New L.A. Post movement??

[martian]

DP is a nice piece of software- however I would hate to have to do 1000 channels of conforming in it.


charles maynes

[/QUOTE]

Yeah I thought that too - actually I hate reconforming on anything - isn't that what assistants are 4?

luckily only 2 reels on my last movie needed resync due to re-edit - Tho I have a idea which might help if you don't have virtual Katy or other conform s/w?

basically tack old cut on to end of new cut in quicktime pro..... save as reference to movies and then....

real easy to compare cuts.... can jump between markers etc... copy and paste piece by piece as you go down- can't remember in protools now but in DP if you double click a marker it selects all between the next marker - (100 tracks included!)

Personally I seldom work with more than 48 tracks - I have my own system which enables me to find things pretty quickly and no need to spread over a 1000...

Actually I have always been curious about this need for 1000 tracks ?
Is it because no need automate things? Or is it because you like a list of - dunno - I'm pulling at straws frankly- I have nearly 50 features credited to my name most of which were done on 48 tracks or less

This thread motivated me to go and visit a studio that is using Nuendo over here and to be honest it looked quite nice to me - as a longtime fairlight user I liked the way the video track seemed to handle more like a real SP deck.. It also had some features that dp didn't - and generally felt a little zippier than DP - Zoomin especially!

Might have to go back and borrow a few more hours to see if I can get on with it...

I always think that tools are like languages - once you learn one the rest come a little easier?
I started out on a audiophile - green screen!!! studer dyaxis - slow and crash prone - been using fairlight MFX on and off for 10 years now! rock solid but RSI issues I think.... protools since version 6 - Used Audio Vision for a while too -

Frankly been in and out of love with all of them...

[Phil Jeffers]

We should definitely get back on topic (if Digidesign will allow it!). Pro's & con's of Nuendo - without direct competitive links, or other sensitive market info. I think it's good of Digi to put in some "boundries" into a competitors DAW thread. Fair enough really. Most of the guys that are from bigger studios seem very far away from even learning Nuendo, let alone implementing it within some edit suites or a mix stage. One of the bigger facilities here that I often freelance at has had a couple of projects running off Nuendo, into the Harrison Series 12. Mostly all Pro Tools though.

[cmaynes]

Yeah I thought that too - actually I hate reconforming on anything - isn't that what assistants are 4?

Actually I have always been curious about this need for 1000 tracks ?
Is it because no need automate things? Or is it because you like a list of - dunno - I'm pulling at straws frankly- I have nearly 50 features credited to my name most of which were done on 48 tracks or less

Some examples-

Starship Troopers-
3 reels with over a 1000 tracks of sound effects.

Fantastic Four-
we averaged about 500 tracks on the busy reels

most effects heavy shows tend to have about 10 to 15 FX predubs- each of those have between 20 and 200 channels of material.
it adds up fast.

this is why I have said in the past that ProTools can do the heavy lifting in situations such as these.

also with change note assistant and conformer changes can be EASILY managed- and anyone who lets the assistants do the changes do not work on any shows I am involved in. We ALWAYS do our own changes, since there are simply too many chances for problems to pop-up. We do use automation in many cases, but these shows are pretty much always mixed by 1- Mixers who are really, really good at what they do. and two, you have to hear the stuff in the big room, you really cannot guess how all of it will sound together. Now this is from someone who delivers mixed predubs on regular basis- but If I have someone like Doug Hemphill or Gregg Landaker mixing my work, I have no problem with letting them make the judgement calls on how the stuff will fit into the mix.

charles maynes

[martian]

a little bit general there .. tho I will try and dig those out when I get back and see if I can give you some tips on cutting down your track count!

I still have difficulty imagining why you need so much lifting.. I have done some features with major action scenes and lots of them - pretty intense sound tracks - and some philosophical movies - check out "turn left turn right" released/backed by warner bros - this has some very intricate scenes.. Or Running on Karma? Some of these have been completed in time frames of 1-3 weeks...

200 tracks? excuse the pun but how are you er... keeping track of it all? And what is it all? I mean 200 tracks for a few insects and guns going off with a bunch of wind blowing around the surrounds ?

When you say predub do you mean - you have pre mixed it down - or you letting automation do the work? Are you including music sub mixes? Ie you are running multitrack music that has been premixed in case director on a whim wants to have the stings louder longer etc?

Is it that you only are using 48 tracks per scene? scene 2 the next 48 tracks?

cos I am straining to imagine how all that gets to a thousand tracks in 20 mins - it really must be one sound per track almost? Not that I have ever tried counting - tho clicking on a reel of Dog Bite Dog I see that I have approx 1000 sound files approx per reel... tho I guess there may be several instances of some of the same sound files in there.

I'm was only too pleased to let some assistant editors attempt the resync - was that directly be shown to the client? I don't think so .....

be interested to hear more specifics about your work flow.

cheers

[dr sound]

martian,
Here's where exposed is the key. You work the way you do, in your environment and base everything to what you know. That is fine. Here is where working with other Sound Supervisors, other Re-Recording Mixers opens your eyes (and ears). This is the problem with most people who mix in Pro Tools (or any other DAW). They don't have the interaction. I couldn't imagine mixing a "Feature" with only 48 tracks. Can your system do more than 48 tracks? If not then you've made decisions based on the limitation of your tools. The movies that Charles does really aren't limited by that small of an amount of tracks for various reasons. To some having ONLY 192 tracks is a limitation. I know why there was 1000 tracks on "Starship Troopers". A Sound Supervisor wants to have EVERYTHING covered (and then some)!

[bottleneck88]

The film I'm on now i have almost 500 tracks for one of the reels, and Nuendo is purring like a kitten....I dont think PT can have half this even with the voices inactive

[philper]

There was a PT (or any DAW really) methodology question buried back there that I'm curious about: In those Very High Track Count situations ("Starship Troopers" was mentioned) is the high number caused by each specific sound at each specific time-location having its own track, or are there really that many DIFFERENT effects, ie many variations of the same thing or many different choices for the same action layed up, with the idea that many of them may not be chosen and mixed in once they are heard in the big room? I'd always thought it was the latter, and worked that way (but not @ 1000 tracks.....yet).

Philip Perkins CAS

[cmaynes]

Starship Troopers was cut on ProTools, but dubbed from all sorts of media- DA 88, 24 track Analog and Mag as I recall- We flew sweeteners on via PT as well-

the main reason for the big track count was so we could maintain standard spacing for effects- about 5 to 10 ft seperation so Greg could have enough time to get in and out of EQ's etc.

The principal reason for all those tracks was so that consistancy could be maintained on channel strips- so that we did not have to re-buss every 10 ft.

Nowadays it is not typically quite that wide, but back in the day, we never blanched when dealing with such track counts.

Also the wider sessions are a lot easier to deal with changes and rebalances.

Anyone who has worked on Michael Bay films will likely have similar comments.


As to Bottlenecks comments- yes a lot can be done with 48 tracks- hell Slingblade was done on 16 tracks- it is just that each project demands it's own method. You simply have to roll with it. Most traditional mixers actually prefer more tracks with a bit more separation because it does lessen the likely hood of prior work getting damaged. The big "Hollywood" stages tend to have at least 72 outputs, so this is not that big of a problem, and the bigger consoles have over 244 channels of inputs in most cases.

Bottleneck- what is the hardware you are using? with how much i/o? I can see running 500 tracks (which I would never do personally) in the box, but I know of no mixing systems which can accomodate that many inputs.


charles maynes

[bigbadhenchman]

Bottleneck- what is the hardware you are using? with how much i/o? I can see running 500 tracks (which I would never do personally) in the box, but I know of no mixing systems which can accomodate that many inputs.


charles maynes

He didn't say he wasn't mixing ITB.

Why would you not run 500 tracks ITB?
I personnaly I don't see the reason for it, especially ITB, since making eq changes etc. really close together is very easily accomplished.
I have seen some people put every character on their own track, which I personnally find annoyoing. I prefer my dialogue to be on as few tracks as possible, as i find it a much quicker way to work. No needd for paging through tracks etc.

[cmaynes]

a little bit general there .. tho I will try and dig those out when I get back and see if I can give you some tips on cutting down your track count!

I still have difficulty imagining why you need so much lifting.. I have done some features with major action scenes and lots of them - pretty intense sound tracks - and some philosophical movies - check out "turn left turn right" released/backed by warner bros - this has some very intricate scenes.. Or Running on Karma? Some of these have been completed in time frames of 1-3 weeks...

200 tracks? excuse the pun but how are you er... keeping track of it all? And what is it all? I mean 200 tracks for a few insects and guns going off with a bunch of wind blowing around the surrounds ?

When you say predub do you mean - you have pre mixed it down - or you letting automation do the work? Are you including music sub mixes? Ie you are running multitrack music that has been premixed in case director on a whim wants to have the stings louder longer etc?

Is it that you only are using 48 tracks per scene? scene 2 the next 48 tracks?

cos I am straining to imagine how all that gets to a thousand tracks in 20 mins - it really must be one sound per track almost? Not that I have ever tried counting - tho clicking on a reel of Dog Bite Dog I see that I have approx 1000 sound files approx per reel... tho I guess there may be several instances of some of the same sound files in there.

I'm was only too pleased to let some assistant editors attempt the resync - was that directly be shown to the client? I don't think so .....

be interested to hear more specifics about your work flow.

cheers

"200 tracks? excuse the pun but how are you er... keeping track of it all? And what is it all? I mean 200 tracks for a few insects and guns going off with a bunch of wind blowing around the surrounds ?"

Well yes, I suppose it might sound that way- but the reality of that world required all those tracks- Walter Murch coined the idea of "the Rule of 2 1/2" that is your attention can only take in 2 and a half things at once- I think this is true, it is just that you cannot tell in advance which two and half things the director, editor and producers might want to hear.


"When you say predub do you mean - you have pre mixed it down - or you letting automation do the work? Are you including music sub mixes? Ie you are running multitrack music that has been premixed in case director on a whim wants to have the stings louder longer etc?"

Predubs are mixed elements- on Staqrship Troopers, my 200 channels of weapons were folded into two 8 channel predubs. On my current project "Flags of our Fathers" I am actually out to 5 weapons related predubs, which will surely expand. I also have to add that things very rarely occur on a "whim". It is impossible to know how all of the sound elements are going to interact ahead of time. The more separation that is available, the more flexibility the mixer and director has to focus the story telling. This is VERY important to recognize.

Music on big shows will often be out to 48 tracks- with 24 tracks used on each cut/scene- the scens are checkerboarded as are BG's so that changes can be possible without destroying transitions. many times you will see submixes - i.e. percussion and solo instruments assigned in to 5.1 or 8 channel stems- Marti and Todd can elaborate on their experiences dealing with this, since it is not something I have much experience with.

"Is it that you only are using 48 tracks per scene? scene 2 the next 48 tracks? "

Layout is everything, and it is not absolute- this is where a good editor really earns their wage.
Sometimes things can vary wildly from cut to cut- I was watching the Malick film "A Thin Red Line"
this last weekend and saw how he intercut huge battle sequences with very spare dream sequences- so effectively he went from hundreds of tracks running to maybe 24 tracks in one cut- then back again.

"cos I am straining to imagine how all that gets to a thousand tracks in 20 mins - it really must be one sound per track almost? Not that I have ever tried counting - tho clicking on a reel of Dog Bite Dog I see that I have approx 1000 sound files approx per reel... tho I guess there may be several instances of some of the same sound files in there."

Well going back to Starship- for the gun predubs, there are THOUSANDS of gun shots- the principal guns were not cut wide either- maybe 6 mono tracks tops for a "Hero" gun- it was just the the intercutting required the 200 channels of track width. I could not find "Dog bite Dog" on imdb, so I have no idea of type of show that it was, but 1000 soundfiles actually sounds like a lot to me for most shows, but it is impossible to tell from the sparse info provided whether it was appropriate or not.

"I'm was only too pleased to let some assistant editors attempt the resync - was that directly be shown to the client? I don't think so ....."

this is a nic ething if you have time... we usually do not- when I was doing Fantastic Four I was already working 18 hour days through the final and having to conform stems and predubs as well- there is no way an assistent will be able to know the details inside a real that is being massively changed- and I have worked with the best in the business- with packages like conform, the change note can be implement ed in the session in about 2 minutes for a 100 change note- given vfx changes and other issues, a lot of time you have to finesse the material by hand- (of course this is hinging on a competent change note...)

As to work flow- I guess that is a Union secret- you have to know the secret handshake before we can talk about the ancient battle for heaven and earth...

Bottleneck, I do not mean to be at all condescending, but some of your comments do not point at a rich film sound background, Perhaps you have more of a music background- which is a different criteria really. I apologize if I am misinterpreting your statements, but a lot of these things are pretty universally known-

charles maynes