November 17th –Audio for Film, TV, and Digital Media

We’ve spoken mostly about Music Recording and Production, but today we’ll take a moment to discuss post-production audio for film, television and digital media.

Audio for Film/TV

Dialogue (DX)

o  Captured on-site (production sound)

§  Boom

·  Shotgun microphone from above or below the actors

§  Lavaliers or ‘Radio Mics’

o  Or recreated in the studio (ADR or looping)

Voiceover (VO)

o  Narration captured in a studio (that isn’t ADR)

Sound Effects (SFX)

o  Foley

§  Footsteps

§  Cloth

§  Props

§  Doors

o  Sound Design

Ambience or Backgrounds (BG)

o  Room Tone

o  Weather

o  Environment

Music (MX)

Roles in Audio for Film/TV

On-Set

·  Boom Operator

·  Cable Person

·  Production Sound Mixer

Post-Production

·  Dialogue Editor

·  Sound Effects Editors

·  Sound Designer

·  Foley Walkers

·  Composer

·  Orchestrator

·  Music Mixer

·  Music Editor

·  Re-Recording Mixer

Surround Formats

·  5.1 (standardized for DVD distribution)

·  7.1 (standardized for Blu-Ray distribution)

·  Atmos and Auro3D (dozens of speakers placed throughout a theater)

·  Immersive Audio and augmented reality formats being developed for film and games

o  MPEG-H

o  DTS-X

Re-recording mixers for major films now have to create many different mixes to support conventional stereo, binaural stereo (for headphone listening), 5.1, 7.1, Atmos and more. Each is mixed differently, although there are some plug-ins and hardware processors designed to handle up-mix and down-mix between these formats.

Videos from Class

Capturing ADR

Sound Deisgn for the Hobbit

Action scene from Everest with no SFX

Toy Story 2 excerpt: FX only

The Foley Artist: Los Angeles Times

Foley Artist Gary Hecker

Wired : Foley @ Skywalker

Additional Post-Production training resources

http://northbeachpost.com/audio-primer-topics/

A lame gearslutz thread with some good terminology definitions

Additional Videos on Post-Production Audio

Sound design for animation

Sound Design: Star Wars Episode II

Sound Design: Interstellar