Filmmaking - Make Your Movie Sound Like A Real Movie

Article by Sam Longoria

Filmmaking – Make Your Movie Sound Like A Real Movie – Entertainment

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Filmmaking – Make Your Movie Sound Like A Real Movie
by Sam Longoria

I get a lot of questions on if I can “do” sound sweetening,
usually by frantic filmmakers, calling in the middle of the
night. They are frantic because the sound in their movie or
video is bad.

They’ve used a cheap mic, plugged into the camera, or worse,
have used the on-camera mic.

They had a friend aimlessly point the mic at the floor, or the
sky, anywhere but at the actor muttering his lines, and moved the
mic randomly during shooting.

Some, from the sound of it, have pointed the mic directly at the
whirring camera, or rumbling electric generator, or humming air
conditioner, or buzzing fluorescent lamp. They’ve bumped the mic
against the wall, or the ceiling, or trees or bushes.

They’re far away from what they’re recording, not even in the
same vicinity. There’s so much “room sound,” you can barely hear
the actor mumbling along.

So, the Sound Guy (whoever they can get for a few minutes –
usually a well-meaning person with no experience) turns up the
level too far, which just makes the sound distort horribly, or
too low, which buries the good sound in the mud.

Sound Editing adds more mistakes, and compounds the problem.
The filmmaker has the equipment, and wants the film to be good.
You’d think he’d read a book on the subject. You would be wrong.

He chops the sound when he chops the picture, and that’s it. He
doesn’t split it into tracks, or replace bad sound, or finesse
the tracks, or otherwise spend time exerting care and craft on
his precious film’s soundtrack.

Essentially, when he’s done shooting and cutting and laying
music, he thinks he is done, without spending the minimum of
time and care and money it takes, to have a good sound track.

So the filmmaker shows his movie, with its bad sound, to
lukewarm audience reaction. Ouch!

People don’t know why the movie is bad, actually. Not one in ten
can recognize “bad sound,” they just think the movie stinks.

If the filmmaker is very, very lucky, somebody will tell him the
sound is bad. Otherwise, he has no clue.

He’s disappointed, but he still wants to maybe fix it. Somebody
says “sweetening” the sound will help. So he comes to me.

He wants to know if bad sound can be fixed. I have to tell him
the bad news – no.

At this stage, unless he has a great deal of time and money, and
is willing to start completely over and take the proper care,
nothing can be done.

Bad sound is the product of negligence. If you spend the time
and care, from the beginning, there is no reason for your film or
video sound to be bad.

You’ve probably seen many commercial movies with good sound,
so why doesn’t your movie sound like them? You probably don’t
really know how a good movie sounds, and what effort went into
making them sound good.

Take some time, and actively listen. After a while,
you’ll notice what a good movie sounds like.

I was very lucky when I was starting out.
I read a book by Ivan Watson from England, who
spelled out precisely what it takes to record and edit
and mix good movie sound.

You can still find “Uncle Ivan’s” books, either online,
http://snurl.com/brbu
or at your library. If you haven’t read any filmmaking books,
you need to. Get going!

What can you do to make your movie track sound less like a video,
and more like a real movie?

Maybe a better question is, “Why does video sound so bad?”

I think that’s a fair question, because frankly, most video
sound, (all elements music-dialog-effects), sucks. I’ve heard
exceptions, so I know it’s not just the video itself.

Film does sound very different than video, I am certain of that.

Real movies are rich-sounding, with only the sounds and music
that move the story along. Video, even shot by filmmakers who
should know better, often is tinny and muffled, with thumps and
noise on the tracks.

How is film sound different from video? Making a movie sound
like a movie starts with the production sound.

Film sound is recorded on analog machines (yes, they still
exist), or on cool new 96Khz/24bit sampling recorders.

Mini-DV camera sound is uncompressed 48Khz/16bit sampling.
That’s better-than-CD audio quality, but camera makers save money
by using cheap audio circuits in most under-$ 5k video cameras.

Cheap-and-dirty analog-to-digital circuits add noise and
distortion to your high-quality mic’s crisp analog sound.

The best video camera sound I’ve found is on the Panasonic
DVX-100A. Its audio section is good as most DAT or solid-state
flash memory recorders. Shooting with one is like recording on a
separate digital recorder.

Film sound is recorded with a midrange bump, and an
EQ raise above 6KHz.

6KHz is the high end of the human voice. “Midrange” is around
2.5KHz. The film sound “EQ raise” at 6KHz increases dialogue
intelligibility and perceived crispness.

In video, sound is recorded without pre or post EQ. Video sound
also usually uses inferior mics to those used in film sound.

Film sound mics have a cleaner sound, and flatter response,
sounding better than the mics used to record video sound.
They are highly directional (rejecting extraneous noise).

Give your video sound’s midrange an EQ bump, and a raise at 6Khz,
and it will be more like how film sound is recorded.

Get some decent mics, not the cheapies. A Sennheiser ME66, or an
Audio-Technika 835b, is mid-level, not terribly expensive, and
really works well. Those will give you a rich and full sound.

You may not want to record double-system (sound recorder
separate from the camera), but if you can, do it!

If you have a Nagra or other analog tape recorder, use it. They
just sound better.

35mm mag film to edit? Sounds great. It should – it’s a 1/4″ magnetic
track at 18ips, and if you fill empty spaces with slug stock, it’s self-gating.

In film sound, the sound designer matches sound to the look of
the film. A sad movie has mood lighting, and the sound will be
designed to match it in emotional tone. Its dialogue is EQ’d
less crisply, with a lower-frequency boost.

In a happy comedy, lower frequencies are rolled off, and it’s
EQ’d and mixed to be “brighter.”

Film sound is “sweetened” by manipulating room tone, premixing
audio levels, and carefully considering dialog, music, and effects for
their proper audio EQ.

Film sound expects post-production sweetening, which makes film
audio sound so different from audio for video. Video sound can be
sweetened, but Indies use it pretty much as it is recorded. Yuck!

What can be done about it? How can you make your movie sound
like a real movie?

First, notice how video procedures are designed for quick-and-
easy operation, and not really for quality.

I think most video sound sucks because the camera operator is
also the sound recordist, and the camera op doesn’t care about
sound.

He wants the framing and focus and color and bla bla bla.
Sound is not his priority, and he’s not really listening to what’s
coming through the mic and mixer and headphones. He can’t.

For your sound to be good, you must care about it being good.
That care will force you to listen to your track, something most
video hobbyists, and many filmmakers, simply don’t do.

Until they’ve lost a film festival, and notice the winner has
good sound. Or they see the one Indy film that comes along in
a blue moon, the one with good sound.

If you actively listen to your track, you’ll start hearing (it
takes time to train your ears) all the junk you’re recording.

You’ll take the steps necessary (filtering, mic placement, EQ,
editing) to discard everything that is extraneous. Get rid of
anything that doesn’t create a mood, or push your story along.

You will put the mic just as close to your subject as you can,
and roll off the wind noise, and use a fur piece on the mic, and
only mix in enough room or ambient noise, and only when it’s
necessary.

If there’s a single “most important part,” I would say it is
“gain staging.” Set your levels carefully – at every stage!

When we recorded in analog, there was a certain forgiving quality
to the recording process. Overmodulation would “saturate” the
tape, limiting levels before actually distorting.

Now everything’s digital, and if you’re recording digitally (to
DAT, CD, Mini-disc, or Flash Memory), there is very little
“headroom,” and much less tolerance for clipping, than in analog.

If your meter goes “into the red,” the sound becomes a chattery
digital nightmare. It is ruined forever. So make sure you use
“-6Db” for your “0Db,” to keep it clean.

Always “expect the unexpected” when setting your levels. I’ve
noticed actors always “perform” 6Db louder than they “rehearse,”
and musicians do too.

I always feed one mono signal to both stereo tracks, with L at
the “proper” level, and R backed off 6Db or so.

If the sound gets too loud, L will distort, but I’ll still have a
chance to salvage that section of R, when I’m editing.

How much is enough? Experience will teach you. Listen!

Good audio takes as much planning as good picture, from start to
finish. Good audio doesn’t “just happen,” it is the result of
careful listening, and time, and care.

Most video hobbyists don’t give sound the attention it deserves,
and that’s why there’s such an astonishing difference in quality
between video and film sound. Be different.

Start listening! Take care!

Sam Longoria is a Hollywood producer, working in film since 1970, in a variety of jobs. His work graces several Oscar-nominated films, and one Oscar winner.
Sam teaches Independent Producing at http://hollywoodseminars.com and
writes his Filmmaking Blog. http://samlongoria.blogspot.com.

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