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Micah Loken

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  • Location
    Los Angeles, CA
  • About
    I am a Dialogue / ADR editor and an ADR Recordist for features and am always excited about opportunities as they arise!
  • Interested in Sound for Picture
    Yes

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  1. The phrase that comes to mind here is - "you're only as good as your weakest link" In this case, the weakest link is often the lav. So, muddying up the boom a bit never hurts to try. Sounds like a lot of people have bad experiences with automatic EQ matching tools. As a rule of thumb, I use iZotope's EQ match first, and then if that fails (no plugin will be perfect), then I use the 'ol ears. Either way, it goes back to fixing, listening, and repeating as many times as time allows in order to achieve the desired result. In my opinion, it is the job of the editor to help his fellow man (the mixer) down the line by attempting to make his life easier. Over processing does not help them though so it is always good to be as minimalistic in the editorial phase, unless you are going to be mixing your own edit.
  2. Interesting... all the mixers I work for say they really appreciate my usage of RX 4 to taste. When they hear the original production clips (regions) they are happy that I took the time to de-click, spectral repair anomalies (i.e. plosives, lip smack, etc). Curious what your dialogue editors are doing that causes introduction of artifacts. are they de-noising the entire files? De-noising prior to DX predub is a no no unless absolutely necessary in order to make any sense of a noisy scene where the dialogue is hardly audible, and quite frankly will most likely be ADR any way (always saving the original below). I'm interested to hear what your dialogue editors are doing that frustrates you.
  3. Here are some free SFX that are great quality. You'll have to click all of the links to download them all and some of them require you to make an account prior to purchasing. Most of them are high quality recordings and done really well. Free is free! http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2015/9/5/sunday-sound-effects-roundup
  4. Thanks Craig. I completely understand that and was just providing my thoughts in case other editors came around to the post. Philip - Agree to disagree in my opinion (that is if equipment / software is up to date... or 1 generation behind). I would definitely agree with older software versions of DAWs but not the newer. Especially from Avid to Avid. Seamless workflow has been my experience. I'd be interested in knowing how it causes you problems because I have not experienced it with Avid to PT10 or 11
  5. Thanks Philip, I am merely stating that an AAF is a better option for someone who works in Premiere. From Avid and FCP we receive OMFs regularly and they work great. Audio really does not need all the metadata associated when the editor send their product in. We strip all volume automation and clip-based gain (an Avid only thing) any way and start from scratch. OMF or AAF does not matter on the audio side, just so long as which ever is chosen is actually able to provide the desired outcome. I have come to find, for me, that both work out the same in the end. However, if Premiere is truly limited with an OMF, then why not send the audio post guys an AAF instead?
  6. Hey Craig, Thank you VERY much for taking the time to post this! While this video is VERY helpful for most video people, there are a few things that need to be addressed here, which are common mistakes that video assistants or editors make when exporting from Premiere: 1. The most important thing is to NEVER allow premiere to rename the audio files. I cannot stress this enough. There are many people on multiple online forums having to deal with this issue that Adobe will not change. The basics is essentially, imagine all of your video files being renamed... you will have no idea where they came from and what they are for... this is what happens to us in Audio Post. We are then forced (we have no choice) but to obtain the EDLs and rebuild the show ourselves from scratch (takes about 2 days). For low budget shows it is impossible to do this because we have no time / money so we are forced to blindly move forward with what the picture editor gave us (no alt takes can be found, ADR becomes a MUST for the bad takes that are in the OMF, etc etc). Any way, I don't know what it is that causes the renaming of audio files within Premiere (as I am clearly not a picture editor) : - ) but that function really makes the audio post process near impossible for the dialogue editor. 2. When exporting, it's best to export an AAF, that way you will not run into the problem (with an OMF) of the 2GB limit. Pro Tools accepts AAFs... in fact, it's a newer / better technology any way. - Easy fix there! 3. At our studio we require the audio to be exported from premiere as 48kHz (or 48000 in premiere) at 24-bit (this is an industry standard and was covered in the video) 4. Always use the "Encapsulate" function in Premiere. Never send an audio files folder as this messes with pro tools. Every time an editor sends over an AAF (or OMF) we have to have them resend because pro tools will not relink the files. In Avid software this is called "Embedded" audio within the OMF/AAF. 5. Handle Size - It's very interesting to see the Premiere export window, as it makes total sense to me now that I can see what an editor is using to export everything. We always tell our editors (assuming they are using Avid or FCP) to send us with 10,000ms handles. It all makes sense now when premiere editors tend to send us VERY small handle lengths. So, to clear the air on that, 10,000ms = 10 seconds = 240 frames (for 24fps features) or 300 frames (for 30fps tv shows). As a dialogue editor I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how important this step is for me. It's almost (not quite) as important as file naming convention. while 100 frames might seem adequate, I assure you it is not. That is only a 4 second handle. The reason for needing 10 second handles is very technical, but ultimately we need to dig through the file and try to find blank space (where actors are not talking) that we can cut together to create adequate filler pieces of sound (AKA room tone). This is near impossible to do with only 4 second handles. This is why we stress a minimum of 10 seconds, which I now know for premiere people is 240 frames (for features). In this particular example, the frame rate is 29.97 which means the handle lengths will only be 3.33 seconds (ouch for us dialogue editors). I really hope this helps people who are using Premiere. It is extremely difficult for your audio post friends to deal with renamed audio files and small to no handle sizes. This has been a very educational process for me to get this written down as I have learned so much about Premiere in the past 30 minutes and I hope this will be helpful for every video editor out there who deals with this on a day to day basis. It is my hope that no one thinks I am angry or rash when writing these thoughts down. Too often audio post people are seen as very technical and do not understand creative. The reality is, I am here to help make this movie (or TV show or commercial) come to life and by collaborating with editors / assistant editors, we can really make these shows stand out and become the best that they can be. I look forward to any questions / comments you might have. Thanks again for adding me to this group and I look forward to working with you all. - Micah
  7. This is highly ironic because I just had the same issue with an editor sending an OMF via premiere in which he has "merged" all of the files prior to beginning his edit. That is rather unfortunate because we were then forced to figure out a work around because there was no budget to rebuild the dialogue. Luckily in the metadata we were able to create fake regions (clips) in pro tools that contained the name of the original production audio file so I could go in and reference the production sound folder if alt takes were needed for whatever reason. Everything is working out great and he was very responsive to my questions which was incredibly helpful! But yes, do steer clear of merging clips in premiere at all costs, because it is VERY costly to rebuild the dialogue with Titan (or other software) and often times they will only load about 60% of the show and the rest has to be manually rebuilt (super time consuming). It sounds like that process makes editing in Premiere much harder... hopefully Adobe can have a solution to this so that editors will have a much smoother transition to the post sound companies.
  8. Hey there, I am a dialogue editor and when I received sound from an editor, 30% of the time there will be duplicate mono files for each mic option (not a big deal at all because I can just delete them). One thing I would advise with premiere is to be cautious not to rename audio files. A few times now, due to a Premiere feature, I have received an OMF which had all audio files renamed (i.e. auto-rename file name by premiere: "A012C007_140315_R6NB.mov - Merged-05" file name original name [scene / take #]: "046AT04"). If this happens then we are forced to rebuild the dialogue (much bigger fish to fry). Hope this all helps even though I'm late to the party here. :)
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