Just finished mixing my first film and I have... questions!

[Shaunobi]

Hi all! Just finished editing and mixing the audio for an indie short file (14 minutes) and I collected a list of questions I had during the process. I have a lot of experience mixing music, but this is the first time I had ever touched audio for video.

1. They sent me OMF and MXF files. I open the OMF in PT Studio and... it seemed to work just fine. What would you normally expect to get when someone sent you "a film to mix"? (Note: all the audio automation and cuts and such were correctly in the PT file, and it was really easy for me to pick it up and make a bunch of edits, so I'm thinking I did it "right"?)
2. When it comes to mixing, what are some "standard" ways to deal with room tone? I used some raw room tone they sent, re-recorded a bit of background foley with the producer that seemed off, but ultimately was copy and pasting little chunks of random room tone to fill in some of the "blanks". It made me wonder, though: is the "right" way to do this just to dialog-isolate all the voices in iZotope RX, then add room tone "underneath" everything? Is it normal to "switch" the room tone to the other mic right as the camera changes from one actor to the other? (That's what they gave me, so that's what I did).
3. Ok, syncing... I just exported a big WAV and sent it back to them. The video was exactly 14 minutes; the WAV file was exactly 14 minutes. Was I supposed to do something "special" to keep it synced to that video? I assumed that, much like stems when mixing albums, if something lines up exactly in terms of time, then you can just trust that everything syncs at the sample level. I have no idea how video works, though, and was nervous I did it wrong by just exporting a large WAV file that I assume they'll import into Premiere.
4. I used some very basic compression on the voice tracks (Waves RVox). I have most major plugins, but felt like keeping it clean and focusing on vocal intelligibility was smart. What, uh, plugins do you audio for video folks use? What's a standard approach in terms of plugins on voice tracks? Oh, I also used True Peak to hit my final LUFS targets; what's a good mastering limiter for film tho?
5. I mixed it down to stereo, or 2.0. That's pretty normal for indie films... maybe? I didn't know how to mix 5.1 in Pro Tools :)
6. I produced a final master at -14 LUFS and -23 LUFS. What would a person normally produce for, say, both showing at indie film festivals (-23 right?) and uploading to YouTube for a digital release (-14 right?)
7. Ok, final question. Are there any MODERN books or courses I should take before I do this again? I have no clue what I'm doing; they were happy, but I mixed this like an album TBH. I got an older book about audio for video from the library but it felt very outdated. I didn't want to learn old workflow and old terms. Would LOVE to learn more, just don't know where to start.

Thank you all so much for any responses! Greatly appreciated!

[Cheesehead]

Well if it sounds good, it is good and they were happy so that's what really matters.
I would look at the thread on here called 'Post Production where to start'.
There are some good signposts there for you.
Good luck!

[Shaunobi]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead

Well if it sounds good, it is good and they were happy so that's what really matters.
I would look at the thread on here called 'Post Production where to start'.
There are some good signposts there for you.
Good luck!

Thanks Cheesehead! Those Thomas Boykin YT vids (the Post 101 playlist) are EXACTLY what I'm after I believe. I mean, I've only watched 5 minutes, but it smells right :)

Anybody else have answers to my specific questions above? Trying to learn as much as I can.

Thanks!

[nednednerb]

Regarding question 3:

Imagine your "free" audio sample in scene 1 is 1.225 seconds long.
Imagine a "frame" is 1/30 of a second.

If your video scene 2 starts at frame 36, that's 1.2 seconds.
Your audio clip might bleed over to frame 2.

In ProTools, you can set the grid to "timecode", change frame rate in Session Settings if needed, then see and edit to frame or "picture lock." This helps keep audio set, while you could "free hand" audio performance and automation over a video, but obviously I think a sense of the exact precision is still helpful to keep in mind.

For example, I go between Snap and Grid and lay markers regularly, but then in Snap, my markers (for e-reader pages) aren't on the exact frame, and while the audio virtually might not matter, now my audio exports and durations don't line up INTERNALLY, frame to frame, when exporting scene 1 + 2 + 3 or whatever, even if the total start and end time is exact. All that does is now when someone opens my bad file for Scene 3, for less than a 1/30th of a second it will show a clip for the last moment of Scene 2, but that's in Premiere, not even Pro Tools, that I finally notice it!

Regarding question 7, if you're otherwise skilled, educated, whatever, perhaps a starter course or whole program is redundant and so much you don't need. On the other hand, you might be highly qualified to "audit" a few courses at a university in your area. They let you pay for courses, but your goal is not credit or credential but just to learn. You could take some "audio for video" sub courses which are CERTAINLY part of modern school-level audio engineer programs. Depending on your location, you might "shop around" then do a few more courses in one school you liked. There is a lot to learn at home and YouTube. But school is like an accelerator when you really want to learn. I played with music between 2006 and 2009, then went to audio school for one year, and now a decade later I gather dinner and rent by tapping buttons editing lesson content for school kids!

[Cheesehead]

Those Thomas Boykin YT vids (the Post 101 playlist) are EXACTLY what I'm after I believe.

Yes his stuff is great. It's the first time I've seen anyone actually explain step by step how to do it.
There's a bit of a Wizard of Oz magic curtain with post production audio and it's difficult to get behind it.The only real way is to work for a post house or studio and watch and learn other peoples methods.
I did it the hard way picking up bits and pieces here and there and hours of reading books and trawling the web. Now there are some really good videos on the web like Thomas's stuff and some great stuff at Pro Sound Effects too.
I'll give my answers to your questions, but other people will have different views, we all do this job slightly differently and that's what makes it interesting.
1. OMF is fine but we tend to use AAF as file transfer from Editors as it's more modern and robust with newer features.
2. There are lots of ways to deal with Dialogue tracks depending on the nature of the material and the type of film. Probably best to watch some vids on this as it's a deep area.
3. These days if you export a Wav file it will remain in sync for the duration or at least for the durations we tend to use. There are more complex and expensive ways of ensuring sync with pictures, which can be researched on the DUC.
4. Again, everyone has their own secret sauce for processing Dialogues. It generally involves light compression, EQ, possibly some form of de-essing.
Limiters would only come into play on very loud scenes and even then you would try not to hit them, they're just a safety net.
5.All the Indies I've mixed have been 5.1, with a stereo foldown. Stereo doesn't play well in Theatres, as Dialogue is supposed to come from the centre speaker. You would end up with a phantom centre which can sound weird in large rooms depending on where you're sitting.
6. -23 is a TV spec and would be loud in a cinema. Dvd's are usually -27 which is the spec that Netflix have adopted. Cinema levels are a huge area of discussion and there is a whole sticky on the DUC covering that, have a read.
7. The web is your friend. Watch those TB videos, they are solid workflow guides for Indies. Maybe think about upgrading to 5.1 if you want to carry on in film or TV post.


All the best!

[Shaunobi]

This is great, thank you!!

For small film festivals, my assumption is they are in small local theaters… so they WOULD be in 5.1 then? I think I screwed up by only doing a stereo mix.

Oh also… any good podcasts I should be listening to?

[Cheesehead]

Yes, all theatres are at least 5.1 these days.

[capt kirk]

id put a 2 pop anyway, just in case....and marker FFOP and LFOP...

[Shaunobi]

Had to look up 2 pop… there’s no countdown in the files they gave me. But, good point!

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by Shaunobi

Had to look up 2 pop… there’s no countdown in the files they gave me. But, good point!

Sadly there is a whole generation of editors that have zero training. They would have to look it up too.