MicroCinema Scene

For years we’ve seen new moviemakers putting out better-edited pieces with some great camera angles and even nice visual effects.  Alas, one thing that has constantly eluded the majority of green moviemakers is attention to sound quality.  While it’s common understanding that sound is 50% of the cinematic experience, at the shot-on-video level it’s hard to give it such attention.  Most newbies are starting out using cheap consumer cameras with built-in microphones, and many a camera manufacturer has longtime held the theory that what’s most important to consumers is the visual.  We want to see Billy blow out his birthday candles, but we don’t necessarily need crystal clear audio to hear the abhorrent family chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

Unfortunately for many start-up moviemakers, the camera recording Billy’s birthday is the camera they are forced to use to shoot their first flicks.  Right away they are dealing with a disadvantage.  What follows is a list of things you can do to ensure that you are, in fact, devoting as much attention to sound as you would to your image, and in the process, making your movie rise above the majority in the shot-on-video universe.

For those using their “Parents’ Camcorder”

You guys are the ones who have the roughest.  Most of you are probably still using analog formats like Hi-8, regular 8mm, or God forbid, VHS or VHS-C.

The majority of the cameras being sold in the $200-300 range are junk, pure and simple.  That doesn’t mean you cannot make a movie with it.  Your best bet is to try to leave out as much of the sound element as possible in your movies.  This means you should start thinking about sound when you’re first formulating your movie idea.  If at all possible, eliminate ideas that have far too much concentration on dialogue.  Try to keep dialogue spare and focus on the strengths the camera has to offer.  Many of these cameras can offer a decent visual when lit properly and most have a “letterbox” or “cinema” mode that will help you add a little spice to your flick.  Perhaps shoot a music video or something along those lines to start.  This way you’re adding all of your sound in post-production.

Now, if you do have dialogue (which is most likely the case) bear in mind that you’re using a very small microphone that’s non-directional and is built-in on the camera itself.  If you’re very lucky, there’s a chance the camera will have an external microphone jack, allowing you to plug in a microphone.  But most likely you’re stuck using the built-in mic, and this means the microphone will hear the operations of the camera and the operator’s hand on the camera.  Every camera manufactured now in the low-ball price range has a plastic casing that likes to creak when you squeeze the camera.  If you can, put the camera on a flat surface or a tripod and do not attempt too many tricky moves that will make noise on the camera itself.  If you want to do a moving shot, you should see if the camera has a head-phones jack and listen very closely as you do your move for any noises you may be making on the unit.

When it comes to the dialogue itself, if you can, shoot in close up.  These cameras do well when you are about a foot or so away from the subject.  Make sure all televisions, stereos or whatever else around you are shut-off and not causing any background noise.  Shooting in a noisy restaurant?  If there’s no music playing, you’re probably in okay shape because the murmur of everyone around you should blend from cut-to-cut.  If there is music playing, or if the background is inconsistently loud, then you may want to consider using a one-take approach and either pan back and forth as your characters speak or just keep the camera stationary, but at a close enough distance to hear your characters.  Be clever with it, and always wear those headphones.  If a line of dialogue sounds terrible, then you’d better re-record the take.  Don’t let it pass.  If you had a shot where someone looked right into the camera, you’d most likely re-take that.  Think of bad sound recording in the same way.

Finally, if you want a wide shot with two characters talking and they are quite far from the camera, then you’d better familiarize yourself with ADR, or additional dialogue recording.  ADR is a post-production process that allows you to drop lines of dialogue and other atmospheric sounds into a scene where the original dialogue is unacceptable.  Unfortunately, for those of you with analog cameras, most aren’t going to be able to do ADR very easily because you are not editing your movie digitally (and some of you won’t be editing at all.) Some cameras do a have a “A. Dub” or “audio dub” feature that will allow you to re-record sound right over the image in-camera, but unfortunately this is the exception and not the rule

While you can edit analog by simply going from your video camera to a VCR, hitting record on your VCR only at the best parts, dubbing in dialogue can be a very tricky proposition.  Usually it would involve looping your sound connection (the red RCA cable, or if you have a stereo camera, the red and white) through an external audio source like a stereo receiver, then coming out of the stereo receiver into the VCR.  This way, video is coming from your camera directly into the VCR while sound is passing through the stereo on its way to the VCR.  Theoretically, you can add music to your movie this way (by cueing up CD’s on the stereo) or you could disconnect the camera from the loop and just play something from the stereo over the video.  This would be how you could add your new dialogue, by either creating a CD and playing it to the VCR or by adding it to cassette tape.  It’s a very time consuming process, but if it’s what you want to do, it can be done.

For those using “digital camcorders”

Nowadays, more and more people have joined the digital revolution by purchasing single-chip MiniDV format cameras.  These cameras usually offer much better picture quality than their analog counterparts, and the sound too is much preferable as, like the image, it’s recorded digitally to tape, usually in stereo.

The two most major benefits to going digital is that most of the cameras in this price range ($400-$1000) have an external microphone input and by going digital, you can now edit digitally using a non-linear editing software like Adobe Premiere, Apple’s Final Cut Pro, or Discreet’s Cinestream.

Having an external microphone can be great because you can get closer to your actors to pick up sound.  Also, there are different kinds of microphones.  Whereas the on-camera microphone is an omnidirectional mic (it picks up sound from all directions), an external microphone can have varying degrees of directionality.  By getting a microphone that’s more directional, from the get-go you are obtaining sound that’s filtering out background noise and is primarily focused on whatever you are pointing the mic at.  So if you have two characters talking, and one of them is off camera without the mic pointing at him, the mic is not going to pick up that character’s dialogue.  It will get the character you are micing just fine, but you will have to do additional takes to get the other character’s audio!

Choosing an external microphone can be a tough.  There are a lot of cheap ones out there that won’t do too much to enhance the overall quality of your work.  In fact, many of them in the lower price range (which use a mini-jack connection like those that head phones use) are rather poor.  This price range is anywhere from $20-$120, and includes manufacturers like Nady, Azden and Sony.  These mics will get your sound, but could also create all manner of extraneous humming and bussing noises as most will not be grounded properly.  Grounding a mic means you are basically eliminating the sound of the microphone’s power supply.  This power supply frequency can corrupt the sound you want that’s traveling through the mic cable.  Too often, consumer microphones and camera input jacks are not grounded, thus a common problem you will hear in no-budget productions is a constant, sometimes distracting hiss.

Your best bet?  Use the on-camera mic as often as possible and only use a cheap external microphone if the scene demands its use.  The sound gathered by an on-camera mic in a decently priced camcorder can be very good.  Just remember to keep the rules of using the on-camera microphone in mind: stay close to your speaking characters and don’t make too much hand noise on the camera!

With digital editing, the process of ADR becomes a lot easier.  Last year, I did some ADR work for my movie In a Sky With No Angels.  Originally, I had edited the scene with the dialogue we had gotten on location.  Alas, the scene didn’t play well-enough as the two characters whisper through the entire thing to elude the surveillance team in the next room.  Unfortunately, the characters evaded our own sound gathering tools as well!

My recipe for digital ADR is this: (you will need a non-linear editing software capable of creating sound files and a CD burner)

1. Cut the scene on a computer using the original dialogue.  Try to make sure that it is as audible as possible.
2. Make a .wav or .aiff file out of the cut scene.  Put it back on your time line.
3. Splice up each line of dialogue between your two characters and create a .wav or .aiff file out of each one.  Number them as they appear in the scene.  For In a Sky With No Angels, I named each file “Sky01.wav,” “Sky02.wav,” etc.
4. Once you’ve made each line a separate sound file, burn all of these files to a CD.
5. Get your camera and microphone set up in a room that’s set-away from extraneous noise.  Choose a non-echoing place with a rug on the floor so the sound doesn’t bounce too much.  If you can pad your walls with egg crate foam, then do so.  Whatever you can do to get clean, audible sound!
6. Play the line as originally delivered on a CD player for the actor and then record with the camera the actor doing the line just as he or she originally said it.  Continue this process throughout the whole scene.
7. If atmospheric sound is needed (like say you recorded the scene originally in a park), make sure you have it ready to mix together with your newly recorded dialogue.  This can often be something you do while on location shooting the original scene.  It’s called “taking tone.” You basically leave the camera on for one or two minutes and just let it record the sound happening all around you.
8. Capture the new line readings into your editing platform and start dropping the lines into place.  If your program can show you waveforms, this is an excellent way to make sure you’re synching up the new sound properly.  Just match the waveform patterns!  It’ll never be exactly perfect, but usually it comes pretty close.
9. Once you are done adding the new lines, drop in the atmospheric sounds and mix it all together by adjusting the volume of the atmosphere track.  Make sure the ambient sound is not too loud.  You don’t want to drown out the new lines!
10. Now that all of the sound is in place, you can add music or whatever else you want to the scene!

It’s not the easiest process in the world, but it’s a lot more exact than the analog approach and it can make a huge difference to the impact of a scene.  Beware of the temptation to shortcut, however, as if you are going to do ADR, do it for an entire scene, from start to finish.  If you just try to replace a few lines, you’ll end up with some laughably awful final sound as there’s almost no way at all to match newly recorded dialogue with dialogue recorded on location!

For those using a “prosumer camera”

The term “prosumer” refers largely to three-chip digital video cameras that record at a higher image resolution than consumer cameras.  This camera grouping includes the Sony VX-1000, VX-2000, TRV-900, Canon XL-1 and XL-1S, Canon GL-1 and GL-2 and the Panasonic AG-DVX100A, to name a few.  They are considered the top-of-the-line for consumers and offer numerous bells-and-whistles most consumers don’t need, like programmable black settings, zebra lines to gauge exposure and, most importantly for this article, manual sound control.

Every other type of camera mentioned on this list has an auto limiter built inside the camera that controls just how sound is being processed by the machine.  Thus, if someone shouts and then someone speaks normally directly after the shout, the camera could miss the normally delivered line because it’s balanced to be ready for another shout.  Conversely… in quiet scenes, these auto cameras have an annoying tendency to increase their own audio gain in a search for any sound.  This will create some terrible hiss that no one wants in a movie!

With the manual audio adjust, you can set levels for wherever you think the sound would be best served.  If actors are screaming their lines, you’ll turn it down and leave it down.  If they are whispering, you’ll perhaps want to dial up the gain.  Coupled with an external microphone, it’s a great way to ensure you’re getting decent sound recording.

Another thing a few of these cameras have on them (most notably the Canon GL-2, the Panasonic AG-DVX100A and the Sony PD-150) are grounded XLR inputs built-in right on the camera itself. This is a wonderful add-on as it allows you to use higher-end microphones (like those offered from companies like Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser and Audio Technica) with a solid, grounded connection to your camera for the best possible delivery of sound.  Don’t be fooled, though… just because you have an XLR microphone does not mean you will get fantastic sound!  In the past I’ve used Canon XL-1’s, Sony TRV-900’s and Sony VX-2000’s all with XLR “break-out boxes” that are supposedly able to give you a better sound delivery method by transferring XLR into either RCA or 1/8” mini-jack inputs.  Unfortunately, none of these breakout boxes I’ve used were well grounded, and in every instance I’ve experienced background hiss, or in the Canon XL-1’s case, actual recording noise from the camera!  If you have to go this route, make sure you buy the correct breakout box for your camera and make sure you do all manner of proper research that you are following the best method to get great sound.  If you are just purchasing a camera in this range, it is strongly suggested you buy a camera with the XLR inputs built-in.  They can be pricey, but the difference is incredible.

Conclusion

There are many other sound recording options I’ve not mentioned in this rather lengthy column.  For instance, recording to an external source, rather than simply recording directly into the camera.  This is the way most “real” movies are made and can be a very good way for newbies to back-up the sound they are getting in-camera.  I did not mention this method as, at this level it’s a tad impractical.  Using external sound and slating it for synching later in post-production can be a real headache for newbies primarily because you have to ensure that whatever you’re recording with is recording at the same speed or sampling rate as your camera.  It can get rather messy if messed-up, so I would not recommend it to people who do not understand fully what they are getting into.

Similarly, I did not discuss EQ-ing sound in post-production using sound editing software like Sound Forge or Cakewalk because it can get rather messy and very expensive.  By over-processing sound in post-production, you can end-up creating cleaner, yet very unnatural sound.  Instead, I wanted to focus the discussion on ways to best get sound while on location, and some small fixes you can make in post that will better your first efforts overall.

Remember that sound is 50% of the finished movie!  By adhering to several of the rules above, you’ll be giving the sound of your movies as equal attention as you’d give your visuals, and in the process you’ll be giving 100% to your viewers!

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