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8 tracks for a 2 person stationary scene?


Joe Riggs

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Hi,

Would there be a reason to record 8 tracks on a stationary 2 shot?

Even if you were to use 2 booms (which is pretty rare in indie stuff), 2 lavs and a mix track, it would still be less.

Obviously some tracks sound inferior to others but I didn't receive any sound reports, so I have no idea, what's what.

 

 

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I'm assuming you're editing the audio. Is any of that camera audio? I'm sound editing a project now where they dumped camera audio into the picture timeline along with the sound mixer's tracks. The camera for some reason was recording a 5.0 poly WAV file consisting of a mono scratch mix from the sound mixer and 4 empty tracks... So it made things sort of cluttered. 

Anyway in your case you could have camera audio on some tracks duplicating what the sound mixer recorded. 

-Mike

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It could be something special where they have to put 2 wires on each actor, for say, one on the front for normal talking and one on the upper back for when they hug. I've done it but only if I have to because it's a PITA.  So the track count could look something like this:

1-mix

2 - boom1

3 - boom2

4 - Dick front wire

5 - Dick back wire

6 - Jane front wire

7 - Jane back wire

 8 - I forgot to turn off this track

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A week ago, I used 9 tracks for a 2 people scene and they were all absolutely essential and part of the work flow.
1 Boom mic per character ( pretty close physically but different performances and loudness levels, plus one of the characters is a character with special needs and each take is a unique delivery ) + personals.
Inside a semi open shed of a big back garden, Stereo mic for ext atmos and Mono mic for traffic, each on a different end of the garden.
Mix Left >> Booms
Mix Right >> Wireless 

It aint wrong, if it sounds right 

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What are you editing in?  What is post audio editing in?  This and how you transfer files can make a difference in how easy it is for the dialog editor to reconform.

I always wished modern video nle's would allow you to group all the production audio tracks and edit them as 1 file, both making the editing easier and preserving everything for post transfer in the OMF.

 

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As a sound mixer you decide what is the best solution to deliver but keep it simple.

I have mixed many drama projects onto two tracks

Now with an SD664 I can provide iso tracks but I pride myself on delivering high quality simplicity

Depending on the project, audio post need a good simple delivery of material as time is limited

mike

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Iso tracks w/o sound reports = amateur soundie.   Use all the tracks you want for whatever you want but provide some documentation for the posties or expect that probably everything south of track 4 will be thrown out or muted and forgotten during the initial sort.  No one has time to audition all those tracks if they look similar.  The most common reason for seeing over-many tracks is the recordist forgetting to turn off un-needed ones (it happens, heat of battle and all).  The most common reason for repeating identical etc tracks in post is a bad export from Premiere.

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13 hours ago, Philip Perkins said:

The most common reason for repeating identical etc tracks in post is a bad export from Premiere.

Also, some (picture) editors duplicate audio tracks to "make the sound louder" (and blame the soundie if the audio then starts to clip).

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I just finished recording an Indy film, and going into the project the editor asked me to keep the boom and character's lavs on the same tracks - and that's what I did - with a few exceptions for certain scenes. So post knows that track A always = boom,  track B = 2nd boom/plant, track C = male lead Lav .... And so on. Also kept paper sound reports. (I've had some tech glitches using a keyboard to enter data into the recorder, and writing on paper is faster for me.)

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