Bad location sound

[efisch]

We all obviously deal with badly recorded interviews and dialog every day, but I'm always hesitant to talk to my clients about it, because I'd basically be calling them out on hiring terrible workers lol. Anyone have any suggestions? How do you handle it if at all?

[philper]

Originally Posted by efisch

We all obviously deal with badly recorded interviews and dialog every day, but I'm always hesitant to talk to my clients about it, because I'd basically be calling them out on hiring terrible workers lol. Anyone have any suggestions? How do you handle it if at all?

A: grin and bear it. They hired you to make it work, good and fast. You probably don't know the circumstances of the production sound recording, it might have been a ****-show for that guy that day and this was the best he could do. In any case, you'll have to work with what you have for now, right?

B: if you're on a series or movie and feel like there will be more of the same kind of crappy sound coming at you, like you've gotten some consecutive days worth of it and the job is ongoing, then I'd recommend a back-channel call to the PSM before you complain to management. You might be able to help him, having an editor as an ally can really assist a PSM in getting locations, wardrobe, G+E noise etc under control if you present a united front to production. If THAT doesn't work and the lousy sound is slowing you down, then you will have to let production know. But do try some communication first.

[adavies]

At some point you have to mix it where it lies. Doing reality TV has made it so I am not shy about professionally letting clients know when they have problem field audio. Most of the time they know it already and have expectations fitting the material.

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