workflow advice film post -- mixbusses, VCA´s etc...

[calimerox]

I know this topic is very complex to discuss in a thread in a forum, but maybe you have some cooked down advice for me anyways.. here it comes:

I work on a film post production scoring and now I need to fit everything in the whole movie mixing it down to a beautiful stereo wav. There is:

a pre mixed dialog track

a pretty good premixed ambient track

5-6tracks with premixed songs on it (bass, drums, effects, etc)

5tracks with sound design sounds and artificial ambience

4 midi tracks with additional piano, drones, etc...

all the single tracks sound pretty good together as the score / ambience etc.. but now in the last step, I need to adjust everything to the dialog loudness.

I did this before, but it was very cumbersome and I really need to improve my workflow.. So my question is:

how would you go to level everything? would you start with the dialog as the reference and level the score / sound according to that?

How would you maybe set up VCA´s or mixbusses to simplyfy mixing the score against the dialog against the sounddesign?

doing a "mastering" in the last step, do you apply a lot of multiband compression and limiting to "fit" alltogether or dont you do that at all on the last stage of mixing but beforehand?

I know it s hard to give very general advice on that and every project is so different.. but I m keen to know how you do these things and thank you for sharing

[Ben@Harrison]

Hi calimerox,

I have a couple of thoughts you might consider.

In my experience, it is not necessary or desirable to use overall limiting&compression. You don't want to "gel" the whole mix into a continuous volume&spectrum envelope. The opposite is generally true: you want each element (music, dialog & effects) to have their own complementary dynamics.

I encourage you to investigate the VCA option that you mentioned. I suggest assigning 4 VCAs:
1) Dialog Tracks
2) Music Tracks
3) FX Tracks
4) Music + FX Tracks.

Generally speaking, the dialog must be "king". So you should duck the music or effects when necessary to allow the dialog to be clearly heard. The #4 VCA, music+effects, can be used to duck them both together.

Oh, and: override your instincts to pan the dialog. Just put it in the center

I hope those comments help!

-Ben

[calimerox]

Oh, and: override your instincts to pan the dialog. Just put it in the center

haha Thank you Ben!! I learned that lesson already (the hard way: some years ago on a car scene: I couldn´t resist panning the dialogues a bit left and right for a half close up shot through the front window. I got a lot of laughs from another engineer, so I was healed immediately )



And thank you so much for your Advice on the VCA´s , this seems to be a good recipe for me!

So instead of applying global limiting / compression etc. I will try to run them seprarately as you mentioned in music, dialog & effects, maybe by assigning one mixbus to each of them..?

It is a pretty experimental feature film where the boundaries between music and effects are often fading away, so it s great to have a VCA dedicated to Music + FX Tracks to not tear apart the whole composition while leveling...

I would have two more questions:

As you mentioned "dialog is king": Is there a rule of thumb how much louder the FX/Music can be on loud scenes when there is no dialog present? I guess this also depends on if it is a production for a cinema or just for a better projector and some home hifi..

Would you recommend using the K-14 meter or the K-20 meter? when i do broadcast I use the EBU R-128 meter, but this film will be shown in a Museum cinema where there is no calibrated system per se...


Thank you so much for your insights, you already helped me wrap my head around this topic a lot

[Ben@Harrison]

You're welcome!

Unfortunately I don't think I can answer those remaining questions. In a feature film, I would expect the FX to greatly exceed the reference dialog level, if that achieved a desired effect.

In a museum situation .... maybe a less dynamic mix would be desirable. I don't think the loudness meter (K- or EBU- ) matters in this case, as the museum will have control over the nominal level. All you can control is the variation between the quietest parts and the loudest.

Good luck and have fun!

[calimerox]

You're welcome!

In a museum situation .... maybe a less dynamic mix would be desirable. I don't think the loudness meter (K- or EBU- ) matters in this case, as the museum will have control over the nominal level. All you can control is the variation between the quietest parts and the loudest.

Good luck and have fun!

Thank you Ben

and true: I will need to estimate the variation / dynamic range that will be reproducable under "less than perfect" condition and try to control the mix in that sense..

And I will stick to the k-14 meter (which is very convenient in Mixbus)