]

Not for a business. Trying to wet my feet in indie film production. I'll need it to capture and layer sound tracks. ADR, foley, music production.

[radiospace]

Obviously you're aware that the main component of film sound is recorded on the set, not in a recording studio (unless your movie is *set* in a recording studio ).

Without knowing what kind of films you are gonna be making and the level of production value you are shooting for it's hard to be specific, but it's good to keep in mind that most low-budget stuff is going to avoid ADR (except in cases of emergency), and not do a lot of Foley either. Having your own Foley studio is obviously tough because of the need for the dedicated space with all the surfaces (wood, gravel, etc.) built into it, plus the need for separate video monitoring for the Foley artist. In either case if you aren't going for "Big Hollywood" production values you can probably set those two needs on the back burner, because the "Indie" aesthetic, such as it is, is pretty forgiving when it comes to sound.

If I was doing low-budget films and needed to record sound effects, I'd plan on doing it in the field, and so focus on getting a good field recording kit. With today's technology if you have a shot of someone walking across a metal bridge in cleats you could probably just send them out there with the field kit and a laptop computer and do the "Foley" right there on the spot. (I've actually never heard of anyone doing this, but there's always gotta be a first for everything.)

A sound effects CD library is a very useful thing, but a very expensive thing as well. I would imagine by this point in time there's gotta be somebody offering a service on the internet where you download effects and pay-as-you-go? That would work better for a low-budget situation than purchasing an entire library, most of which you will never use.

As far as ADR, just try to get a good, clean take on the set. In some kind of do-it-yourself ADR setup, your biggest problem is going to be matching the ambience of the original recording. (In big Hollywood flicks, not such an issue when there is the constant roar of explosions going off as Bruce Willis shouts "duck!"; in a Woody-Allenesque drama, more of an issue....) If you are less experienced at audio and don't have a lot of nice (expensive) reverb plug-ins, you might struggle with this.

You should be able to do sound editing in your video software. If not you might consider upgrading to a better editing suite (Final Cut Pro perhaps) that has better sound features. But for mixing you'd be better off with a dedicated audio software package (you *can* get a decent mix in Final Cut Pro but it's extremely time consuming as everything has to be rendered), and since you indicate an interest in producing music you'll obviously need audio software for that, anyway. Since you're on a budget I'm inclined to recommend Cubase SE, which works on both Mac and Windows and is easy to learn. ($99). Not sure how limited its features are, though. Cubase SL ($299) and Cubase SX ($600) are improved versions, respectively. Obviously you'd like for the software to be able to play back Quicktime movies in sync with the sound, but believe it or not this is not an absolute necessity for mixing if you are intimately familiar with the project. I know that Cubase SX can play back Quicktime movies, but I'm unsure of the two lesser versions I've mentioned.

I feel for film mixing the most important tool is to be able to EQ quickly, especially with low-quality production sound tracks. (In part because you should be able to mix your levels in your video application without a lot of difficulty). Therefore I would recommend that you investigate an inexpensive MIDI controller with knobs for the specific purpose of controlling the EQ pots in whatever software you end up with. You will have to be responsible for making sure that whatever you get actually works with your software, naturally. Hopefully there's something less expensive than a Mackie Control that will do the trick.

If you intend to do voice overs you will want a fairly good mic for that, a pop screen, and perhaps a pair of closed-ear headphones.

In short I would spend most of your money on a good field microphone (with a boom and a 'zeppelin', etc.), a reasonable field mixer, and...good, quiet locations. Seriously though, the best thing you can do for yourself is capture good sound on the set.

As far as the music stuff there's tons of great information on here about recording music, but just try to get stuff that works for both your film purposes and for your music purposes. In other words a single, decent large-diaphragm condensor microphone can be used for voiceover, miking guitars, and singing into. Etc.

Probably the best advice I can give you is find a forum that is more specifically dedicated to film sound and ask this question again. Maybe at one of the creative planet communities? (For example: http://www.uemedia.net/CPC/2-pop/index.shtml).

Good luck.

[radiospace]

p.s. You need to carefully research the OMF capabilities of both your video software and your audio software if you are going to mix outside of your video editing software. If it doesn't work right, and with budget software it well might not, you can actually manually export each track of audio from Final Cut Pro as a mono audio file (use a '2-pop' to be safe), line them up in Cubase, mix down to stereo, export the stereo file back into FCP, then line it up with the original 2-pops again. Of course timecode alone should ensure sync but if using a hairbrained method like this I'd give yourself some peace of mind with audible sync pops on each track.

(I only keep using FCP as an example because I'm unsure of Premiere's capabilties in terms of audio).

EDIT: I see you've got a PC so obviously Final Cut Pro is not an option; if you ever find Premiere lacking your best best then would be Avid Express (or is it Avid Xpress?).

[Albert]

The audio component of Premiere is Adobe Audition. If you want to get your audio out of that to ProTools or pretty much any other format, you need buy a program called "EDL Convert". I'm going through this now, where the editor is cutting the film in Premiere but the audio post production is going to be done here in LA in ProTools. You'd think that Audition would at least be able to save as an OMFI file, but no.

[7161]

two words - SONY VEGAS

realtime video preview without any special h/w, inc' preview of fx... and it's based on ACID (was originaly made by sonic foundry until sony bought them) so the audio section is top! - full multitrack, plenty of included audio fx inc multiband comps, etc etc, and dead easy time stretching for audio AND video (just hold CTRL and drag the clip, it's as simple as that)

i've tried the aweful complicated mess that is Premier, and VEGAS is a total revelation after that - I wouldnt use anything else. If you also get the bundle with DVD Architect, dvd authoring is a total breeze, drag & drop, easy tree-based menus, easy titling, a built-in testing 'remote' handset & preview etc - brilliant stuff! - one of the best s/w's ive ever used in any genre.

check it out - oh yeah and it works with ASIO soundcards for low latency stuff

[Albert]

Does Sony Vegas do HD?

[joeq]

nothing is more painful to watch than an indie film with bad sound. If folks can't _effortlessly hear what the actors are saying, they will tune out.


radiospace gave you a ton of great suggestions, but his best advice is about 3/4 of the way down his reply:

put your focus on capturing the dialog at the source. A good shotgun with a windscreen.

I would also suggest a wireless mic or two for those shots where there is no place for the boom guy to hide.

[XHipHop]

Originally Posted by joeq

nothing is more painful to watch than an indie film with bad sound. If folks can't _effortlessly hear what the actors are saying, they will tune out.


radiospace gave you a ton of great suggestions, but his best advice is about 3/4 of the way down his reply:

put your focus on capturing the dialog at the source. A good shotgun with a windscreen.

I would also suggest a wireless mic or two for those shots where there is no place for the boom guy to hide.

On an off-topic note, does anyone else find Reservoir Dogs very hard to understand? I wish they recorded the dialogue better.

[Joe Egan]

Originally Posted by em0070

Not for a business. Trying to wet my feet in indie film production. I'll need it to capture and layer sound tracks. ADR, foley, music production.

If you're talking about recording and editing ADR and Foley, you aren't talking about low-budget indie stuff. If you do a good job of location recording you won't need to do ADR. Once you start down the "fix it in post" path, you're looking at hiring good recordists and editors and spending time in expensive studios.

Buy a MKH416 with a rycote and a good boom. Get a couple good wireless lavalier mics. Get a good pair of sealed headphones. Check out the new Edirol R4 (I think that's the model) location recorder. It's got a lot of features and I haven't seen anything that looks like it for thee price. Learn how to get good location sound and it will pay off in the back end.

For instance: Imagine you're shooting on a busy city street. A bus slowly rumbles past the actors, obsuring half a line. If you ADR that line, you have to replace the dialogue and all the natural sound that is happening in the ajacent lines. You'll have to recreate the sound of the bus, the footsteps and walla of the pedestrians, the traffic, the wind, you get the point. If the actor whose line was obscured had been wearing a lav, or if the shotgun had been tighter, you might have been able to save the two or three hours it will take to fix that line.