(When) do you cut takes?

[hornbuckle]

The other thing that has changed for me is the arrival if apps like Izotope RX/RX2 which can do an amazing job of removing a passing truck/plane/crew member having a coughing fit/whatever and leaving a pristine dialogue track. I always let the take go, as the rhythm of the actors/director is usually more important that some BG noise issue that can probably be fixed... I always ask for another one though...

[Marc Wielage]

The other thing that has changed for me is the arrival if apps like Izotope RX/RX2 which can do an amazing job of removing a passing truck/plane/crew member having a coughing fit/whatever and leaving a pristine dialogue track...

I wouldn't call it "pristine." It's better, but not as clean as it would be without a background noise source.

Cedar DNS, Waves WNS, Izotope RX2, and the Sonox Restoration package can all accomplish miracles sometimes in Pro Tools. But I hear an awful lot of current TV shows where you can hear the dialog opening and closing noise gates, making the dialog usable, but not great. And on TV schedules, the dialog editors and re-recording mixers don't always have the time to finesse 10 minutes of problematic dialog for a solid day, as they might on a feature.

The ironic thing is, these magic plug-ins seem to work best when they only have to fix small problems. Big problems -- like crashing surf noise or constant traffic -- are a real challenge under any circumstances.

--Marc W.

[studiomprd]

" And on TV schedules, the dialog editors and re-recording mixers don't always have the time to finesse 10 minutes of problematic dialog for a solid day, "

OTOH, several major episodic's (including sound nominees and winners) routinely send each episode out for a day or two of dialog cleaning by specialists in DE-noising.

Edited October 8, 2011 by studiomprd

[Marc Wielage]

OTOH, several major episodic's (including sound nominees and winners) routinely send each episode out for a day of dialog cleaning by specialists in DE-noising.

A solid day for 47 minutes of dialog is not enough. Even if only a third of that dialog is problematic, going through it in 8-10 hours would be flying. But that's why TV sound often seems as "dodgy" as it is.

Not a criticism, just an observation.

--Marc W.

[mikewest]

Great stuff

I have often on dramas refused to roll until every one is quiet.

A sound mixer needs to hear quiet before rolling just as much as a DP needs to call a stop to the AC

Simply it's no good rolling to find when the chaos subsides ther is a plane or car or what!

mike

[Jan McL]

Great stuff

I have often on dramas refused to roll until every one is quiet.

A sound mixer needs to hear quiet before rolling just as much as a DP needs to call a stop to the AC

Simply it's no good rolling to find when the chaos subsides ther is a plane or car or what!

mike

Hey, Mike,

Your post tweaked my synapses this morning with the first cuppa joe.

I've been of a different mind set relative to rolling: I nearly always roll and roll fast. If there's something temporarily heinous even.

Upon heinous (which is damnably often in NYC), and the director is half savvy, and we're shooting digital, I whisper in his/her ear, "Wait for it please..." and said savvy director will wait for heinous to pass before calling action. If I have a better relationship with the AD, I'll ask the boom to call speed and verbally name the offending device, like, "Speed, yet pausing for aircraft." For sure I usually don't make any bones about passing sound anomalies for the first "rehearsal" take or for "connecting" shots that will play only for that one look.

All sound bets are off when we're fighting the light or up against penalties.

Used that same fast roll philosophy recently on a 35mm shoot too, because #1 was six years old and in every scene. Eight hours to get it all, oh my! I always rolled. Regardless. The name of that game was get it in the can by any means necessary. It hurt my soul many times a day to know the ramifications for our department's work, but a very wise grip once told me why he was considered one of the best in the business: he always looked at and saw the Big Picture.

On another occasion, we were under an NYC airport flight path, but only when it rained, and dagnabbit, it rained and/or wind-ed aircraft overhead every day of the month we were at the main location. The planes were constant with :20 to :30 breaks from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. I was dying, but rolling. I wired everybody all the time. After about a week, the director came to me with panic in his eyes, realizing the potential implications of such a bad location choice for sound. He wanted reassurance. Conflicted for a second, wanting to say, "This, my dear new friend, is a sound disaster!" I chose instead to reassure him that all would be well and to relax. He did. I didn't really, and it was an enormous pain in the arse, but after the final mix, the sound designer and producer separately wrote me to say it was a miracle that -- while they'd recorded a ton of ADR lines in preparation for the mix -- they always wound up using the production tracks.

Keep in mind that my experience is comprised almost exclusively of high page count, low budget stuff capable of putting a feature film in the can in 21 days. And only recently, one cable show to my humble credit.

Sometimes doing it this way makes me feel like a hack. Others, find holding my small place in the Big Picture extraordinarily challenging, exhausting, professionally risky, and painfully beautiful in its own still life way.

Thanks for the impetus to speak my mind and experience, Mike.

Good thread.

-- Jan

[studiomprd]

" refused to roll until every one is quiet. "

that's great, if you can get away with it.

[Marc Wielage]

Sometimes doing it this way makes me feel like a hack. Others, find holding my small place in the Big Picture extraordinarily challenging, exhausting, professionally risky, and painfully beautiful in its own still life way.

Beautifully said, Jan.

--Marc W.

[gpiegari]

I always enjoy your posts Jan, but this is a crown jewel.

Glen

[MatthewFreedAudio]

+1 on Jan's post. Very well said.

[tonymuricy]

I usually try to have full silence before saying "sound speed"!

After all that's my moment of checking any low background sounds I may have not noticed before, and even the moment to record a bit of clean background!

But now, for instance, I'm working with a very experienced TV director shooting a feature, and he's always in a great hurry, and I know he cares and knows sound a lot, so I warn him that I have this or that sound problems, but if he calls the take I roll anyway.

I always talk with the director to know what he prefers, and I usually only cut when I have extreme technical problems that will ruin the sound of the take, but here in Brazil we can cut for sound problems and usually it's not a big deal.

I replaced a sound man friend of mine in Stalone's "The Expendables" shoot in Brazil, and I asked Stallone if and when should I cut the take, and he said: anytime I have to loop my lines!!

And that was it - I did cut some few takes, he never complained!

Tony Muricy

[studiomprd]

" even the moment to record a bit of clean background! "

+1, excellent!

[Toy Robot]

The command "CUT!" is only the director's and the assistant director's to give. However, sometimes it is acceptable and even expected for the sound mixer to interrupt a take. To site a recent example (last Friday, in fact): After rolling the third take of a very long scene with soft delicate dialog, I noticed a new noise that I knew would cause the dialog to have to be replaced. Rather than make some pretty big stars waste their time, I quickly said in a full voice that we should stop because I was hearing a new noise. We then found a small HMI power supply with a fan that had been placed on the set between takes. The gaffer added an extension to the power supply and moved it to another room, which solved the problem.

The thing that makes this problem unavoidable is that it NEVER gets quiet enough to notice these noises until after the ROLL call is given, and usually things are still settling down during the slating and right up until the ACTION command.

One point I want to make is that the above scenario is very different from shouting "CUT!" (at which point I'm sure I would have been -- and should have been -- severely reprimanded).

Understand the process, use good judgement. and never say CUT.

Glen Trew

+1