Post Production Sound | Cyber Film School

2. Post Production Sound Work Flow

Production sound design: Picture Lock, Dialogue, Sound Design, Composition, Mixing, and Mastering, and the team of film artists that executes them.

By Glen Berry, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

There is no substitute for good location sound
Post Sound is a project unto itself
Post Production Sound mixing is an art

The 6 Steps of Post-Production Sound

At this introductory level, we can’t go into every single detail of each formal step in a post-production workflow. However, it’s to get a grasp on the steps we would go through on a professional project. That way we can have a goal to shoot for as we strive to improve the quality of our projects.

The six steps in the Post Production Sound workflow could be described as the following:

Picture Lock
Mastering Dialogue
Post-Production Sound Design
Composition
Mixing
Mastering (sweetening)

Picture Lock

No work can begin on the soundtrack until the picture and dialogue have been completed, or locked, by the editor. Picture lock is a milestone when the director (or producer, as the case may be) formally signs off on the edit.

There should be no changes to the image after the picture lock. If changes are made to the picture, the sound designer and the composer will have to reset and retime their work, which is wasteful, frustrating and unprofessional.

If you work in post-production audio, always make sure that the movie’s picture that is delivered to you is “locked”. before you work on timing or cues. If the picture changes afterward, your tracks may have to change as well.

Mastering Dialogue

Although the location sound department will make every effort to capture a clean, strong dialogue track, many production environments are less than ideal.

Humming, pops, hisses, or other noise may have been introduced to the soundtrack and need to be cleaned through the use of filters or equalization. Also, two actors in the same scene rarely have the same delivery volume. Adjusting relative levels of dialogue may be necessary.

At this point, a determination can be made whether the audio is usable or not. Dialogue that is too low in quality or was not recorded in production can be recorded at this stage with ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement).

Sound Design

The post-production sound designer is tasked with determining the placement of music and effects, as well as finding or creating all the necessary sound effects. We will expand on this task further in Sound Design and Effects.

This article is drawn from the “Sound” chapter in Cyber Film School’s
Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook

Composition

The composer’s job is to create original music for the movie with guidance from the director. Depending on the production, the sound designer will coordinate the sound effects and music with the composer. Regardless, the composer can begin his or her work as soon as the picture is locked.

The composer must be able to get a strong emotional read on what is happening on screen and be able to deliver a score that enhances, emphasizes and adds to the emotion of the movie.

Although a composer typically works by himself or herself away from the rest of the post-production team, they will have a great deal of influence on the overall feel of the picture and the emotional impact on the audience. We will expand on composition further in Music and the Short Film.

Mixing

An art in itself, post-production sound mixing is a critical step in the post audio process, and one that requires great care and good taste.

Mixing involves setting the relative volume levels of all of the tracks, as well as fades (ramping volume down) and swells (ramping volume up). All sounds at the same volume will yield an annoying cacophony of noises competing for the attention of the audience’s ear.

The mixer is part of the story-telling process, this is not simply a technical position. Choices made by the mixer can change perspective and, in some cases, make the difference in whether or not a scene works.

Music or sound effects can play the part of a character in the scene and the volume level of that track can tell us where that character is located relative to the current camera angle. A misread by the mixer can result in a critical sound effect being lost in the background, which has the potential to confuse or mislead the audience.

Pay careful attention to the mix, this is the time when all of your soundtrack elements come together.

Mastering

This final step in the process is the ‘fine tuning’ that evens out and enriches all of the elements of our soundtrack.

Like mastering dialogue, mastering the entire soundtrack is about removing undesirable sounds, most commonly through equalization and other filters that are applied to improve the quality of existing elements. This process is also called “Sweetening”.

Like mixing, mastering is part technique and part art and requires a well-developed ear and perhaps more importantly, good taste.

Again, although we might not go through every step in this process remember that each is important and push yourself to go through each stage. Post Production audio is the step that often receives the most pressure and receives the least attention.

This is the stage that loses the most from time wasted in the early stages of the process and suffers the most from poor planning and inexperience. This is also part of the moviemaking process where it is the easiest to add enormous value to your project for very little money.

Schedule time here and engage good people at this stage and you will be repaid tenfold in quality. It is the most predictable and easily controllable way to make your movie better.

SUMMARY

Post Production sound requires its own team of talented artists. Treat the process with respect and allot sufficient time and money to do it right.
You cannot fix lousy production audio in post-production and the actor’s dialogue cannot be quickly or accurately produced in post. Get it right the first time and you will be set for a strong soundtrack.
Mixing all of your audio together is an art in itself. If your engineer is not paying close attention to detail, essential information and carefully designed nuances can be lost.

NEXT >>>
SOUND DESIGN & EFFECTS
The role of the Sound Designer, types of sounds and Effects and their usage.

<<< PREVIOUS
INTRODUCTION TO THE SOUNDTRACK
The six elements of the soundtrack and the composition of each.

4. Music And The Short Film

How to obtain the right music for your piece, composing a score around music cues, sample based music, and working with a composer.

Contributed By Glen Berry, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

Canned Music Will Not Work
Composers Are Accessible
Loop Based Music Is Popular and Free

Although many moviemakers acknowledge the importance of music to the emotional impact of a movie, it is not always understood how to go about getting the right music in the soundtrack.

Pre-recorded Music

Novice moviemakers often make a connection between the term “soundtrack” as used by music marketers to sell a collection of songs used in a motion picture and the term “soundtrack” that we use to define the elements that accompany the movie’s picture. This leads many beginners to seek out pre-recorded songs, usually by popular bands, to paste in as ‘wallpaper’ in their motion picture.

This is a bad idea for two reasons – one being legal, the other creative:

The first, and least important (unless you get busted), is that it’s illegal. Yes, even in an amateur film, and yes – even in a student film. It is illegal to use a copyrighted piece without permission. You can seek permission from the rights holder and it may not be as difficult to obtain as you might imagine. Even if we didn’t want to obtain the rights, we might wink and nod at using a song without permission if it was actually an effective tactic. It is not.

The second reason why you shouldn’t use popular songs in your movie is that the emotional beats of the music are unlikely going to match the emotional beats of your movie. You can retime your images to match the music but then you will have a music video.

If you listen to how these kinds of songs are used in a Hollywood picture, you will realize they are not used as wallpaper. Even when a popular song is used in a big-budget movie, usually only part of the song is used in a scene, transition, or action sequence. An entire song might be used for a montage or the opening and closing credits. It is not pushed into the movie to drone on and on in the background under dialogue.

Presumably, you have an original story to tell and don’t want to make it conform to someone else’s concept using someone else’s timing and structure. Nor do you want to compete with an audience’s preconceived idea of what the popular song has come to represent.

Music Cues

If you have your own story to tell, you will likely want the music to conform to the picture, not the other way around. To do this, you will need to identify the emotional moments in your piece, the turning points, the climaxes of scenes, and the critical lines of dialogue. One can refer back to the “Dramatic Curve” to help identify these moments, called “cues”.

We explore the Dramatic Curve in scene construction in our article
“Build Your Shot List Like a Pro“.

A piece of music that is designed around cues that are in sync with events on the screen is called a “score”.

A score is created by a composer. The director must have a general sense of the cues in the scene, and what they want to accomplish with music in that scene – at least as a starting base when approaching a composer.

Working with Composers

The beginning filmmaker may often find the prospect of working with a composer to be a bit intimidating, and that is understandable.

However, there is no shortage of composers out in the world that are eager to work with filmmakers to create a score for a short film. Hundreds of them are found on film-related social media sites. Most will work for free or very little, and some are very skilled, talented and experienced.

This article is drawn from the “Sound” chapter in Cyber Film School’s
Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook

Even if the director is not music savvy, a competent composer can help guide the visualization to suit your vision. An able composer can help identify the cues in the picture and read the emotional content on the screen, then provide you with options that create music around that emotion.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that each composer has a style. It is unreasonable and unwise to ask a composer to create something that is outside their repertoire.

For some pieces, especially longer-form works, a moviemaker may need more than one composer if they wish to utilize different styles of music.

That is really the critical decision that the director must make: they must know the style of music they wish to use and choose a composer that matches that style. The easiest way to do this is to listen to samples of their work to see if it will work for your piece.

It is advised to bring your composer in early, before the picture lock. Presenting a picture lock and THEN asking for a score to be written in sync not only confines the creative potential of the composition but will likely insult a talented composer.

If before the fine cut, you both work out the cues, make sure to allow time for the composer to provide some early samples for your editor to cut with. This allows an organic interplay between picture and sound – each element influences the other. This is creative collaboration, and how worthy projects get made.

Working Without a Composer

If finding a composer is beyond the scope of the project, a viable alternative is creating a score with loop-based samples.

A wide range of resources is available at low or no cost that allows the moviemaker to create multi-track music synchronized to picture.

Royalty-free samples may request a small fee for world rights. These samples are loops of instruments (i.e. guitar, drums, piano, strings) as well as synthesized sounds and beats that can be used to construct themes.

Creating a basic score for a short film can be done in a few hours, and it will add enormous value to the project. One drawback to this approach is that the samples from popular programs end up being used over and over again, and one need only attend one or two short film festivals to hear these same sounds in more than one movie.

However, that is only a pitfall of the lazy as the internet abounds with royalty-free samples that can be imported into most of these programs.

With such tools, there is no excuse not to have cue-based musical elements in your soundtrack.

You may start with your own loop-based musical elements but a composer will add enormous value to your project for next to no cost and little effort. It makes very little sense for the filmmaker not to work with a composer, and the sooner one makes that step the better.

SUMMARY

A pre-recorded song will not match the emotional cues of your movie in the same way as a custom score.
It is not difficult to find a composer willing to create a score for your film; most are talented and professional.
Many programs are available to create loop-based music in sync with the image on the screen. There are many web resources with libraries of loops that can be downloaded. Some programs, like Sound Track Pro, GarageBand, etc come with a collection of samples.

<<<PREVIOUS
SOUND DESIGN & EFFECTS
The role of the Sound Designer, types of sounds and Effects and their usage.

3. Film Sound Design & Effects

The film sound designer serves and enhances that fantasy or hyper-reality that is your film which exists in its own universe, and a big part of that universe is complex and multi-dimensional sound.

By Glen Berry, Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

Sound Effects Add Richness and Detail
Ambience is Key to the Effects Track
Sound Effects Have Many Sources

Two Approaches to Film Sound Design

The sound designer is responsible for creating a rich and layered audio experience to accompany the picture, dialogue, narration and music tracks in a movie.

Two different extremes could define a moviemaker’s approach to sound design:

Use the ‘production track’ (audio ALL recorded on location within the scene) for as many sounds as possible – ambiance, doors opening or closing, the rustling of clothes, and only add sound effects where needed.
Use only the dialogue from the production track, and replace everything else. Every single other sound is created and/or sourced in post-production.

Of these two options, which approach should you take?

If you’re strapped for cash or time, go for the first option and do your best. However, for greater control and creative freedom, opt for number two.

Strive to only use the dialogue track from production and replace as many other sounds as possible.

You will need the production track for reference to get an idea of what happened in production and when.

The sound designer is also an artist whose great joy is in designing a ‘soundscape’ of fiction; to create a fantasy world that owes nothing to the world outside of it.

The story exists in its own universe, and a big part of that universe is complex and multi-dimensional sound.

This article is drawn from the “Sound” chapter in Cyber Film School’s
Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook

Types of Effects

When beginning this task, the sound designer can utilize a variety of different effects to realize the multi-dimensional fabric of the sound effects track. These different types of effects can be described as

Ambient Sound (Ambience)
Foley Effects
Wild Sound
Hard Effects
Designed Effects

Ambience

Ambient, or background effects, are one of the most critical in making a scene believable.

The objective of the location sound team is to record a clean dialogue track, devoid of noise. However, all spaces have some kind of sound, the unique signature that describes the character of a space.

A cafeteria’s ambience might contain low-level conversation, clinking silverware, dishes clattering, and beeps of a cash register. A construction site may feature the sounds of heavy machinery, an occasional shout, hammering, and feet crunching on gravel.

A space without ambient sound is going to sound odd and artificial. It’s often a dead giveaway of a low-budget film.

All spaces have ambience, give your space some ambience. The moviemaker would be well advised to remember that the ambience you record on set will rarely work for the sound designer.

You need the sound of the space itself (the ambiance known as “room tone”) to effectively master dialogue. If the existing room tone prom the production track in inadequate, you will need to find or create your own room tone.

Foley Effects

Foley sound effects are created as the ‘secondary’ sounds made by actors, like the rustling of clothes, footsteps, or a kiss.

These effects are created in post-production by recording sounds in a studio while watching the scene and synchronizing the live effect during the playback of the picture. The Foley Artist ‘performs’ each sound using a creative array of everyday objects.

The artist can recreate footsteps on various surfaces, kiss his or her own hand to mimic an on-screen kiss, stab a watermelon with a knife for a gruesome murder scene, ruffle clothes that accompany an actor’s movement, slam a door, all in sync with playback of the picture, all in sync to movements on the screen.

Although at first, this may sound like too much time and effort for the struggling indie filmmaker to include in the project, it is not that difficult to do.

Not only will it add a great deal to the sound effects track, thus the overall quality of the film, but it’s also a lot of fun – one of the most enjoyable in the film business!

Foley recording can be done in any reasonably sound-proof space with limited materials and lots of imagination.

Getting two people in a room and even making one pass through the movie to recreate even an occasional sound seen on the screen, will add to the realism and depth of the soundtrack.

Wild Effects

A wild effect is a sound that is not recorded in sync with the picture. It can appear from a source that is off-screen or onscreen. We call it ‘wild’ because at the time the effect is recorded, it is not necessarily synchronized to any picture.

The sound recordist is recording the effect ‘grabbing it wild’, to be later placed into the track in post-production by the sound effects editor.

Wild sounds are often important additions to the primary action that the audience sees onscreen and can provide information or perspective to off-screen events.

For example, the primary onscreen action shows a bank robber pulling a weapon. We hear an off-screen voice shouting, “He’s got a gun!” The sound comes from off-screen, presumably from a bank teller or customer. It is wild because there is no sync to the onscreen source.

Wild sounds can be recorded in production or during post-production and can be anything required by the production: an engine idling, the buzzing of a mercury vapor light, or an anchor dropping into the water.

A location sound recordist should be aware of wild sound opportunities while on location, and keep a list. Then after consulting with the Assistant Director or Director, find time to grab wild sounds between takes or at any opportunity.

Hard Effects

Hard effects are the most common, especially with easy access to vast libraries of pre-recorded effects.

These effects are usually difficult to access or costly to record on our own; machine gun fire, a fighter jet take off, thunder. These are hard effects.

Going to a shooting range with a variety of weapons and recording the firing of each would be time-consuming and expensive.

Thunder can be cheap to record, but waiting for a storm, and assuring it’s the right type…not so easy. Web search, download, fee if applicable, and you’re done.

Designed Effects

Design effects are ones that must be synthesized in post-production and do not exist in real life. The sound of a monster being born is not something that exists in nature, so it must be created.

Likewise, the sound of a spaceship or the sound a character hears when under the influence of a psychotropic drug.

Design effects can also be used for metaphorical or emotional effect, like a foreboding low-frequency rumble to mark the arrival of an unwelcome visitor.

SUMMARY

The sound designer will create a rich, multi-layered audio experience around the image and engage the audience on a completely different level.
The goal of location dialogue is to get all ‘signal’ (the audio source) and no noise (extraneous ambient sounds). We prefer to record the ambience separately, then add it back in a controllable way, separate from the dialogue track, so we can mix them in a natural way.
Sound effects can come from many sources, many of which may not exist in nature. A talented Sound Designer will use their imagination to create or find sounds with a wide range of objects and tools that may have no relation to the image on the screen.

NEXT >>
MUSIC AND THE SHORT FILM
Source music, music cures, sample-based music, and working with a composer.

<< PREVIOUS
POST-PRODUCTION SOUND WORKFLOW
The steps and roles of the post-production process