Henchman

Btw, as much as I might complain here, this is never done on the stage in front of clients. if I have an issue, I will address it directly with the mixer when I can, or through the sound supervisor who will then usually talk to the AP. But it will always be downplayed and presented as a request, not a major problem.

I don't know. What do you think?

I've had scenes with two actors sitting down I a room. And the entire scene had to be ADR'ed

The majority of the audience doesn't even know what you mean by "quality". They don't hear it. Hell, I've heard mixes Of entire shows and movies that I can't understand that they would make it past the dubstage. But one thing the audience does know, and hates, is when they can't understand what's being said. The best mix isn't necessary the one that's exactly the best SOUNDING one.

No. It simply means you don't necessarily have quality SOUNDING dialog. Anyone remember the big stink last year in the UK when a BBC series caused a stir because nobody could understand the dialog. To the point where people stopped watching, and questions were raised in Parliament? That would never happen happen on a show I'm mixing. You CAN make mumblers intelligible. It simply takes a lot of work. And a lot of times it requires a lav, even if it's just for the occasional line or word.

In all my time mixing TV, I can count the times a director came to a mix on one hand. Usually it's for the Pilot, and that's it. I see associate producers, producers, show creators/writers, composers, music supervisors, sound supervisors etc. And pretty much every single time they will go for intelligibility. Wether it's using an alt take, ADR or me finding. A way to make it better to understand even though it might not be the "best quality". And it usually involves a lot of eq, noise reduction, timestretching, editing and gain leveling. i haven't ever heard any of those folks ever say, "I can't understand the line, but let's keep it because it sounds amazing." what I do see all the times after I have worked on it, and told them we are suffering sonic quality for intelligibility, that they will go with intelligibility.

​Directors are rarely on the dubstage of TV shows.

​Quality without clarity is of no use. If you cant understand the words, then what's the point? On the dubstage producers will always choose intelligibility over quailty.

No, I was not saying nobody here knows how to do their job. What I do see is an attitude from some not wanting to accept the reality of what is expected at the end of the road on the dubstage. Hell, half the directors directing TV shows don't get it. Proof of that is a recent show, where a director shot a bunch of action scenes completely MOS, with lead actors who are actually delivering dialog. You obviously must have missed the part where Greg talks about the limited dynamic range in TV, that brings out the imperfections and really magnifies noise issues. And how he starts with the boom, and then lavs when it's an issue. Well guess what. what if there's no lav to go to? The days of smoothing out a noisy boom by adding more noise are over. At least they are in my book. I know that there are situations where a lav is not an option. But the attitude of "you'll use what we give you, deal with it" is pretty unacceptable. We are all in a service level job. I supply the producers with the mix they ask for. You guys should be delivering tracks that help us facilitate that, not hinder it. Some get it, some don't. That's why some people do deliver what's needed every single time. And others don't. Maybe some know how to explain to an actor and director, "look if we don't use a lav, you might have to redo this scene in ADR because of the noisy location." Most actors and directors will then happily use lavs. . Because pretty much every actor and director I've worked with, hates doing ADR.

Have any if you guys watched this yet?

Don't even think about processing tracks.

Right now I am mixing "Last Ship". And the soundmixer Steve Nelson has been doing a terrific job, and getting us great tracks. More often than not, I don't have to use ADR, unless it is an added or changed line. Simply becasue there is a cleaner mic available, other than the boom. And I know he has been vocal on set, to make sure we get what he knows we need. And it shows. So, if he can do it, why is it made to seem impossible by others? And this is not an easy show. I don't understand the statement "There's a lot more to working on set than getting all the words". Isn't that by definition your job? To make sure that dialog is recorded as good as possible under the given circumstances? Instead if just kicking the can down the road? No, it's called covering all bases.

Funny you should mention this. Because this is EXACTLY why we need lavs. We have to gain that stuff so much, that using the boom results in an unacceptable signal to noise ratio. And no, you can't ADR every line of a low talking actor for an entire show.

Not Using a single lav on anything is as bad as not ever using a boom. It's easy to say "deal with it" when you're not the one sitting in the hot seat at the end of a project with a row of producers sitting behind you, questioning your abilities, because an entire show doesn't sound that great. You should know that mixing a documentary vs mixing scripted drama is whole different ball if wax, with a whole different set of expectations from the folks in the back.

Now, of course it's not clear if Mike didn't use lavs at all for the entire shoot, or just a specific scene. It could be just a specific scene. And that happens all the time, for various reasons. But just one more note. You might be surprised what a re-recording mixer can do to what you guys might consider unuseable, too muffled sounding lav tracks.

How do you know? Stuff is shot all over the world, that gets posted back here in LA. So, I'm simply not assuming that this isn't that type if a show. I can say is that the last time I mixed an MOW that only delivered a boom track, it was an aweful experience for me. Not having the option at all, is not good in today's post budgets. Not having the budget to do large amounts of ADR when required, means having a fallback. The lavs. Wether you guys like it if not, that's the reality. One that a well known Oscar winning, highly respected soundmixer has agreed with me in private. But we've already been through this in another thread.

That wasn't directed at mike. It was a general statement.

Until they end up having overages because of excessive ADR needs. Then, the standard becomes fire the sound mixer, and get someone else. In spite of what the director agreed upon. Cover your ass is my motto. And the days of Nagra 4.2 are long gone. That would be the same as an editor saying he can only edit on a Steinbeck. He won't be seeing much work.

Is there a reason you didn't record lavs AND the boom? Pretty much all of the TV shows I work on are recorded that way, and we would be dead in the water in post without the lavs. We would have to do so much more ADR to meet producers expectations on the dub stage, without lavs to fall back to. Just last week I was mixing an episode of a show, and there was so much ambient noise on the boom, it sounded awful. Thank god we had the lavs, as the producers wee not happy with the noise. So we would have had to have an entire scene that sounded passable, instead of good, if it hadn't been for the lavs.

I agree. The bad audio fits the picture. Yes, the filing technique....well, she is a writer, not an actor. And it's hard to file something without touching it. The bars are piece of a gate we bought at Home Depot and returned after the filming. The sound was added later.

This is standard practice today.

We are going to finish putting all of the rest of the stuff together tomorrow. We can't give much of a summary, because it will give too much away.

Well, it's about a woman who wakes up in an abandoned warehouse, and gets attacked by an unseen assailant. But there's a twist at the end. Peggy was recorded In a much too live room. We used the Samsung S6 to record all the interviews. And hers was the only one not recorded in a quiet studio space. This was my first video editing and creation endeavor. Hence the indiegogo. Hire professionals who know what they are doing. Tenderglow soon.

Here's some shameless self promotion of my wifes Indiegogo fundraiser for her first film. http://igg.me/at/21XbkeDhaRA/x/892752

They should have removed that in post. I've done it myself on the dubstage.