Gregg, For me audio is equally important as the visuals. I find audio to be the biggest problem in amateur videos but would have thought that professionals have the knowledge???? and equipment to produce properly mixed sound.
With digital sound you have to be very careful not to clip it. Once you cut off the peaks there is no way to fix it - at least I don't know one. I found a short article by Chris and Trish Meyer of Cyber Motion giving a few hints on mixing audio tracks. There is probably more to it but one gets some ideas. http://s3.artbeats.com/assets/written_tutorials/pdfs/clearly_mixed.pdf Uwe > I finally got around to renting "Inception". I didn't find it > confusing, or surprising. Dream within a dream within a dream within a > dream. *yawn* Makes me sleepy. > > What was really horrid was the atrocious audio mix. The voices were so > quiet I had to turn on subtitles to know what was being said. It > would've been far more enjoyable with no background music at all. > > There was a constant droning LOUD background "music" running 99.9% of > the time. It was overdriven with lots of clipping, I had to turn it > down to save my speakers. > > Did this turkey get any award nominations, or *gasp*, win any awards > for its crappy audio? It's far worse a mix than what I've heard in > "mockbuster" films from The Asylum. > > An example of badness from The Asylum's "Allan Quatermain and the > Temple of Skulls"... A long shot of the three main characters walking > down a gravel road. Their crunchy footsteps sound like one pair of > feet REALLY LOUD and up close while their dialog is barely audible. > > In extreme contrast, I rented "Scott Pilgrim VS The World" the same > day. Life as a video game, hmmm. The only bit that made me laugh was > when Scott grabbed the 1UP icon out of the air and Neal asks "What are > you doing?" to which Scott replies "Getting a life!". Too much dull, > deadpan dialog the rest of the time. Do I want to find and read the > graphic novel it's based on? Meh. > > As for the audio on it, the mix was excellent. 100% of the dialog was > crystal clear. None of what may charitably be considered "music" in it > was constructed with a mission to trash as many home entertainment > system speakers as possible, unlike the entire audio track of > "Inception". Was it that bad in theaters? > > I have gone to movies in theaters with very expensive THX certified > audio systems, only to hear the same sort of garbage audio as is on > the "Inception" DVD. Other movies in the same theaters sound great, > because the people who mixed the audio plied their craft well, unlike > the flash and bang tin ears who seem to get the lion's share of the > big money work. > > Dialog is *extremely important* in a movie. What the characters say is > how the story gets told. If your audience cannot hear every word, > you've FAILED to get the story told. > > Volume for the sake of volume is just showing you don't know WTH you > are doing, no matter how long you've been doing audio mixing for > movies. Amping it up so loud that it clips and distorts only irritates > people and can damage speakers. The waves should rise and fall > smoothly without slamming into the boundaries and getting their peaks > cut off. > > Getting the volume right for the distance of the action from the > camera will greatly add to the illusion of depth. Putting the mic > right next to the feet of the foley artist for people 100 meters away > walking on a gravel road just doesn't work, but turning up the dialog > does work for such a scene because it needs to be heard. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Adobe-Premiere/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Adobe-Premiere/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
