Documentary Sound Editing

Hi Nuno,

That's a difficult question to answer. If you have experience using other audio editing/mixing apps, then you will probably pick up Soundtrack Pro quite quickly. If you haven't used any audio post apps before, then you will probably take longer to get up to speed.

As for how long it would take you to mix an entire 90-minute documentary, again, it's difficult to answer. How complex is it? I make movie promos for a living, and we can spend a whole day in Pro-Tools on a single 30-second promo if it needs a lot of sound design work.

Just at a guess, if you're having to learn STP as you go, then allow about 2 weeks and hope it takes less.

There are a number of tutorials here on Creative Cow. If you are willing to spend $37, you can spend a month on Lynda.com, download training materials and go through a good number of tutorials on STP. I have used STP for audio on a number of feature docs and it has worked well for me, especially cleaning up noise and augmenting voices, as well as adding music and SFX.

Sjon

The real question is what kind of mix are you attempting to deliver for your doc?

I'm the Content Director at a documentary distribution company and we have very detailed requirements for digital delivery of mastering material. Sound is about the most important!

You should have:


Full Stereo Mix
Full Mix Minus Narration (if there is Narration)
Music and Effects

All Audio Stems separated and exported (all playing together will give full mix at correct levels):


Dialogue (not pre-faded if dubbed into another language in full mix)
Music
Effects
Narration (if it exists)


And you must be aware of levels. If you want this shown on TV, then you need a TV mix, not just a Theatrical Mix. That means a mix with a hard ceiling of -10db - nothing but nothing goes over. Dialogue should also not be lower than -24db.


If you have a 5.1 Surround Mix those levels aren't touched - they're designed for the theatre experience. :-)


All files to be exported as WAVS or AIFFs 16/24 bit 48,000Khz ideally with matching bars/tone and timecode tracks - this because it is very easy for audio to drift out of sync with your video. FCP is very very bad at creating in-sync audio exports.

Always re-import your stems into your project and check they sync up with your video before sending them to anyone.

The aspect which doc filmmakers tend to forget about is effects - or more specifically atmos. Building a layer of atmos so that if the voice is removed from the mix you still have the sound(s) of the environment the shot is portraying. This is the fiction-film approach and more importantly, the tools you need to give a re-mixer if the film is dubbed into another language.

Few filmmakers in the US and UK think of international markets. And that goes for the text in their film too - but that's another forum!


Good luck.


Ben