cjreig

Hi there Jürg, Thank you for your response, and I apologise that this comes attrociously late. Has been a hectic past month. I think what you are doing is a fantastic idea, as after trawling the internet I wasn't able to find any program that did just that. I can already seeing it being used on jobs in the future, especially in situations like these. I will definitely be keeping my eye out, and you can certainly expect me to be lining up with everyone else on JWS! I too am quite bewildered about a six-person (1 unit only!) sound department, and not being able to provide a mix-track as a standard practice. In the end, they changed to using a Zaxcom Fusion, and are finally providing a proper mix on channel 01. As for the 35-odd shooting days of footage that did not have the mix-track, well, I basically dug-in with the assistant editor and manually picked a channel that best matched the vision. Not a fun two weeks, but we got it done, and everyone is happy. The term 'high budget' seems to be relative, I feel, to a production here in China. But I have been on shows in Australia / elsewhere that have had far less budget than this film, with a single-person sound team, and they have managed things better. I am hoping that this experience will help the sound team to really lift their game on future shows. Nobody died in the end, and we got it sorted, so I call it water under the bridge, and am just happy to get on with making the movie. I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that posted back to me; although I reply late, I am still overwhelmed by the helpful advice I have received here. Thank you so much. I am still very interested in somehow contributing to these forums, even if from my limited perspective on that matter. Best wishes everybody!

Hi Phillip, Thank you for your reply. They are using a recorder from Roland I think. I am trying to get a model number from them to find out how it all works, and if there is a way they can make said track. The idea of a second small recorder could be a great one, too. As for the camera scratch track, they are not running a feed in. This film is a high budget one (or so I am told, anyway). Their recording system does have 8 tracks, but for some reason cannot allow a mono mix or stereo mix. They tell me they just bought a new one before the show began, as their old one had died (not sure what they were coming from). I am still digging into this, trying to find out more. Best, Chris

Hi everyone, Firstly, I wanted to say a big thank you for your replies. It is greatly appreciated. This film is a walking set of contradictions, and certainly is an interesting experience. It is a Chinese film shooting throughout China, with a well known (in China, anyway) director. The sound department has about 6 people in it, which is the biggest sound department I have ever seen. So understaffed, absolutely not. As for underpaid, well, I can only imagine. Their competency is surely questionable, however, on all fronts of production sound. As for the editorial department, well, it doesn't exist in the traditional sense.They have someone who is an on-set editor, but has been instructed not cut any sequences or do anything. She is there 'just in case'. Like I said, walking contradictions. We are currently now day 20 in production, and I have been fighting tooth and nail to get an editor on board for the show. They have said we will get one in late-April, someone from the States, thank god, but that's a long way away. So with all of that, I have shouldered trying to plan and deliver dailies, which they are adamant they want each day, for a system that is not in place, for a person who isn't actually on the show. I have asked them where the logic is in this, but get a simple shrug of shoulders and told 'It's Chinese way'. Anyway, I apologise for the vent on this one. As for the task at and, I am definitely thinking one of the booms that has the best track will be the best way to go. I will keep at it, and try to push for some change. But like it is said, not my responsibility beyond that. I will be sure to let you know how things resolve, and may consider writing a small opinion piece on the differences between the western and eastern film industries. Thank you again everyone for your insight and advice. Chris

Hello everyone, First post here, but have lurked for quite some time. My name is Christopher Reig. I am an on-set post guy who does dailies (short and sweet). I have recently come across an interesting challenge for a workflow, and have found myself hitting a brick wall in my research, so on advice of a sound recordist colleague, am asking here. On most shows I work on, we usually use a mix track in a poly BWF for our dailies deliverables. However for this show, the sound recordist is unable to a mix track, so we will receive individual ISO tracks only. I discussed why I feel we require one, and they certainly did agree it makes sense, but they were adamant that they cannot provide it due to equipment limitations. So with that, I have started looking for alternatives. The dailies platforms we use unfortunately cannot crash-mix everything together; it's either send everything (making editorial unhappy, as they really just want mono accompanying), or pick one ISO track to send as the mono (equally unhappy). My first thought would be to create a mix track of my own, and use this for our sync. But then there are audio roll names and time code which could be thrown out, and any number of other things that I may not be aware of yet. My research has led me to a number of programs, which mostly split / combine BWF files, and many a Google search have turned up nothing useful. Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way. I was wondering if anybody knew of any software utilities that function as I am describing? Is this something that I should be doing inside of a DAW? Or am I going about this the wrong way? Thank you in advance for any insight. I look forward to hopefully contributing some information to your forum, even if only from the (admittedly) limited perspective of someone closer to the editorial side of the business. Chris