Issues with a new style of dialog editing (in Premiere)

[philper]

I had a very strange day trying to deal with what seems to be a new style of dialog editing by picture editors using Premiere. I come from the school where dialog editing means you edit the clips of dialog, shaping the cut by moving the start end end of a given clip until it's where you want it. This has been how every project of any kind I've done over the decades has been exported to me from the picture NLE. Today I got a cut in which the editor would checkerboard the roughly cut clips of dialog without topping and tailing them, and then used breakpoint volume control (one form of PP's volume automation) to do the fine edit shaping. This involved a lot of steep volume curves ("rocket takeoffs and plunges") to make the cut work, with no, like zero, clip levelling done at all. Thus all the music clips (which were all library cuts) had the breakpoint auto at about 5% level under dialog (since the orig levels were maxed--to 0 db). Have I missed a sea change in editorial style? This method sucked pretty completely for me--all that breakpoint auto was turned into fader automation on import (via OMF), so the mixer faders were screaming all over the place. The only thing I could think to do was nuke all that automation, do all the clip edits the way I thought they wanted them and then do all the clip levels and then EQ etc etc. I got through the dialog with only a few things I missed that the filmmakers wanted from the editor's cut, but the music editing was so weird this way that I ended up rendering out the editor's cut+mix to a new stereo file to make sure I hadn't bolluxed their music edits by not being able to sort out what was happening in this wacky editing scheme. PLEASE tell me that this is an anomalous way of working, that Adobe is not recommending this method to editors…

philp

[Craig F]

I think you got a bad editor
I would send a polite note to the editor asking WTF

[mr.armadillo]

It's not necessarily a Premiere way of editing, it's just a lack of experience. I've received Final Cut edits like that too. You get all sorts of weird OMF from inexperienced editors - I once got a 128 track OMF with every clip on a separare track, and another one with 99 tracks, duplication some sound effects 30 times because they were "not loud enough"...

[Postman]

I HATE getting that kind of stuff. I have an editor, one with tons of experience, who has begun to do that. I get busy aaf's with heads and tails of clips ovelapped in haphazzard ways, only the automation (IF it was included) helps sort out what was intended. Sometimes I'll get offscreen dialog, several different lines, and no indication what I should use. Sometimes the editor's mix is of no help. The chance of error is much greater and time spent communicating (always via text or email) has gone WAY up.

And don't get me started on what has happened with 2-pops!

[Bill Denton]

A couple of thoughts...

Could this be something that is budget-driven...i.e. skip a step to save a few bucks?

Is this something that could be addressed/reiterated via: contract, where deliverables are very specifically spelled out?

[mikevarela]

Lot's of time (depending on project) I delete that automation. It's often nuts. also, they double tracks for more volume.

I usually get the idea of mix by copying OMF in and looking at that below when I need guidance on what they want, but, most of the time my choices are right so I usually just mix as I feel right. Also, in my parameters, my job is to clean tis stuff up, fade in and out, create fill and mix. I'm not expecting them to do my job so I approach it by almost forgetting what they want. by also spending the time to go though and treat the material I get time to get comfortable with the material.

I know your pain though.

Wish there was some standards that would be put in place for handoffs.

[seanmccoy]

Originally Posted by Postman

And don't get me started on what has happened with 2-pops!

You mean their extinction?

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by philper

I had a very strange day trying to deal with what seems to be a new style of dialog editing

I've seen this for many years also on AVID projects (rarely see FCP here) but fortunately it sticks to a very minor group of editors (1-2) that prefer to level and fade everything with key-farmes rather than the static clip volumes.

One of them told me it's much easier to use key-frames with the mouse all the time instead of having to fiddle around in the audio-mixer in the AVID for every clip. He said key-frames are much more intuitive for him to use and have much greater flexibility than the static levels.

The biggest downside is that they head and tail-fade clips as well so it's hard to eye-ball what they did in ProTools.

I think it's just a question of personal workflow with some editors not a general 'new school' of editing in certain NLEs.

For years I've wished for an option to see the volume lane super-imposed over the clips in PT while still being able to edit just the clips as usual. More or less just like the volume lane mode but just for visual reference.

I know there's the drop down option to make any lane visual at the same time but it eats a lot of real estate in a post session.


Frank.

[philper]

It all meant that I had to constantly compare to the scratch mix (on the video ref) instead of what the editor wanted being very self evident, AND that regardless of what I could or couldn't see I was going to have to remake all those edits, as real clip edits with clip levels, so I could have my fader automation back to mix the show with. That's the biggest issue for me, esp on a small cheapo job--they've just upped the work I have to do to be ready to mix by at least 1/3rd.

philp

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by philper

It all meant that I had to constantly compare to the scratch mix (on the video ref) instead of what the editor wanted being very self evident, AND that regardless of what I could or couldn't see I was going to have to remake all those edits, as real clip edits with clip levels, so I could have my fader automation back to mix the show with. That's the biggest issue for me, esp on a small cheapo job--they've just upped the work I have to do to be ready to mix by at least 1/3rd.

philp

You can coalesce the volumes to clip-gain in PT to preserve what they did and null your volume automation at the same time. The biggest annoyance for me are the head and tail fades since I only use their volumes for reference and the music guide.