Fully Filled M&E for narrative film?

[ryst]

I was in the process of wrapping up a feature, and the deliverables for the international distributor called for a fully filled M&E. This feature is a narrative film, not a documentary.

Is it common for an international distributor to ask for a fully filled M&E for a narrative film? I've done a bunch of research and the only thing that comes up in my searches is fully filled M&E for documentaries. I can't find anything regarding narrative films.

Thanks!

[nucelar]

Could you please define "narrative film" in your case? I'm not really familiar with this term. What makes it different from a conventional feature film? is there a trailer you can share?

Edit: from a quick google search, "narrative film" would be in fact a conventional feature film as we know it? (as opposed to a documentary)

In that case, a "fully filled M&E" is just that. An audio track, in the same format as the printmaster (usually 5.1 for international distribution), where all dialogue has been removed. Only the Music and Effects remain.
Obviously, when cutting out the dialog, gaps appear that must be "fully filled". The M&E must be seamless, as if the actors were moving their mouths but not producing sound. When the dialog overlaps with sounds recorded on set (ambience, diegetic music, car noises, steps, cloth rustle, props, doors, cutlery,and a long etc...) these must be recreated, ideally by a foley artist. or edited with the help wild tracks recorded on set or as last resort with library sounds.
Hope this helps.

[ryst]

I'm sorry for any confusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_film

I use the term "narrative film" as a way to distinguish it from a documentary.

To be more specific, it's a grindhouse/action film.

[Frank Kruse]

I have the exact opposite experience. Quite often it's almost impossible to create a "fully filled" M&E on a doc because the production sound contains a lot of characteristic and unique sounds under dialogue so that it doesn't make sense to "fully fill" it without creating a fake sounding doc losing a lot of the original character by using tons of Foley (making it sound like a feature). Of course if it's just a VO plus music and animals it makes sense but for some doc in a war zone with dialogue and explosions and screams from production at the same time, a fully filled M&E would be quite far away from the original (not really a doc anymore, IMO)

For feature films ("narrative films") it's a total standard. I've never worked on a feature that didn't require an M&E, that's one of the reasons (not the only one of course) why you Foley the whole thing and split out PFX and the entire track lay is designed to make the M&E-mix as painless as possible too. Most distributors won't even buy a film without an M&E.

F.

[smurfyou]

Yes standard and required for most films. Docs get exceptions for reasons above.

[minister]

Just to add to nucelar and Frank's posts, also in my experience, it is the opposite : more often a fully-filled M+E is called for on a scripted (narrative) film and not a doc. Often (not always), doc's spend less on post sound, and it can sound phony or overly done if "every thing that moves has a sound". Then again, some docs are expertly and completely covered with foley.

I suspect you know this, and as others have said, if you shut off the production source, all that concomitant sound (footsteps and other objects an actor interacts with) goes away and you have to have those sounds be just as present for a foreign dub. Docs are not dubbed the same way. Usually, they replace completely only the narrator. For the subjects, they start the sentence, then dip all the dialogue stem and have a voice in the translated tongue asynchronously say what was said in production. There is less "need" to have a complete foley track in these cases. But, in some, they are created and can work quite well. I have never had QC kickback a doc for too little foley.